The School Newspaper of Winston Churchill High School.

The Observer

The School Newspaper of Winston Churchill High School.

The Observer

The School Newspaper of Winston Churchill High School.

The Observer

The miserable, pathetic life of a Redskins fan

You know those tests they do in labs where the lab rat is offered something appealing like a piece of cheese, but when they go for it they get zapped, so they eventually learn not to touch it? That pretty much sums up my relationship with the Redskins.
Every time I try rooting for them, which is inevitably every year, I get zapped. Every off-season they bring in some high-profile free agent or a big name coach and I get my hopes up, only to have them dashed–usually no later than in week eight.
A couple years ago it was bringing in Joe Gibbs out of retirement. I thought to myself, “How could this possibly go wrong? This guy is one of the greatest coaches of all time, he won three superbowls with three different quarterbacks!” I was so wrong.
Like Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and Norv Turner before him, Gibbs brought me nothing but disappointment. The fact that Gibbs got us so tantalizingly close to being a real team before causing our collapse only made things worse.
Jason Campbell was another cause for hope. He was a big-armed, athletic quarterback with a fantastic college resume, the antithesis of our over-the-hill QB Mark Brunell who refused to throw the ball any more than five yards past the line of scrimmage.
After three years of Campbell, I have come to realize that I liked him much more when he was on the bench. But hey, that’s the Redskins for you; they look great until they actually step onto the field.
Now I’m not saying there weren’t some bright spots along the way, because there certainly were. Four years of watching Sean Taylor play in the secondary was a privilege, and his presence is sorely missed today. Seeing them reach the playoffs and actually win a game was great, it was the height of my pride as a ‘Skins fan, but even then, I never really thought they could contend for a Super Bowl.
Still, the lows of my Redskin fanhood have truly been devastating. Signing Jim Zorn, a quarterbacks coach who had never called a play in his life as our head coach was puzzling, losing Sean Taylor was devastating, and watching countless Pro-Bowlers come to Washington only to get hurt or forget how to play football was frustrating.
This season’s loss to Detroit was the ultimate slap in the face. I said, “This is it, I’m switching over to the Ravens until Zorn and Campbell are gone,” That lasted all of one week.
I was back in burgundy and gold rooting on my ‘Skins the very next Sunday. I honestly can not explain why. At half time it looked like the Tampa Bay Buccaneer’s third string quarterback was better than our starter. But alas, they scraped out a win against another horrible team if for no other reason than to force me to come back for another few weeks of football torture.

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The miserable, pathetic life of a Redskins fan