People are already circling the wagons on this 2009 incarnation of the Washington Redskins, anticipating blood. An easy stretch of games before a Monday night showdown against the Eagles on October 26th had been a feasting frenzy of 6-1 delusions, but to have barely sketched out a win against the shitty ass St. Louis Rams has left most folks coming to their senses early this year. Usually, like last year, we can go half the season, maybe even get a good tease into the last couple weeks of the regular season, like we might have a chance at something. Hell, amazingly enough, Joe Gibbs in his second stint, universally panned by football talking heads, actually took us to the playoffs twice where we could see how second-class this team really was, needing a few levels of growth to get back to the notion of contending for a conference title game, much less a Super Bowl like those 3 trophies Dan Snyder parades around every goddamned time he wastes his money on another dude that's gonna save us from him.
It's interesting to see us play the Lions this weekend - the lowly lost 19 games in a row Lions, possibly running another bad month together to break the all-time NFL record for most consecutive losses. Yet if you listen to sports radio, or watch ESPN, or read any sports website covering this weekend's games, you'd actually find more people picking the Lions to win than the Redskins. That's what it's come to. For the past few years, Lions fans were protesting around the stadium, trying to run Matt Millen off for good, having a deeply embedded sense of shit stinking to everything about themselves. Yet somehow there is hope in Detroit, a rundown, plywood windowed city full of crackheads, white trash, and those too mentally retarded to bail off that sinking ship of a metropolitan area when it started going down twenty years ago. And that's not to talk shit on Detroit, because yeah, there is hope. I guess the downtown is all shiny now, somewhat, and the Lions actually, for the first time post Barry Sanders era, can look to the future and pretend again. Sure, just like last week's first half against the Vikings, those pretensions can get shattered pretty quickly. But still, it's there... the joy of pretending something great could happen, and rooting for it, and having suffered as a fan through the low points. It is our reward, and why people emotionally obsess over stupid sports they have no control over whatsoever.
And here are my Redskins, where the fans are catching flak for booing the team after winning a home game last week. The media jumps on Jim Zorn, and jumps on Jason Campbell, or Clinton Portis. But you know what, it's none of that. The stink has started to permeate all aspects of this franchise, from suing old ladies to honor their season ticket agreements and the team re-selling those tickets to scalping agencies, to jammed up parking prices, to really any fucking thing Dan Snyder can do to squeeze a dollar out this sinking ship. It's not Jim Zorn's fault he was hired as head coach and offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach even though he'd never once done the first two and had only minimal success at the last part. It's not Jason Campbell's fault the people who put the players together in roster form haven't seemed to notice that most NFL teams try to accumulate more than five functional offensive linemen, and usually try to mix in at least a few guys under the age of 30 into that rotation. How can you really blame Clinton Portis for having a personal relationship with his owner outside of the coaching loop if that owner made it readily apparent the back door to his big boss office was always open? None of that is any of those guys faults. The stank comes from above, not the field. No one was booing just three field goals in five red zone visits last Sunday, or the inept offense. They were booing the whole fucking stank of it all. Of everything.
That's the interesting part of the Lions game. This is supposed to be a should-win automatic W. But the Lions now have hope, and can say, "Fuck that." They can show signs of life, and the television sports talking heads can make them their lead pipe lock of the week upset special over the Redskins. And the Redskins, if they win, they were supposed to. If they lose, shit hits the fan. Dan Snyder will have a hissy fit, and the likelihood of Jim Zorn getting fired in the bye week after the Eagles Monday night game next month becomes pretty high. But if they win, they buy off time. Except time for what? Time until what? Until Dan Snyder smashes his expensive of toy blocks he's been haphazardly building on his mahogany desktop without guidance once again, to try and set back up into the shape of a fourth Lombardi Trophy?
The very fact it's gotten down to this, to where we are a regularly mediocre team that feels the need to maybe sabotage everything and start over to try and be a little better than mediocre, that shows we've already lost. As Redskins fans, we've already lost this team, completely. We are rooting for memories from our childhood now, and instead of pretending into the future, like the Lions can do again, where we imagine Super Bowl Sundays in our favorite burgundy jerseys, we pretend into the past. Because we know there's no future as it stands now. So Mr. Snyder, go ahead and blow up this team if they lose. Hell, if they win, blow them up. Start over. Trade away draft picks for overrated washed-up superstars who never make a contribution on our team like Jason Taylor. Sign more expensive players and give them a back door to your office to undermine whatever authority an NFL coach is allowed to have under your eye. Try to convince the smartest coaching minds in football to go against their own common sense and come coach your team with a few extra zeroes on the end of the contract. We've lost this team to you, so do what you must. Maybe after another season, in your ever-increasing revenue generation, you can start selling burgundy and gold paper bags, so you finish the job you and your pal Vinny Cerrato have so attentively started, the few of us too retarded or stupid to give up on this team can have authentic Redskins apparel to wear over our head in the empty cavern that will be FedEx Field while whoever you've hodgepodged together by that point stumbles through another painful year.
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