The sports world is alive with the story of old favorites returning to their former haunts. Even as our new and fresh-faced colleagues at Bostonist contend with the time-travelling brain-melt that is Antoine Walker returning to the Celtics after a year-plus sojourn in Tejas and the ATL, we at DCist are just now getting the news that the Redskins front office is in deep trade talks themselves, 2003 style.

If you cast your mind back to that period of time, you’ll remember that second-year coach Steve Spurrier was aiming to prove his Fun and Gun system was a winner, Britney Spears was prepping a corporate sponsored lip-synchathon on the National Mall, and Redskins brass had hatched an ingenious plan—bring as many players from the New York Jets down here as possible. The cream of that crop, FSU-hating wideout Laveranues Coles, who was going to put depth and stretch in the passing game.

Well, we all know how that worked out. Now, it appears the Skins are looking for a do-over. They are, even as we post, deep in trade discussion with—the New York Jets! The rumored deal would return Coles to New York and bring Santana Moss to the town formerly known as Raljon. But the course of trading in the salary cap era never does run smooth, and the Skins are facing serious negotiations and the need to excavate an enormous amount of cap space to make it possible. As the folks at the Fotomat say when they get all testy: developing…