CONFESSIONS OF A R**SKINS FAN: A SEASON IN HELL WITH THE WORST FRANCHISE IN THE NFL

    

CONFESSIONS OF A REDSKINS FAN:

A SEASON IN HELL 

W/ THE WORST FRANCHISE IN THE NFL

         Redskins fans....what is there left to cheer for in 2019??
         Nothing...while Dan Snyder is in posssession of the team. 
         This is an owner capable of suing lifelong season ticket holders...An owner selling us 3 year old, mildew covered peanuts that survived the plane crash from the first episode of Lost.
        An owner who's more than willing to use the media to destroy players, coaches, front office personnel or even fans to get his way.
        An owner sooo up his GM and head coach's ass he makes Jerry Jones's  distracting banalities look constructive.
        Dan Snyder is an owner who had no qualms with his organization being the ONLY NFL team to sell and profit from 9/11, selling team-specific merchandise in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon...0% of the proceeds going to the firefighters, cops or families affected...not a dime.
       This is an owner who threw $90 million at
33 year old Alex Smith, $78 million
at 34 year old Donovan McNabb and yet he was too cheap to sign Kirk Cousins to a 4 year $35 million deal in 2014?
     
       We are truly spoiled when it comes to mediocrity, especially when remembering all of our rotating turbine of shitty, random quarterbacks in the Snyder era: from the beleaguered Gus Frerotte, the savage Jeff Hostetler, or the embattled Patrick Ramsey, the fumbling fecal matter of Rex Grossman or woah, what about Tim Hasselbeck, Jeff George, Trent Green and John Beck...yes...John fucking Beck...

