BGO.C.D. - 'The Last Gasp'

[Tarhog]

I find myself in a curious place. An unapologetically rabid Redskins fan since my childhood days, this offseason has seen a small, unfamiliar, almost alien sentiment creep into my middle-aged bones.

Indifference.

That’s a scary word for a guy like me. As my wife has occasionally noted and chided me for – I do nothing ‘halfway’. Whatever the passing interests have been during my nearly 50 years, when I’m attracted to something, I dive in and commit to it with an intense fervor that some might describe as obsessive. That’s just who I am.

The only aspect of my Redskins fandom that has ever differentiated it from other life obsessions is that it has never passed. The Washington Redskins have been a sustained obsession of mine from the first time I plopped down on a Sunday in front of a 20” black and white and watched that first game with my Dad. And ever since. Not even during the life-sucking, enthusiasm-draining wasteland of despair that represents the Daniel Snyder era has the commitment to my fandom wavered.

Yet something unsettling has steadily, inexorably woven its way into my mind over the last 6 months.

Call it a mid-life crisis, a re-examination of priorities. Hell, call it just being sick and tired of the yearly journey from homeristic hopefulness to ultimate reality check. It’s gotten old. I’ve seriously considered this offseason, for the first time in 49 years if maybe there aren’t better ways to spend my precious life seconds? My kids are nearly grown, eldest daughter taking those first intrepid steps towards adulthood as she leaves us for college, son entering high school where Dad becomes the 4th or 5th option as to who he wants to hang out with. The minutes, hours, and seconds we have to spend with people we really love – they aren’t unlimited. Hours weekly spent on a team lead by a dysfunctional owner, that can’t win, and can’t commit to a strategy or coaching staff long enough to figure out how to win - one has to eventually question the value of that investment.

And yet, I’m here. I cling to my fandom like photographs of old girlfriends tucked away in a box, faded, no longer relevant, incapable of returning my curious inexplicable affection.

I cling to my fandom for a lot of reasons. I may not know why I love this team so much, but I’m crystal clear on why I can’t walk away from a fan’s commitment to them. The Redskins are part of my personal history. Having spent significant time, up close and personal, with this team, I can tell you that they have either forgotten what fandom is really about, or they’ve never understood it to begin with. Fandom is about commitment, hope, and creating memories. For most Redskins fans, memories of this team, both joyous and triumphant in victory, and heart-breaking and wrenching in defeat, are milestones in their life. Walking away from a team you’ve rooted for all your life – it’s like turning your back on a bad-seed brother you’re having to bail out of jail, or pick up drunk in an alley on a weeknight. You know you should walk away, finally turn your back. But blood ties run deep.

I’m not sure why I’ve had this epiphany now, when the Redskins seem to have a head coach who ‘gets it’ in place, where we may even have his eventual successor on board, when we’re experiencing a period of ‘rebirth’ with our Redskins. We’re doing many of the things fans have so long called for – setting aside fondness for older vets and moving them on to make room for talented youngsters. We’re coming off a draft where the Redskins looked downright reasonable, as steady and un-Redskins-like as we’ve ever seen them. And whether owner Daniel Snyder has truly learned to hire talented staff and get out of their way or not, he appears to be adopting that style. In short, there’s a lot to like happening in Ashburn, Virginia these days.

Despite signs of hope, I’ll confess, my fandom is on life support. I’m not ready to turn off the ventilator, the IV drips, or the heart monitor yet. Perhaps the six months of quietude and entropy of an NFL lockout has simply given me too much time to think. Perhaps I need some wild free agency spending, like a good dose of smelling salts, to perk me up, a Hall of Fame or pre-season game or two to get my blood stirring, or to see the Redskins rush from that giant helmet onto FedEx Field turf to feel that familiar surge of adrenaline again.

I hope these things come soon. In the cheesy vernacular of the bad horror movie, it’s been quiet.

Too quiet.

This obsessive personality needs something important to obsess about. And that can mean only one thing.

It’s time for some Redskins football.

