This week has been one of Redskins mockery on the national stage, not only because we are anticipated to be one of the dregs of the NFL Universe this season, but also because, even after that consensus opinion, Rex Grossman - he of joked status already - made the cyberwaves by declaring confidently that he felt this team could win the NFC East, and that it had more talent than the team he went to the Super Bowl with in Chicago.
Now let's toss aside for a second that the consensus weakest link on that Bears Super Bowl team was the Sex Cannon himself, which I think is what added to the pile-on factor by NFLbots around the country after the statements went viral. There's really nothing wrong with your potential starting QB, going into the first preseason game of the year, hyping up his teammates, and thinking that they have as good a chance as anybody, because hey man, they're his teammates and they're good people. Everyone should want that in a QB, regardless of whether it's true or not. Other potential starting QB John "The Mormon MacGruber" Beck has been talking similar yin-yang this offseason, and is hyped the fuck up to show the world how wrong they are about the Redskins, about himself, and really about everything I guess.
I am no locker room insider - thank god - but I am willing to wager a half ounce bag of boomers, plus whatever's left in the hydrocodone bottle that rolled under the seat of my truck, against pocket change that these two lackluster quarterback's eternal sunshine smile of quotable optimism comes from motivational hype jobs by their coach, which is mostly Mike Shanahan, but also is son Kyle, who shall forth be known as Shanahan & Son, and whenever I say that I want you to think in your head that "bamp banna bant" theme song and see them riding in a beat up old pick-up truck just like Fred & Lamont, with John Beck and Rex Grossman and a couple of old bathtubs and a hunk of copper and a billy goat piled up in the back. Shanahan & Son have got these guys believing that they are better than the world realizes, and that not only does the world not know but they are outright disrespecting these guys by talking down upon their names in the ways dudes are doing. (I saw a highlight where Cris Carter was just straight laughing it up on TV, like you were at a cookout and somebody was making fun of your shoes. This is what we've come to.)
This psychological fluff factor has come to be known, affectionately, as "drinking the Kool-Aid," which stems from the Jonestown Massacre, where Jim Jones had a bunch of followers drinking cyanide-poisoned Kool-Aid rather than be around for when the U.S. government inevitably tried to shut down their cult compound in Guyana. Because Jim Jones was a cult leader. But at first he was an inner-city inspiration, putting the spirit of belief in people's hearts from the pulpit.
Therein lies my point... It is not a long drive from being a "motivational speaker" to being a "cult leader," and when you have the likes of Rex Grossman and John Beck competing for a starting QB position on an NFL franchise in 2011, and both of them talking about how great this team can be, I am wondering if we have not crossed over into cult territory, because it seems more like a suicide mission, this 2011 season of the Redskins, than it does a chance to prove the haters wrong. Part of this problem though is most Redskins fans, like myself, have been fed a steady diet of marketing Kool-Aid, year after year, since 1999, and we started seeing through that shit years ago, to the point that now it's to a full frothy head of fan discontent towards the management of this franchise. Shanahan & Son (you see the truck? it's got old SI covers of Albert Haynesworth and Donovan McNabb flying out the back now) are in their second year here in D.C., as the latest brain trust my brain is supposed to trust, although at this point I am without a doubt Charlie Brown's dumbass and Dan Snyder is Lucy, holding a Redskins helmet down for me to believe in, only to rip it back and laugh at me and raise parking prices by $10 in satellite lots you have to take a cab to get to the stadium from.
So let me analyze Shanahan & Son, starting with little Kyle, aka The Big Dummy. He is a young alleged genius, who really has not done too much in the NFL. The Texans were briefly good under his guidance, but it should be noted if "time at Houston Texans" is your Curriculum Vitae highlight, on a franchise that has never made the playoffs and only once had a not-losing record, then maybe that's not so great. Young Kyle was the one who deemed Donovan McNabb to be everything Rush Limbaugh said before the Redskins ever traded for him, and he was the one who brought Rex Grossman along, because the Sex Cannon has been in this system for three years now, and understands it better than anybody under center.
