Pathetic crowds at home opener

[Skinsfan1311]

34 minutes ago, Cooleyfan1993 said:

You were in section 237 also? Which row? My friend and i were in row 6. 

Row 7

[Cooleyfan1993]

2 minutes ago, Skinsfan1311 said:

Row 7

Wow I’m guessing we probably high-fived during one of the two touchdowns ?  i was in the reed jersey sitting next to the falcons fan 

[Skinsfan1311]

Just now, Cooleyfan1993 said:

Wow I’m guessing we probably high-fiver during one of the two touchdowns ?  i was in the reed jersey sitting next to the falcons fan 

Lol! Maybe.  We have the last two seats, at the end of the row, up against the suite. It's a dead end row, so I can stand up and pace.

[ixcuincle]

13 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

My thoughts on attending todays game. This is as good a thread as any to put it in:

 

My son and I skipped the stadium experience last year and never went to a game. I scored some tickets for today's game and I can honestly say I will never go to another game at Fedex Field. I dont care if it is the NFC Championship game. 

 

We live in Winchester, VA. So it is almost a 2 hour drive to get there. We left the house at 7 AM and were at the Stadium at 8:45. We had F Green parking and were MAYBE 25 cars back waiting to get into the parking lot. That wait took almost 20 minutes. 20 MINUTES TO LET 25 CARS INTO the parking lot. 

 

Tailgating was fun as it always is. We cooked up some shrimp and hamburgers. Good eating and fun times with the neighbors around us. Nothing to complain about on that end. We headed up to the stadium at 12. Nice fast entry into the stadium. All went smoothly. Great pregame. With the anthem and a flyover by a pair of F18's

 

The stadium was MAYBE half full. And of the half full stadium AT LEAST 30% of them were Falcons fans. They basically took over one side of the home endzone and half of the visitors side of the stadium. The game experience itself just isnt fun. Especially when you get crushed. The refs are calling holding with EVERY good run by Peterson and the Wr's are dropping balls left and right. We left with about 5 minutes left in the game. And then the REAL FUN began.

 

THE TRAFFIC IS ABYSMAL. PERIOD. 

 

2 hours and 35 minutes to get home. Ridiculous. 

 

Overall I can say with certainty that, FOR ME, the experience is just better at home than at Fedex Field. No $10.50 beers, no stadium full of opposing fans and no MISERABLE traffic. 

 

The Stadium needs to be moved back to DC or into NOVA. And until them I will stay a TV watcher.

 

Don't stop! 

 

Just don't drive there. Take the Metro. I got home sooner than you and I just took the Orange line. Make the drive to Vienna, park there for free, and ride the Metro into the city. 

 

-------------------------------------

 

As for ATL Man After that Nicholson PI I was so fed up I just bolted straight out of the 400's and moved my way down to the 1st level concourse. I was trying to use the bathroom but the lines were too long. I hear a cheer above me, and then the chant "A T L A T L" as loud as could be. 

 

I was stunned. 

[hail2skins]

I guess I don't understand people being shocked that it might take some extra time to exit an event which 60K had been at.

 

But the morning thing of taking 20 minutes to allow 25 cars in sounds ridiculous. I really miss them being able to just wave people through with permits instead of having to scan even the permits in. Seems like it slows the process down considerably.

[Captain James]

On 11/3/2018 at 8:22 PM, bakedtater1 said:

Oh Hail ya I am!!..I'm so excited to watch Redskins football!!...the defense, our new member, is this the game Alex airs it out?..oooohhhh big game for Jordan Reed I got a feeling..were down a couple players but we're playing as a team and when that happens good things Happ   en ?

PWNED.

 

Sorry couldn't help it. That game sucked.

[justice98]

It's been this way for years.  Attending games has never been great and wont be great in the future.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  I dont quite get the bellyaching about going to games in 2018.  It's a known quantity at this point what you're gonna deal with.  Just dont go.

2 hours ago, CjSuAvE22 said:

Anyone who thinks there was 30 percent falcons fans has no idea what they are talking about maybe in a couple sections there were a

lot but in general skins fans showed up yesterday to support the team I was in 134 and for every 20 skins fans there was about 3 falcons fans in my section and the surrounding ones ....we showed up unlike the men on the field we came to support 

 

If it wasnt 30%, it sounded like it was on television.  The vocal Falcons fans were pretty noticeable on the broadcast.

[clskinsfan]

1 minute ago, justice98 said:

It's been this way for years.  Attending games has never been great and wont be great in the future.  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  I dont quite get the bellyaching about going to games in 2018.  It's a known quantity at this point what you're gonna deal with.  Just dont go.

 

I get it. And I swore to myself two years ago that I wouldnt do it again. But we were 5-2 and I figured I would go support and cheer. First of all the team gave us basically NOTHING to cheer about. And someone called me out earlier and said that it wasnt 30% Falcons fans. I dont know what game he attended. I was in section 105 and half of the home endzone and half of the visitors side of the stadium were Falcon fans. I was surrounded by them in section 105 as well. And they were ALL LOUD. The A-T-L chants were annoying as hell. But they paid their way in as well and are entitled to cheer for their team. Can you imagine seeing even 100 opposing fans in RFK? NOPE. Would never happen.