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[Oldfan]

Well done, Amigo.

It sounds like we share some personality traits. I've been where you are, and I remember that phase well.

I've been a Redskins fan for 66 of my 76 years. Right now, I'm hanging onto my fandom by my fingernails.

You know what bothers me a lot? The team hasn't even been trying to be the best. We are the exemplar for the way to operate a mediocre franchise. Even if they tried and failed to reach the top of the pile, at least I could admire a noble effort. We could hold our heads high if they could only do that much.

You know what bothers me even more? Most of my fellow Redskins fans are okay with that.

[mike tatertot]

nice post, i laughed, i cried, what part of NC ya'll from? mike here in Winston-Salem

[KingGibbs]

Holy **** it's Tarhog! How have you been? Don't worry bud, you are not alone and brace yourself because with the roster we have right now and limited upgrades come FA? I'm afraid a few of us will be flat-lined.

[Tarhog]

I think there are really two distinct classes of Redskins fans Oldfan - those who experienced the glory years of Gibbs first tenure, and everyone else. It's an interesting dynamic...I sense that those who have never experienced anything but the up and down mediocrity we've mostly experienced since Gibbs left the first time are much more 'okay' with what we've experienced for the past 20 years than we old-timers are. Of course that's not universally true - but I think it tends to be the case. I feel for those *younger* fans who've only had a handful of seasons where the Redskins were a playoff team or contender. We at least have gotten to taste what real NFL glory is. I can't imagine what it's like for someone in the early to mid 20's who has never experienced that. We talk a lot about the first Gibbs era, but the truth is, even something approaching what George Allen was able to patch together would be pretty damn gratifying.

And I'll add something else that is anathema to most Skins fans, bordering on sacrilegious... We'd likely have experienced far more success during the Snyder era if he hadn't summarily dismissed Norv Turner. I know that's painful to consider, but I think it's true nevertheless. Giving Marty Shottenheimer a long-term deal and whatever control he wanted would likely have proven a far more successful strategy as well.

I do believe Shanahan, if he has the time, can return the franchise to respectability. I just wonder if he can overcome what's begun to feel like an organizational curse and 2 decades of what feels like earned bad karma. I'm trying to hang in there to find out

---------- Post added July-16th-2011 at 02:14 PM ----------

nice post, i laughed, i cried, what part of NC ya'll from? mike here in Winston-Salem

I'm right around the corner from you near Oak Ridge brother.

---------- Post added July-16th-2011 at 02:17 PM ----------

Holy **** it's Tarhog! How have you been? Don't worry bud, you are not alone and brace yourself because with the roster we have right now and limited upgrades come FA? I'm afraid a few of us will be flat-lined.

I lurk here frequently KG. Hope you are great...

I have no idea what to expect this season. I'd be more than willing to be the worst team in the NFL for a few seasons if I thought we could leverage the franchise picks that would bring us into a dominant or even competitive era. Alas, we are rarely bad enough to reap the rewards that brings.

[Burgold]

I think it's a combo of the lockout which makes us dislike the greedy owners and greedy players and therefore look down on the pasttime we enjoy and just so many years of fatigue piled one on top of the other. The Redskins need to break this cycle. Honestly, the fans have done everything we can to edure and show our steadfastness and support the team, but at some point the team has got to give you something in return.

The return on our love has been agonizingly small for more than a decade. There was some during the Gibbs II years if for no other reason than Gibbs got it and went out of his way to make sure we knew how much he appreciated us. By and large, 'skins fans have been abused by an inferior product, poor customer treatment, and bad team representation. They need to start getting it right. They need to win. Otherwise, more people will find their heart diminished and less able to rouse the spirit to support and watch the team.

[NewCliche21]

Wonderful as usual, Tarhog.

As one of those in his mid twenties, it ain't so bad. To piggy back on your use of cheese, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. Quite simply, we haven't lost a thing; this crap is all that we know. It's like a really good meal. If you have had a perfect one, then nothing else compares. We haven't had one, so even when we get a dry, rubbery 8-8, we're at least okay not being hungry.

