Fan Depreciation At FedEx

[OchoUno]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110504343.html

My friend Tony was certain when he saw an increasing number of gold towels in the minutes before Monday night's game that it was a Redskins promotion. The team's colors, after all, are burgundy and gold. So some bank or car dealership or the team itself had to be pushing something and was using gold towels to do it. Made perfect sense, since it seems every other night now fans are being asked to wear all red or all white or all black and wave matching pompoms or towels.

Except the people waving the gold towels were also wearing, mostly, black jerseys. Pittsburgh Steelers jerseys. There appeared to be, what, 15,000 of them? No, more. They were in the upper deck, the club seats, lower bowl, even the "Dream Seats" right down on the field. They were everywhere. Maybe, what, 25,000? More?

I got a text message during the first few plays from a friend in Chicago asking me when the NFL started staging neutral-field games. I assured him we were at FedEx Field. They were like an infestation of cicadas, the Steelers fans, so loud they effectively drowned out Redskins fans. They were like a storm of pirates who satisfied themselves at the expense of home folks who just sat and watched. That the Redskins had to use a silent count because they couldn't hear signals through all the Steelers noise is, well, alarming. It remains the lasting impression of Monday night's Redskins-Steelers game.

And it's likely to happen again in the very next home game, Sunday, Nov. 16, because the Cowboys are coming to town. Two sets of NFL fans represent, as the kids say, bigger and bolder than all the others. The Steelers and the Cowboys, in that order. The Redskins like to say they have the best fans in the league. Please, they're not even in the game for consideration of that distinction. You think Steelers fans, no matter how late the game time or how much they hate the stadium, would sell their tickets and let Redskins fans gobble them up? No chance. You think somewhere between one-third and one-fourth of Eagles, Broncos, Browns, Bears, Giants, Seahawks or Packers fans would sell their seats to brokers, when their team is a serious contender no less? No chance.

The local obsession with the blood-rival Cowboys involves yet another dynamic: race. Older men explained to me nearly 30 years ago that when the Redskins were the only all-white team remaining in the NFL and owner George Preston Marshall was vowing he'd never have a black player, the Cowboys were building their franchise with not only black players, but men from tiny historically black colleges. This had and has special appeal in D.C. Many a black Washingtonian long ago vowed his everlasting allegiance to the Cowboys (or Raiders, who built much the same way, around players like Art Shell and Gene Upshaw, but rarely come to Washington to play).

So once again, a week from Sunday, the Cowboys will have their supporters, more than they would find tickets for in Green Bay or Chicago or Giants Stadium, making a racket in FedEx Field. Maybe Jim Zorn will have to prepare his players to treat this as a road game. Maybe the Redskins will just stay in those all-burgundy uniforms that made them look like a road team out of the Western Athletic Conference or the Mountain West. Maybe fans of other teams will circle Washington on the schedule because if they can't get tickets where they live they know the pickings are easier here. One Monday night might have been a fluke. Two home games in a row would be a developing situation

[bubba9497]

wrong forum, and already been posted, days ago

[dcnativenerd]

Alright, we get it. Redskins fans suck.

You try supporting this team way the hell down here in Panthers country!

[Jumbo]

Closed. Dupe acct troll banned.