 

Basically. The Redskins have lost an entire generation of young people from our area as fans through sucking for 2 decades. And it shows in gameday attendance. It is a shame. This was such a great franchise in the 80's and 90's.

[Mr. Sinister]

Dark times are ahead... Wait til drunk Philly fan from the Delmarva shows up in a few weeks.

 

Just hope we don't end up a story on Real sports with Bryant Gumbel or OTL.

[hail2skins]

17 minutes ago, clskinsfan said:

And someone called me out earlier and said that it wasnt 30% Falcons fans. I dont know what game he attended. I was in section 105 and half of the home endzone and half of the visitors side of the stadium were Falcon fans. I was surrounded by them in section 105 as well. And they were ALL LOUD. The A-T-L chants were annoying as hell. But they paid their way in as well and are entitled to cheer for their team. Can you imagine seeing even 100 opposing fans in RFK? NOPE. Would never happen.

 

Basically. The Redskins have lost an entire generation of young people from our area as fans through sucking for 2 decades. And it shows in gameday attendance. It is a shame. This was such a great franchise in the 80's and 90's.

I don't think overall the crowd was near 30 percent Falcons fans, but if you were sitting in 105, your perception of their numbers was magnified, because there are always a lot of visitors teams fans on the visitors side of the lower level these days. It probably has to do with the entities that own those seats more than anything, but I don't know for sure. I sat down in the LL for a couple years when the place opened and the amount of visiting fans down there was very small compared to what it is today........definitely has gotten much worse over time.

[hail2skins]

45 minutes ago, Mr. Sinister said:

Just hope we don't end up a story on Real sports with Bryant Gumbel or OTL.

As we were walking back to our car after the game (Orange D), saw a dude in a Matt Ryan jersey who was being held back by folks and looked very upset.  I think somebody he was with might've gotten into an altercation, because there were several people squatted down and appeared to be tending to someone, but I was too far away to tell. As we were inching along Redskins Road on the way out, saw an emergency vehicle heading into the stadium lots.

[Coach Janky Spanky]

1 hour ago, hail2skins said:

 

But the morning thing of taking 20 minutes to allow 25 cars in sounds ridiculous. I really miss them being able to just wave people through with permits instead of having to scan even the permits in. Seems like it slows the process down considerably.

 

Completely agree.  I have no clue why they think it's necessary to scan the parking passes.  It slows the process down a lot.   Are people really re-using/re-selling parking passes, and if so is it really a big enough problem that they need to scan them?  Just makes no sense at all.  

[Skinsfan1311]

2 hours ago, hail2skins said:

I guess I don't understand people being shocked that it might take some extra time to exit an event which 60K had been at.

 

But the morning thing of taking 20 minutes to allow 25 cars in sounds ridiculous. I really miss them being able to just wave people through with permits instead of having to scan even the permits in. Seems like it slows the process down considerably.

It didn't take that long to scan passes for the Redzone lot.  They did have an issue with the scanner, at the home opener though. It wasn't working. Once he figured it out, it was smooth sailing....

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

2 hours ago, hail2skins said:

I guess I don't understand people being shocked that it might take some extra time to exit an event which 60K had been at.

Nobody is shocked by it.  It’s just another thing that sucks.  I also don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the placement of the stadium itself lends itself to traffic issues.

[TradeTheBeal!]

The facility is and always has been in a dreadful location.  I’m dreading going to the Houston game in a couple weeks.  But, I have old friends flying in from Austin and I can’t get out of it.

[abdcskins]

Well, I'm glad I decided not to go lol. I'm in town for a family emergency and didn't have time to go. I would've been going solo anyway.

 

I've pretty much given up on there ever being homefield advantage at FedEx. There have been throngs of opposing fans in the stands for years. Not sure how it could get better. I remember reading on this board once that season ticket holders sell or give away their tickets to opposing fans. Maybe that is part of the problem.

 

I've always maintained that football is the one sport that is better to watch on TV than live, unless you have really good seats. More comfortable, instant replay, better viewing, and a hell of a lot less expensive. So I get it. I just wish our fans cared more to support our team. I live in California so I have an excuse lol. But still, we are having a good year so far, no reason for fans to not be a little bit excited (even if it all comes crashing down). But it has been decades of misery - it's going to take time for Redskins fans to return to the stadium. 

[hail2skins]

11 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

The facility is and always has been in a dreadful location.  I’m dreading going to the Houston game in a couple weeks.  But, I have old friends flying in from Austin and I can’t get out of it.

Not really sure what there is to dread.......my only advice is that, if you are driving, to get to the stadium early enough (at least an hour before kickoff) to secure a parking spot and mitigate the angst from having to deal with the folks who take up spaces with their chairs, etc.  But with less people attending, perhaps that aspect is less of an issue.