Oldfan, I'm sick of feeling like the Patriots, Steelers, and Colts are in the real NFL and we're just in some losers bracket, but it's all that I know. Can't miss what you never had.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

You're a 49 year old Redskins fan whose team hasn't been consistently good since you were a 29 year old Redskins fan...

And being a 49 year old man you've most likely come to understand that there's no reason to waste time on feelings and emotions over something that might not even occur--like, say, a football season in 2011 lol...once the lockout ends you'll find your appropriate level of excitement again.

The lockout helped underscore where the need to be a "diehard fan" falls on your priority list at this point in your life...especially a diehard fan of a team that over the last two decades has given you scant reason to be one.

But this **** is like riding a bike...once there's a real practice with coaches and video and news reports about how Hankerson is impressing, or that Kelly shows no sign of being slowed by injury, or that Beck is looking sharp, or that we just signed a solid free agent RG...once you see the team in its first pre-season game and are surprised that they look pretty solid and competent...once you hear the first report that Tony Romo sits to pee's first pass in a preseason game was intercepted and run back for a TD ...once all that starts coming into your daily world you'll take to being an obsessive Skins fan like a fish to water.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Certain posters just make you gravitate to their posts, or in this instance thread; and even if you don't always agree have you leaving with a smile on your face.

He doesn't post NEARLY enough these days (darn that thing they call 'life'); but when he does you earnestly read every last word. (Overdoing the props man?).

I think a big part of it is an age thang. Priorities in life changing and all that. I'll always be a Redskin, but, and this may sound contradictory as I'm spending time on a Saturday yet again chewing the fat with my extended 'family', it doesn't matter nearly half as much as it did in my youth and early 20's. Back then, I could be a complete dick to be around if the 'Skins lost on a Sunday. The next week was a complete downer, aching for the following Sunday to put everything right in Redskins land. Now, we lose, I switch off and can function like 'normal' people and go do something else happily on a Sunday evening.

I think another big part is what Cali alluded to. When you've experienced the great times (and NC, they were GREAT times. If we only won 10 games in a season there was a massive inquest as to what the Hell had gone wrong and who's head should roll); to suffer through the next two decades of being the equal of ANY of the leagues dregs takes it's toll on any fan.

Your not losing your fan hood Tarhog man. And nobody could question your allegiance. The passion it comes out in has just changed over time is all. Doesn't make you any less of a fan than a young buck who's life revolves around the B&G.

Just a more Worldly wise one.

Hail.

[Tarhog]

Thanks for the kind words and great replies. Honestly, this little blog entry felt so personal - I almost didn't post it. It almost seems like, to post those kind of sentiments, it's shameful. If anyone had posted the obligatory (and it may be coming) admonition 'Speak for yourself douchebag - you may be a fairweather fan but I'll be Burgundy and Gold through and through till the day I die!' response, I'd absolutely respect that. I suspect there is truth is what each of you are saying. You can't miss what you've never experienced. As one gets older, priorities change. And that I'll feel it all all over again with the first snap of the 2011 season. That all rings true.

I thought about a lot of other guys as I wrote this as well. Guys with names like Blade, Art, lots of others who are nowhere to be seen here or elsewhere - and wondered if they've just tired of the internet scene, moved past their Redskins obsessions, or found better things to do with their time. That makes me sad.

[KCClybun]

Maybe it's just because I'm a new fan---I only really started watching Redskins football at the tail end of 2009 and really got into it in 2010---but I find myself being a lot more optimistic than a great deal of Redskins fans. Maybe it's just my nature, maybe it's because I didn't experience Gibbs first tenure, or have to suffer through many of the mistakes. But as a newer fan, I actually feel some optimism. I like a lot of the players, I like the direction of the team. Even if we don't return straight back to eliteness right away, I feel like we're in a better position to do that now than we are now. I haven't been mired in the past 20 years of suckiness, so maybe I'm just being foolish.

So it's interesting to me as a new fan to see older fans burnt out. It's noticeable and palpable, but also understandable.

