In Which I Fall Out of Love with the Washington Redskins

I arrived home later than usual last night. Even before saying hello to the family, I ducked into the den to set the TiVo to record the Washington-Minnesota game, which was just starting. I like watching the football with the TiVo; zapping past the commercials is particularly enjoyable, and the halftime inanities whiz by in a lovely blur.

After the house had settled into its evening calm, I snuggled into the couch and waved the remote at the TV. Some five minutes into the proceedings, Minnesota's Brad Johnson completed a long pass to the Washington five-yard-line, and (I think it was) Joe Theismann exclaimed, "Well, it's a good thing the strong safety was there, because otherwise that's a touchdown!

Oh really, I thought. So according to your brilliant, highly paid expert insight, Mr. Fucking Genius Color Guy, absent the only nearby defending player, the man who caught the ball would have actually been able to run unimpeded into the opposing goal? Gosh, I'm sure glad you're here to open my eyes, because I would otherwise have mistakenly believed that the man intended to throw the football into the stands, pull down his pants and fart into a bottle.

The camera panned around FedEx Field, picking out particularly moronic fans with painted faces, wearing ultra-stupid studded rubber chainmail and waving maces as if they believed themselves in a Rob Zombie video, shrieking and leering for the cameras. The Redskinettes pranced lunatically, with idiot grins pasted to their makeup-caked faces, their Barbie bellies, flatter than steel roadplates, flashing in the lights -- you know: eye candy. ABC unveiled its new method of introducing the starting players, which consisted of one of the Neanderthals mumbling the names of the other knuckle-draggers, with thuddingly unfunny humorous asides. This lasted slightly longer than the last Ice Age. Sober-faced and howlingly insincere references were made to the anniversary of September 11. Jamie Fox came into the announcers' booth and just went on and on and on and on and on with self-regarding, Hollywood-Asshole blather, while seeming irritated that play did not actually stop on the field so all in the stadium could bask in the glow of his gigantic, luminescent ego.

And I asked myself the question:

What, exactly, are you enjoying about this?

The cameras then found the owner's booth, and there, sitting with that revolting little gnome Daniel Snyder, was Tom Cruise and his Zombie Stepford Honey, and at that point I suddenly found myself falling, falling, falling out of love with the Washington Redskins.

I've been a follower of the team since 1966, the Lombardi Years, and stuck with them through good times and bad, through George Allen and Jack Pardee and Joe Gibbs I and Ritchie Petitbon, through Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer, through Edward Bennett Williams and The Squire, through Norv Miserable Turner and Jay Schroeder, Doug Williams, Mark Rypien, Stan Humphries, Rich Gannon, Cary Conklin, Heath Shuler, John Friesz, Gus Frerotte, Jeff Hostetler, Trent Green, Brad Johnson, Rodney Peete, Jeff George, Tony Banks, Kent Graham, Shane Matthews, Patrick Ramsey, Danny Wuerffel, Tim Hasselbeck and Rob Johnson.

And losing to a 2-14 dog-assed Dallas team about 40 times in a row.

And that horrible, awful, atavistic fucking racist fossil of a team name.

And Dan Snyder -- that Tom-Cruise-fellating, imperious Potomac-tree-clearing, filthy-money-grubbing, parking-gouging, traffic-snarling little sack of Napoleonic shit -- finally killed my love for the team.

So long, Skins. It was a good ride. I'll always remember Doug Williams. I'll always hate the dog-assed Cowboys, even if nobody else remembers a time when no one -- that's no one -- wore Dallas apparel in Washington and lived to tell about it.

So long.