 

But the complaints about the stadium location and the traffic do amuse me. In the good old days at RFK, a lot of people took Metro. Guess what.......those who did weren't waiting in their cars, but were waiting considerable amounts of time jostling with the throngs to stuff into the one entrance at Stadium-Armory. Of course, when we were winning, it made that aspect more bearable :)

[BigHuv21]

18 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said:

The facility is and always has been in a dreadful location.  I’m dreading going to the Houston game in a couple weeks.  But, I have old friends flying in from Austin and I can’t get out of it.

Not sure where you're coming from but Rally Bus is $30 a person. So much easier to sit back and relax and either celebrate or drown your sorrows after a game while the bus driver deals with the traffic 

[TradeTheBeal!]

I have been to RFK in excess of 30 times during the glory days.

I have been to FedEx in excess of 30 times.

I have been to NFL games in other cities in excess of a dozen times.

 

The location of the current stadium is and always has been absolutely dreadful.

 

HEED MY WISDOM.

[bakedtater1]

3 hours ago, CaptainJames2004 said:

PWNED.

 

Sorry couldn't help it. That game sucked.

PWNED?

[Coach Janky Spanky]

56 minutes ago, abdcskins said:

 

I remember reading on this board once that season ticket holders sell or give away their tickets to opposing fans. Maybe that is part of the problem.

 

 

There are thousands of seats available on ticketmaster on the primary market, sold by the team, the Redskins, to anyone willing to buy them.  The abundance of opposing fans is not the fault of season ticket holders selling or giving away tickets to opposing fans.  It's the fault of the Redskins being so bad for so long, and the team's organizational arrogance turning off legions of loyal dedicated fans.   

 

It will only get better if/when the Redskins start winning consistently (which I don't really think is going to happen anytime soon, unfortunately) and moving to a smaller stadium.

[Cooleyfan1993]

Well i guess the crowd was loud enough that it hindered HaHa’s communication with the defense yesterday. A good sign? Or just stupid falcons fans being loud on offense?

[Renegade7]

3 hours ago, Mr. Sinister said:

Dark times are ahead... Wait til drunk Philly fan from the Delmarva shows up in a few weeks.

 

Just hope we don't end up a story on Real sports with Bryant Gumbel or OTL.

 

I want to go to that game, but only if it's for a playoff spot like I predicted it would be.  Its gonna be all kinds of ugly if we get blown out in  meaningless one.

[ThomasTomasz]

13 hours ago, hail2skins said:

As we were walking back to our car after the game (Orange D), saw a dude in a Matt Ryan jersey who was being held back by folks and looked very upset.  I think somebody he was with might've gotten into an altercation, because there were several people squatted down and appeared to be tending to someone, but I was too far away to tell. As we were inching along Redskins Road on the way out, saw an emergency vehicle heading into the stadium lots.

I was in purple D, and if you saw a fire truck, some idiots re-ignited a pot of semi-used charcoal briquettes and walked away and there was a nice size unattended fire in the middle of the lot.  

[ThomasTomasz]

14 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

 

I get it. And I swore to myself two years ago that I wouldnt do it again. But we were 5-2 and I figured I would go support and cheer. First of all the team gave us basically NOTHING to cheer about. And someone called me out earlier and said that it wasnt 30% Falcons fans. I dont know what game he attended. I was in section 105 and half of the home endzone and half of the visitors side of the stadium were Falcon fans. I was surrounded by them in section 105 as well. And they were ALL LOUD. The A-T-L chants were annoying as hell. But they paid their way in as well and are entitled to cheer for their team. Can you imagine seeing even 100 opposing fans in RFK? NOPE. Would never happen.

 

Basically. The Redskins have lost an entire generation of young people from our area as fans through sucking for 2 decades. And it shows in gameday attendance. It is a shame. This was such a great franchise in the 80's and 90's.

 

The constant losing records and how Snyder (through his puppets Cerrato and Allen) has treated this team is a big one for why the tickets aren't selling and why attendance is so poor.  There are other reasons behind that though- people prefer to watch at home due to HDTVs and cost to attend games, some people have given up on the NFL for political reasons, and the list goes on. 

 

Also, I am a season ticket holder for the Redskins and for the Orioles (I have the second tier, 29 game package which is at least one game per home series.) . The generation of young people you are referring to also rarely show up for Orioles games (or Nationals, for that matter) and if they do, it's a handful of games each year.  It is rare for someone in my age bracket which is the millennial group, to have season tickets for a sporting team.  Same for the Capitals, judging from a co-worker of mine with his season tickets and the age of people he sees at ticker-holder only events.  

 

Ultimately, the Redskins need to start winning if they want season ticket holders to come back.  They also need to clean up some of what goes on inside the stadium and parking lot to make the event fan and family friendly, and they need to enhance the value of the season ticket holder program.  It's no longer enough just to be a season ticket holder.  I know the Redskins are ahead of the Orioles and Nationals by having the points system, but it can't be just that.