[Gerald362]

Good to see you back. I dont post much either, but I am here often still. As one who is a NC guy as well, and has vague memories of Lombardi, and much better of the time of George Allen, I will tell you it isnt lost, just waiting to come back and get ya. Almost like an addiction, I would say. Hang in and you will feel it again with the next fix

Hail

[NattyBo]

Well written, but look, if us 20 something Skins fans can stay diehard, well, you folks who have seen more of the good times should, too!

All I have is memories of a SuperBowl when I was 6, fading more every day.

[NewCliche21]

Tarhog, I miss those names and will add Henry and Om to that list. I think that ES went mainstream, attracted the posters who would pump their chests and measure their manhood by the loudness of their fanhood. I used to be that way, but that declined in direct correlation with being carded ordering a drink at an Applebee's.

I also think that this lockout is much dfferent from what you've experienced, even with the strikes. With those, it was over five or six digits per player, not eight or nine and then ten for the owners. This causes us to lose that child's eye that we get when thinking of the team. The players stop being superheros and start seeming like greedy mercenaries working for greedy warlords. Pair that with the lack of any real football talk, the majesty fades.

The excitement will return when the players run out of the tunnel and the starters play for a few series. If not, then I'll buy you a beer.

[cweed15]

nice post, i laughed, i cried, what part of NC ya'll from? mike here in Winston-Salem

Im from winston too!

[Tarhog]

Tarhog, I miss those names and will add Henry and Om to that list.

You likely know, but for those who may not, Om and I started our own Redskins fansite, www.bgobsession.com, because we wanted a quieter, slower-paced environment, wanted to have creative control of a skins site again, and, well, because we like being big-shots and all. Henry is a regular there as well.

[Bang]

Howdy TH

It's the lockout man. Nothing else. No news to discuss.. nothing but bull to rehash.. there is nothing new to keep you interested this offseason.\

As soon as things start back up, so will your motor, I bet.

I always mean to come over to BGO, but I always forget after I finish yelling at everyone around here.

~Bang

[Tarhog]

Howdy TH

It's the lockout man. Nothing else. No news to discuss.. nothing but bull to rehash.. there is nothing new to keep you interested this offseason.\

As soon as things start back up, so will your motor, I bet.

I always mean to come over to BGO, but I always forget after I finish yelling at everyone around here.

~Bang

I suspect (and hope) you're right I must be getting old - although, to my credit, so far anyway, I have not told any of those damn kids to get the hell off my lawn.

[SkinsHokieFan]

There has essentially been a 20 year malaise with this team, interrupted 3 times (the 99, '05 and '07 seasons)

And to be honest, since the 6-2 start of the Zorn era, this could easily be one of the worst stretches in Redskins history (think about it, Zorn was 6-2. We have gone 12-28 since and finished in the cellar the last 3 years)

Unlike every other Washington DC team we don't have a star to look forward to growing up, or who is grown up and we are eagerly seeing if he can take the next step and become a champion.

We have constant drama. The Vinny/Zorn era, entire 2009 season, the McNabb/Haynesworth fiasco of 2010.

Sure we had a quality draft, but we really don't know that we had one yet, do we?

And the team again makes headlines off the field with the Snyder vs City Paper law suit and the debacle of the seat removal announcement.

Hell, half the fan base wants the Redskins to tank the season and the Redskins to go 1-15 because it will deliver us the number 1 overall pick and some hope for the first time since Gibbs returned. I am not afraid to say I am one of those fans.

And then on top of it the lockout.

Of course you are re-evaluating the Redskins in your priority list. Besides irrational, emotional reasons (like mine), what objective reasons are there to a) put in time and invest anything into this franchise right now? Mine are clinging by my finger nails because the 1991 season was one of the greatest memories of my childhood. I am glad I watched every game with dad and can tell you every single score of every game. That season is what drives my fandom, the chance to re-live those feelings.

Or else objectively, what has this team done for you lately Tarhog?

[Tarhog]

So.