         If your team gave up on a quarterback after your franchise was left in tatters, chances are high Dan Snyder signed them to a 5 year bank-busting deal within weeks of release (the saying goes "another team's garbage is Dan Snyder's diamond-encrusted delusion"). From this humiliating list of football follies at its best, we weren't even counting the quarterbacks who delivered 1 playoff appearance apiece before imploding, often with limited control over their own trajectory (Brad Johnson, Mark Brunell, Todd Collins, RGIII and Kirk Cousins).
         ....but oh, the tradition continues in 2019: here comes Case Keenum, another Dennis Quaid-esque "leader" for Gruden to hang his sweat-soaked hat on, then suddenly let's throw on our 1st round pick (that Snyder wanted but everyone else didn't) in the middle of a divisional bloodbath, WAIT NO! Now let's bench him FOR....drum roll....Colt McCoy, now that he can walk again...
         When Jay said "Colt will start vs New England" I finally understood just how lost Gruden is.
         I don't mean lost like the Brothers Gruden trying to find their way home from a frat party (aka their average weekend), I'm talking "you look baaaaad" lost...and once we witnessed the Gruden tape, we knew (just like everything Redskins) this wasn't just about football anymore.
        We are talking a veteran / Hall of Fame status of dysfunction across the board, culminating in this disgusting owner holding on to the scandalous footage of Jay Gruden until the right moment: when Snyder felt he needed an excuse to fire the guy.
        Here was Gruden at 3am looking cracked out, smoking either a cigarette or a joint while looking at an extremely young lady with a bona fide creeper gaze...an absolute home run when "needing permission" to fire even the most seasoned championship coaches, let alone Jay "Offensive Genius" Gruden.
        This is a typical Snyder move. He could've just fired the guy three years ago or never hired him in the first place, but to engineer the release of the tape the day before everyone knows we'll be 0-5?
        This is the apex of Snyder overplaying his hand once again, further stone cold proof the shameless owner has no spine.
          Just because Gruden is gone doesn't mean the problems left with him: we still possess a tentative defensive coordinator who's so out of his depth that he'd rather wait and watch teams pick us apart for 4 quarters than use our top 5 pass rush (Wait...don't criticize Greg Minuski or you'll be summarily cut and released...ala Pro Bowl safety D.J Swearinger last season).
          Swearinger left at the right time, just as this secondary full of Pro Bowlers hit rock bottom: Josh Norman getting "burnt and turnt" more times through 5 games than he did in his entire stint with the Panthers. At safety, Skins debutant Landon Collins reprises his role as Casper the Friendly Ghost in his abject anonymity. Only Montae Nicholson and Quinton Dunbar have shown up and looked consistently good (in fact we lost the games without Nicholson and Dunbar by a heavier margin).
          On offense, we banished our future Hall of Fame running back (A.P) from the roster vs Philadelphia, a decision that resulted in Derrius Guice's knee injury (after an unnecessary work load in his 1st regular season game since recovering from his previous knee problem). Adrian Peterson has been so supremely wasted (40 carries for 108 yards on the season) that one starts to wonder if he's actually still in the league.
          And in the passing game, our fortunes have gone from the epic McVay years to molten cookies of shit in such a short timeframe it'd make our heads spin if we weren't already numb to it all:
         This is a franchise that went from Pierre Garcon, DeSean Jackson, Jordan Reed and Jamison Crowder to Jeremy Sprinkle, Trey Quinn, Cam Sims and Steven Sims Jr....we've got less ball handling abilities than Mark Sanchez under center....(oh yeah...can't make fun of Sanchez: we started him at quarterback too!)
          Other than the flashes of promise from McLaurin's rookie campaign and Vernon Davis's
consummate professionalism, we have nothing to stop opponents from blitzing our weakened offensive line. To quote Jim Morrison (who was spotted among the Patriots fans at Fed-Ex Field): "we're in a wilderness of pain".
         Literally: the Redskins have sent 66 players to injured reserve since Week 1 of the 2018/19 season, starting and finishing the previous seasons with an average of 50 players on the IR, ending 16/17 with 48 on the board and 17/18 with 54 injured players.
          The Skins Injury Curse dates back to the crippling of Joe Theismann on Monday Night Football by Lawrence Taylor in '85, however as recently as 2017, the injuries have mounted to a sickening degree.
           This plague of debilitating injuries coincided with Strength and Conditioning coach Chad Englehart being appointed to that position, while the practice fields at the Skins facility also show signs of decay and cheap upkeep.
         Due to these subterranean conditions and the intensive practices Jay Gruden and Englehart engaged the players in throughout the offseason, there has been a rise of "wear and tear" non-contact injuries, such as the Reuben Foster incident. Much of the failure to take care of details culminated in the rash of hideous injuries suffered on the world's stage for all to see, embarrassing these players and hurting this franchise on and off the field.
         The biggest hit is the frustrating agony that hounds our All-Pro tight end, Jordan Reed.
          Reed is an elite talent and the only other Hall of Fame-level tight end in the last 10 years who isn't named Gronkowski or Witten....and yet, he's missed 29 games over his 7 seasons, started 1 playoff game and his career is in jeopardy before the man is 30, only accomplishing a 1/4 of his potential.
         This was a franchise that had a future Hall of Fame left tackle, Trent Williams, a player who's currently unwilling to abuse his body anymore for an organization that's tried to ruin his name in the media.
         And who could blame the man?
         Truth is, nobody has.
         Years ago this would've been a nonstop Sportscenter story, Scott Van Pelt's steely dome beckoning us while the "Trent Williams Philosophical Holdout" title card reads below.
          However in 2019,
people get it...the public arena hasn't failed to grasp what kinda stench Dan Snyder is dealing and it's a rotting doom even the most well-regarded professionals and champions won't trifle with.
          Inside Snyder's disorganization of corporate cutout greed, there's been enough drama in the past 22 years to fill an entire century (or at least an hour in the life of Antonio Brown).
           Since Snyder took control, we've seen such chaos as the Haynseworth saga, the nasty taint of our boldly racist name being defended "as long as he's owner", the tragic murder of Sean Taylor and its perversions by the Redskins organization to capitalize financially, the absolutely hideous season in hell under Steve Spurrier, the ridiculous "how much money d'ya want, bro?" signing of Deion Sanders...
           And of course, who could forget the time Dan Snyder forced Joe Gibbs out of retirement "at gunpoint" (his daddy always wanted Gibbs to return, big money talks and...well...at least Gibbs did the best of any Skins coach since....himself).
           There was the agony and disgust of the Jason Campbell era (how he performed stemmed from how he was treated & handled from front office personnel and the carousel of coaches and coordinators).
          In the mid 2000s',
