Not Your Father's Redskins

[-Om-]

I hope it's appropriate to post this here ...

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Not Your Father's Redskins
Friday, August 1, 2008

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote about my favorite football team.

On a personal level (might as well get this out of the way up top), at the time I was still writing for Redskins.com, by and through the auspices of Extremeskins, the teams’ official message board. For a variety of reasons I won’t get into, that is no longer the case. Instead, at least for a while, I’m going to channel my burgundy and gold addiction through this blog.

To those of you who have been kind enough to ask, I honestly have no idea what the future holds in that regard. And as to this blog, while I have hopes some will choose to read it, I have no real expectations. The Skins blogosphere is already a robust one, so adding one more entry to the rolls may or may not register any noticeable impact. I also know my style isn’t for everybody. What I do know is I needed an outlet for my addiction, so here we are.

And that’s all I have to day about that.

Far more interesting are the changes that have taken place at Redskins Park since January. It would be hard to understate them.

When I last sat down to write about them, the Redskins had just finished a wildly emotional and equally improbable season-ending run to the playoffs. Through funeral tears, Bears, Giants, Vikings and Cowboys, the team wrote a storybook ending to their year you’d surely reject as ‘too Hollywood’ were sifting through screenplays.

In a classic Gibbsian late-season surge, the old legend himself had, for the second time in three years, willed a wounded, undermanned team to the post season.

The young QB Apparent, Jason Campbell, had fallen to season-ending injury in Week 13, leading in turn to the deus ex machina-esque appearance of perennial bridesmaid Todd Collins, who breathed life and fire into former Offensive Coordinator Al Saunders’ suddenly dangerous offense. In those heady few weeds, what the future held at the quarterback position in Washington became an even more intriguing question than before.

Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams’ defense, despite all manner of walking wounded and outright missing parts, had tightened up and were playing legitimate NFL post-season level defense. In their last three games, dominating the NY Giants in the Meadowlands, stifling Minnesota on the road and rolling Dallas at home, they looked capable of playing deep into January.

Just ahead lay the Seattle Seahawks, and had Washington’s karmic run continued another week, perhaps another date with nemesis Dallas, a team NFL observers generally agreed at the time wanted nothing to do with the Redskins again.

Largely gone was the public perception around the football world of the Washington Redskins as “Dan Snyder’s fantasy team.” In its place was a growing perception--for better or for worse depending on if your cup tends to half empty of half full--as “Joe Gibbs’ Redskins.”

It was impossible to imagine then, even as the magic ride ended in a flurry of late-game mishaps and mistakes in the cold Seattle night, just how different the burgundy and gold landscape would look seven short months later.

Which brings us to this weekend ...


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