Apparently it's not just me

[Doozinbrah]

Hey Tarhog, how u been doing? Great post as always!!!!

[Burgold]

Unlike every other Washington DC team we don't have a star to look forward to growing up, or who is grown up and we are eagerly seeing if he can take the next step and become a champion.

I agree with a lot of your post, SHF, but I want to quibble with this one. I've really come to root for Anthony Armstrong. I love his underdog story and I love what he is bringing to the team and can't wait to see how he progresses. He's the kind of underdog story I really dig. I think he's an easy guy to get behind. So, we don't have many, but we have a few.

I could also say the same about Orakpo and Banks. Both guys are good stories and good Redskins, but I've always had a soft spot for that undrafted free agent make good story or that little guy who somehow makes it.

Maybe Armstrong doesn't fit the definition of a rising "star" yet, but I think he showed the spark of something special. He has a knack for getting open and making huge plays and doing it pretty often.

[SonOfWashington]

It's hard for me too. Perseverance is key, especially in tough times like these. But for myself, who has never seen a Super Bowl beyond my birth-month, it's a desire. A desire to see our team hoist that trophy in real time, like they do in the faded photographs and video clips I admire so often. Personally, I hate failure, but at the same time it drives me to do better. To improve myself to the point where I don't have to fail anymore. Like everyone, I've faced numerous failures in my lifetime, but instead of staying knocked down, I get back up and push harder, repeat ad victoriam. I admire anyone who does this.

So I guess my relationship with the Redskins is like that. Failing to reach that fabled pinnacle over and over has made my thirst to see the Redskins win it all stronger. It drives my fandom and I only hope that it never reaches its breaking point. Fortunately, that's still far out of sight so I'll be here for awhile. I simply can't picture myself without the Redskins. I've surrounded myself with memorabilia and such to the point where the image is just engraved into my mind. Burgundy and gold, the script R, and our heroes of the past and present are visible anytime I'm in my home.

I guess in a way, they've also defined me. Not as a failure, but as a determined individual who is willing to stand firm through the harshest storm just to see the sun again. People all over know me as the resident die-hard Skins fan, and I'm sure proud of that. If they're watching football on any given Sunday and see a Redskins highlight come on, they picture my reaction in their minds, positive or negative (negative usually more amusing for them... w/e). Some have given me a lot of slack for it of the years, among other things, but I always shake it off and concentrate on the ultimate goal in any case. In other words, haters gonna hate.

So keep up the good faith, Tarhog. We'll get there again. And how sweet it will be...

[Tarhog]

Great post SoW

You touched on a point I have thought of many times before...part of what makes ultimate success and triumph so sweet are the many tough, thankless years they put in and invested to get to that point. That's why there's such *disdain* (and deservedly so) for the 'bandwagon fans' that inevitably surface when a team like the Redskins does finally taste sustained success.

It's a great point. And God knows, I've invested a lot in this team to date, probably far too much to ever turn in my fan card. Despite the current restlessness I feel, I'll likely be that geezer, still wearing my Redskins hat and screaming at the TV whether I'm 70, 80, or on death's door

[Wyvern]

This was a really nice thread to read and think about.

To me, part of being a fan isn't about winning, but more about hoping you'll win. It's about caring a little bit more than you'd normally have expected. I guess I'm a 'fan' for a lot of things in my life, and that includes the Redskins.

As I've gotten older, I realize I'm startinng to accumulate a lot of important things to keep on my radar screen. So maybe now I'm realizing that being a sports fan is more some 'part' that you allow into your life, simply because it gives you some destired intangible you seek ... some 'spice' to your days on this planet. And whenever you invest part of yourself in something, then its success seems like a personal payoff to you.

...So maybe the secret isn't in being impatient on the timing of the payoff (winning) ... but rather in the hoping that this payoff will come. That's a spice of life too -- caring and hoping.

And in the meanwhile, while you're waiting for your Redskins payoff --there are always those 'payoffs' from successes in all the other elements in your life you're a 'fan' of.