(That in itself scares me. Rex Grossman is a fumble machine who will throw interceptions when he needs to throw touchdowns. He came into the game last year against Detroit, and on the FIRST FUCKING SNAP coughs up the ball for Ndakumong Suh to score six points and solidify himself as more than just a Rookie Sensation but as a Defensive Monster. Jason Campbell's big knock was that in crunch time he would make bad passes, but Rex Grossman is that times seven. I mean, come on, he's Rex Fucking Grossman. No princess of a coaching genius is going to be able to kiss this frog and turn him into a prince.)
That being said, everything comes down from Papa Shannyhan, not his son, and though Shanahan is made out to be a great successful Super Bowl winning coach, he never won shit for the longest time, got run out of Raider Nation, and it wasn't until a few years with John Elway at the end of Elway's overhyped career did Shannyhan get a Super Bowl ring. I don't put a lot of value on that personally. Plus I have never liked Shanahan as his mouth looks like an anus and that is a distrustful physical attribute in my opinion. Also, it's never been cleared up the Jon-Benet Ramsey thing that happened while he was in Denver. Just saying.
But hey, god bless Papa Shannyhan for rallying the troops for war. Only problem is the citizenry has recognized too much bullshit to believe anything any more. Show us. Plain and simple, show us. And as a lifelong Redskins fan and 85% optimystical soul, it pains me to say this, but we are fucked with either Grossman or Beck as our QB. Neither is an undiscovered diamond or a workable workingman Trent Dilfer for the modern age. Neither. They are what they are, plain and simple - a delusional fumble machine named Sex Cannon and the Mormon MacGruber, who thinks he can make a six-point addition to the scoreboard with a paper clip, three blue rubber bands, an empty Tic-Tac container, and a gimpy arm, but all he's gonna make is me frustrated.
However, I am a believer in giving a man - whether he be inspiring motivational speaker or crackpot cult leader - a full chance to prove himself. For Shanahan & Son (Kyle has this Puerto Rican friend he likes to play frisbee golf with on off days, but Mike can't stand him... Mike Shanahan hates Puerto Ricans), they get a third year in my mind. I'm not entirely convinced they're not jumping into the Andrew Luck lottery with their moves this year anyways, what with Shanahan's only good QB being a super white blue-chipper from Stanford like Andrew Luck, so I say gives these dudes this year - and I'll suffer the agony - and give them next year too. Even if I do not want to drink their Kool-Aid, I fault management up top more than I could fault these guys at this point, and I feel sort of bad for Shanahan & Son and Rex Grossman and pretty much every player on this team, because fans are quick to boo and be all "Fuck you, you suck," because we, the fans, have been dealing with tainted Kool-Aid for far longer than any of these guys have even been around to try and push some off on us. They are coming into a bad situation. So give Shanahan this year and give him next, and see what them two cook up in the long run.
As for the Redskins as a franchise, look at what you have wrought Dan Snyder. You have taken a valuable and cherished NFL franchise, once spoken of in the same breath as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers, and you've turned it into a national joke, and potentially the worst team in the league this year. That's not on Shanahan & Son, that's not on shitty starting QBs, that's not on anything but Daniel Jeremiah Snyder. So if I'm sitting somewhere watching this team and I start booing and cussing and throwing pipe bombs at the field and mailing anthrax to Ashburn (the CD, not the chemical agent... I think maybe Dan Snyder would benefit by breaking out of his uptight white man shell to some late '80s thrash metal), don't accuse me of not supporting this team. Because actually I am. Fuck your endless Kool-Aid, you little NFL Hitler marketing bastard. I am ready for substance, and some football sustenance again in my life.
So let tonight start the season of 2011, and let my misery begin. I will tell myself that there's a master plan being executed that may not be realized until calendar year 2012, and not just more people showing up to help fritter away a dumbass billionaire's money, although ultimately at my expense.