we witnessed the awkward Michael Scott-isms of the Jim Zorn debacle (once again, highlighted by how awful Dan Snyder can treat another human being); There was the franchise-altering mismanagement and disgraceful handling of RGIII's injuries (Snyder and Coach Mike Shamahan ignoring the advice of Dr. James Andrews, who hadn't cleared RGIII to play in the 2012 NFC Wild Card game vs Seattle, yet another scandal in and of itself).
            After we used and abused RGIII, Kirk Cousins earned the starting job and played better than any Skins quarterback since Mark Rypien. Still, Snyder forced Bruce Allen to franchise-tag Cousins into irrelevancy, ultimately and irreparably damaging the player's confidence (he went from showing an intangible poise in crunch time to playing like a 3 year old disguised as Jets-era Favre, all in a calendar year)...
          Then there are lesser known idiocies that put a vice-grip on the Skins' future:           
          Snyder, the youngest owner in NFL history, overlooked current Rams head coach Sean McVay's obvious coaching talent, standing idly by as McVay loyally stayed with our psychotic organization for 6 years. After patiently waiting his turn for 4 years, McVay was finally appointed offensive coordinator; But after learning of Gruden's stranglehold on the head coaching job, McVay went to the Rams and became the youngest coach to ever reach a Super Bowl.
        In McVay's first campaign as O.C, The Skins made the playoffs and won the NFC East. In McVay's last season in D.C, the offense was ranked 3rd overall as the team disappointed in the clutch, succumbed to injuries and narrowly lost out on a playoff spot. Still, the wunderkind was getting the best out of Kirk Cousins and there was a very bright future there before his calm departure.
        How can you miss a guy like that???? FOR SIX YEARS?!?!?
        Keep looking and you'll find more scandals and embarrassments from the misspelling of London Fletcher's name (to London Flechter) on the night his number was retired, etc upon etc....you have a story, we all have a story about this evil little guy.
        So...what is there left to cheer for as a Skins' fan?
        The answer is harsh: there's not much to cheer for in 2019 if you're a Washington Redskins fan.
        The Skins entered the season with Rex Ryan anointing their defense as a "top 3 force in the NFL" while many also predicted Case Keenum to deliver anywhere from 6-10 wins, of course as 1st round quarterback Dwayne Haskins sits and learns.
        Instead, we've seen a team clearly befuddled by their top heavy division schedule, posting an 0-3 division record by September 29th, an absolute anomaly in NFL scheduling that has seen the Skins' season over before it began.
         Still, this is a squad that went 6-3 until Alex Smith broke his leg last year (and was never seen on a football field again), taking with him an easy NFC East title, a playoff run and any excitement along with his ravaged limb.
        As recent as Week 1, this is a team that was up 17-0 on the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, beating them to the punch at every turn in a hostile environment...with Jay Gruden as coach... Then, star defensive tackle Jonathan Allen went down, we abandoned the running game altogether, we never sustained any drives and the Skins' defense began allowing Carson Wentz to dictate.
        Ever since Week 1, the same problems from the last five seasons have crept up: the Skins fail to adapt.
        Specifically, we cannot cover anyone: our linebackers are the least consistent in preventing yards after catch and allowing 3rd down conversions (the Skins let rookie Daniel Jones convert eight 3rd downs, including six from 3rd and 10+ in his 2nd NFL start).
           I'm not sure if allowing 3rd down conversions 56.2% of the time is an NFL worst...but it has to be right?
          Our defense wore down after the 2nd quarter in every game this season due to this profligacy. Our much-hyped front is allowing 144 rushing yards per game, a perfect illustration of how ineffective the linebackers are in D.C.
          Once the play passes the line of scrimmage, it's an 8-20 yard gain.
         The numbers get worse as you go: on offense, the Skins average a dismal 14.6 points per game, 73 points total over our 0-5 stretch: only 20 more than the 53 points Houston put up in one afternoon vs Atlanta. Under Keenum and McCoy we've averaged 6.7 yards per pass attempt, 3.9 per rush and a bare thirteen 3rd down conversions out of 53 attempts. And while many will defend Alex Smith's brief reign as a winning Skins quarterback, we were still an offense that remained incapable of scoring 30 points in a single game.
           What matters more than points or any of this: the repeated gut-wrenching allowance of 3rd down conversions and the 3rd down inefficiency on offense. It doesn't matter how many Pro Bowlers you have at your disposal, it doesn't make a difference how great an offensive line, offensive coordinator or however many defensive stars you have: if you cannot get your defense off the field and you cannot sustain drives on offense, you lose in the NFL...every time.
          We've seen Bill Belichick take an average defense and make them Super Bowl champions due to his dissection of 3rd down importance alone, as well as figuring out proper rotation and understanding injury recovery.
       So...With all of this madness swirling about...Where does this syrup-covered pan of shitcakes go from here?
         How can we turn this team into the contender it could (and probably should) be?
         To begin, the Redskins don't have a horrible roster to build from, although unlike the Patriots (who have no big-time receiving corps and find themselves without Gronkowski for the first time in 8 years and have no big name pass rusher), the Skins fail to adapt to the circumstances, the injuries and situations the NFL poses every team.
          I use the Patriots as a comparison not only for their nonstop winning ways, but for the drama that has been continuous in the New England organization, just like Washington.
          Unlike us, they've won while we've lost. How is that? Why is that? We had a player who was murdered while they had a player who was a murderer...their owner gets handjobs while ours does handshakes with idiots in the dark.
          Why is Washington so bad??
         Whereas the New England Patriots utilize the draft to find versatility and depth while their coaches instill hardcore attention to detail and good old fashioned roster competition to fill holes in their team, Washington has gone out every Sunday (we won't even talk about what they do on Mondays) with full knowledge that half of their team lie on IR, their future quarterback isn't even liked by the head coach and the owner hates every human being on the planet. Not to mention that most home games will feature only slightly more burgundy and white, regardless of the opposition.
         The team also becomes keenly aware of the fantasy world their owner is mired in, yet this hellish fantasia doesn't just affect Dan's obsession with his daddy's team...
           It's also sinking into the players, seeping within the seats of the stadium and infecting the front office...and until that sense of dread is kept at bay, shackled or somehow, some way finally pried from Snyder's "dead, cold hands", the Redskins will be an abyss where once-great players come to collect retirement checks in the last few years of their careers and promising 1st Round draft talent will flounder under the weighty expectations of the surreal Snyder soap opera and its illegitimacy.
           How do we fix this?

