My new Redskins perspective
January 14, 2019
by Steve Thomas
The last part of the 2018 Redskins season, now stretching into offseason week two, has been one heck of a miserable experience for all of us, except possibly Bruce Allen. The drama came in wave after wave this year and never stopped. The fans haven’t just abandoned the team but are now actively campaigning against it. Dan Snyder is making immensely unpopular front office decisions, and on top of it all, the team had yet another losing season. Nobody’s winning anything either on or off the field, and there’s no real indication that things are going to get substantially better anytime soon. Allen was promoted for his brilliant job of stabbing Brian Lafemina in the back and firing him, the team is missing a quarterback, multiple wide receivers, starting and backup guards, and two starting safeties. That’s just to fill the roster and be marginally competitive, to say nothing of actually being good. To say the least, all is not well in Redskinsland. All of this recent negativity as caused me to have an epiphany, but it’s not what you may think: I’m not going to let this nonsense bother me. Allow me to explain.
This is about football for me. It’s been that way for a very long time. I’ve been watching this team since I was a kid in the late 1970s. I went to my share of games at our beloved RFK Stadium, Fed Ex, and a bunch of away games all over the place, and they are great memories. I’m a former season ticket holder, and I have a very low paying job helping to run this website. I haven’t been a diehard fan for decades because of the team’s value as an ongoing soap opera, though. I despise drama of all types, in every walk of life and I’d much rather fill The Hog Sty with news and analysis about players, coaches, and games rather than cover nonstop drama. At the end of the day, though, despite the fact that I spend hours and hours and hours each week doing things like recording shows, writing, and obsessing over the roster and salary cap, this is just entertainment and it’s not worth my time and energy – or yours – to get too mad and upset about what’s going on at Redskins Park right now. Don’t let the bastards get you down, as the old saying goes.
So, I’m going to continue to enjoy the Redskins: watch the games, win or lose, spend too much time thinking about free agency and the draft, and next year’s schedule, regardless of the front office. This is my team, for better or for worse. It’s too late for me to dump this franchise and find another one, and even if it wasn’t, something about doing that just seems so . . . wrong, in a “cheating on someone you love” sort of way. We’ll continue with this site, on both the good and bad days, and do what we do. I refuse to let Dan Snyder and his demented, manipulative lackey define the level of my fandome. I might even go to a game or two, either home or abroad, this upcoming season. This is just entertainment, folks, not real life, and there’s no reason to get upset and mad about what’s going on in Ashburn during recreational time (or in my case, a voluntary part-time job). We didn’t start this website for it to serve as just a way to bash the franchise. We wanted it to be the best independent source for Redskins analysis and news out there, and the fact that Mr. Snyder is blind to the poor job he and Allen have done isn’t going to change that.
To be sure, I don’t approve of how this franchise is being operated. I still feel as though the only way to get it fixed and moving in the same direction as the rest of the NFL is to burn the whole thing down and start over with an expansion franchise-level rebuilt (read my column from back in December here). The poor, unprofessional the way the team is run isn’t going to change until that happens, and no amount of coaching changes is going to make a difference. There’s no culture of professionalism and winning associated with this franchise. As I’ve said on the show many times, franchises in any professional sport that win consistently do so because they have ownership that puts winning first and understands how to put a quality leadership team in place for the long-term. That isn’t going to ever be the Redskins, apparently, unless everything changes. The team has gone from being one of the two premiere franchises in the league in the 1980s and early 1990s to one of five real dregs of the NFL: in no particular order, the Jets, Bengals, the Lions, the Cardinals, and the Redskins. Unbelievably, the Browns seem to have begun the process of digging themselves out of “dreg” status with the infusion of a new front office and a seemingly franchise-worthy quarterback, so I’ve scratched them off the list. The point is, this isn’t going to get better any time soon unless major franchise-level changes are made and a franchise quarterback finds his way to the DMV. We’ve spent 25 years or so looking for a one, ao sooner or later, you’d think even this front office will stumble onto one accidentally.
My newfound stance doesn’t mean I have an unrealistic view of what this team is, and I’m not blindly supporting the mismanagement of a poor front office. I just refuse to let the chaos get me down or ruin my Sunday anymore. No, the owner doesn’t seem to have a clue about what’s wrong, but other than screaming into a microphone and burning up a keyboard, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going to continue to enjoy my team whether or not the team is worthy of my attention. It’s my entertainment and underpaying job time, not a marriage. Call it apathy if you want; I call it attaining peace of mind without giving up my favorite sports activity.
I’m sure many of you disagree with me, and I totally understand. You have a choice, too. You have the freedom to decide what you do with your time, energy, and money. If you want to boycott the team, stop watching the games and spending money, scream about it, send out #FireBruceAllen tweets all day long, and burn up the switchboard at Redskins Park, be my guest. I’m right there with you in terms of what I think about how this franchise has operated, at best taken its fans for granted, and at worst abused them. I don’t think any amount of fan hatred is going to make the Redskins front office do the right thing, but have it if it makes you feel better. I’m just done letting it bother me. I’m going to enjoy my football, thank you very much.
In terms of our offseason coverage, we’re going to start our annual look at free agency and the draft very soon, with weekly columns about both throughout the offseason. If big changes come, we’ll cover them. We also have some exciting new stuff coming to the site very soon. It’ll be a good offseason here at The Hog Sty, I promise.