           Since we know he'd rather have his hair used to wipe Hillary Clinton's ass than sell the franchise, Dan Snyder needs to hire Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh and give them the keys to the kingdom. Pittsburgh will never give Tomlin the full control he's earned there, so why not entice him with a genuine pitch for redemption.                         
         If Snyder hires a legitimate manager who's reputation gives him the clout to say "fuck off" to our immature owner, then Daniel Snyder would've unintentionally limited his own control in the process.
            Our owner may be a lot of things, but he's not dumb enough to tell Mike Tomlin what to do with the world watching him.
          This new coach, hopefully my guy Tomlin, must be given full control to restore the failing culture of shame that has shadowed the Redskins franchise since the mid 90s. For this to happen, GM Bruce Allen has to go and all control given to Tomlin / Harbaugh (or their own GM selection, of course working closely without outside influence from Snyder).
           This new coach must draft and stockpile premium talent, focusing on offensive line depth and a star linebacker to reignite and re-establish the core of our defense (Isaiah Simmons, Dylan Moses or K'Lavon Chaison from LSU).
           This new coach would then hopefully assemble a staff to develop our young core: ex-Skins Ryan Clark and DeAngelo Hall as defensive backs coach for an easy recommendation, Kevin Greene for the linebackers (he led the 2010 Green Bay Packers defense and the development of Clay Matthews). We're sure Tomlin would have some great ideas already..
          Under Tomlin / Harbaugh we'd proceed to build the team around the multi-faceted talents of Dwayne Haskins and provide him with the support and structure an All-Pro level quarterback is yet to receive from the Snyder regime.
          But until this course of action happens, Skins fans need to resume the boycott of all officially licensed Redskins merchandise and zap the attendance at all home games.
          We'll need to brace ourselves for a winless season.
           As much as it hurts to punish the team for the actions of its owner, this has been a long time coming.
          Skins fans have been too patient for too long...we've been far too optimistic, way too forgiving and worst of all: we have such short memories when it comes to the failures of the 21st Century, yet still we hold on to every image of the Fun Bunch as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls.
         Skins fans: Vote against Snyder with your wallet or we'll never see a change to the current "into-the-ditch" path we're on.
          Vote against Snyder with your wallet...it's the only thing the guy understands.
          Until the day he finally cedes control, we may never see the team we love return to its rightful place among the most storied franchises in the league.
          But if we can force Danny Boy's obsessions into the shadows along with the distractions out the door, winning will return to the D.C area.
          If we can destroy Daniel Snyder's fantasy world...then there's still plenty to root for.