From the official Washington Commanders Twitter Account:
The future of Washington football is here #TakeCommand pic.twitter.com/MwkCLTkVAA
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) February 2, 2022
(Featured image is “Football Cupcakes” by DixieBelleCupcakeCafe and is licensed under Creative Commons.)
Washington Goes Commando!!!
Football guru Paul Zimmerman told a story about an unpopular new QB that the other team members wanted to get rid of. Before practice, the veteran center dressed without a jock strap or cup and cut the crotch out of his pants. While he was standing up, nobody could see this, but when the QB lined up behind the center to take the snap (the shotgun wasn’t used much in those days) and he tried to place his hands in the usual place, he saw the center’s junk hanging out and set his hands farther back. The snap, predictably, went flying into the backfield. The coached was pissed and, when it happened again on the next snap, the QB was as good as gone.
Commandos would have been far cooler. Commandos are tough. Commanders are just egotists who think they’re above the rules. What am I saying, the Commanders is a perfect name for the team.
Terrible, just terrible, but could have been worse. Still I may need to go from fan to well wisher. In that I wish them no specific harm. Except for Snyder of course.
Not going to be a Commie fan from the get go?
This is the last interregnum that you’ll be able to say “The Commies have never been tried”.
Oh I imagine I’ll get talked back into it at some point. And thankfully the real communists in China have enough hatred for bourgeois things like IP that I imagine I’ll be able to still get unlicensed Redskins gear in perpetuity (as though I don’t already have enough).
I will say the best silver lining is all of the Soviet propaganda memes on social media. They’ve given me something to laugh about on what is otherwise a sad day.
You’re not giving up on the Redskins; they’re gone. The question is are you prepared to follow Dan Snyder to a newly-created team with a lot of bad players in a price-gouging stadium?
This actually gets into an interesting question.
I was told that it was inappropriate for a fellow to change teams. Like, the circumstances under which you can change teams are limited to more or less three circumstances:
1. You marry into a family that has a particular team. (Appropriate for women, less appropriate for men but sometimes allowances can be made. Hey, I’m just reporting this. I’m not the guy who wrote the rules.)
2. You move. (Marginally appropriate. Nothing will be held against you if you don’t change teams. But this is an option to change teams without much grumbling.)
3. The team moves. (If it is a hometown or home region team, it is presumptive that one changes teams. If one lives well outside of the district, It downgrades to merely okay to do so. My brother-in-law, for example, is a Raiders fan. He did not change teams when the team moved to Las Vegas. But I imagine that there were a ton of Oakland residents who were stuck trying to figure out if they were going to be Rams fans.)
WARSHINGTON CHANGES NAMES.
IS THIS A #4?!?!?
My personal sports loyalty ethics say no, this is not a #4, but you can drop out of specific team fandom.
The Raiders situation is interesting especially since they were in LA for awhile. I would say the people in Oakland can justify whatever they want at this point. The closest thing to them is of course 49ers but my guess is they have inter regional bad blood that would make it difficult. LA allows them to support a divisional rival of SF though.
49ers-Raiders isn’t a civil war the way Giants-As is, I think because the two teams have never been good at the same time. There was some overlap in the ear’y 80s, but then the Raiders move to LA. (There was almost a 49ers/Raiders Super Bowl, but Washington won the NFC championship thanks to some highly questionable PI calls.)
Loophole: They added DC to the official name. So they sort of moved. They are now the Washington DC Commanders…
So bring it on Ravens/Panthers/Steelers…
I say this as a Bears Fan who did not invoke Rule #2.
There’s no greater joy than rooting for a non-home team.
That might get me to agree that it’s a #4.
“I no longer identify with the Warshington DC Commanders. I wish them well and hope they have a 1-14-1 season next year.”
As a fellow INT-, I don’t understand team loyalty. (I’m guessing that you needed someone to conceptualize it for you.) I’ve rooted for players and coaches, and sometimes against fanbases. That’s it. The exception is the Packers with their community ownership structure. You’ve got to love them if you understand what it means to be a man.
I didn’t really understand it until 97 or 98. The first Broncos Superbowl win.
I was visiting family back in Michigan during Superbowl weekend and they were playing the Packers.
I made a joke about watching the Broncos win on Sunday and the cousins just out of nowhere started arguing with me. We were there because my Grandfather was on his deathbed and arguing about football gave us all a little bit of perfect normalcy in this sad little waystation we were passing through.
Now, of course, I know enough about football to be able to distinguish between “yay Broncos” and “Elway was a good QB” and “Elway and Davis and Sharpe work well together” and “Shanahan and Elway and Davis and Sharpe work well together”.
And Tebow explained to me that Football was Pro Wrestling for people not inclined to be theater kids.
It’s built on emotion. When I was a little boy my dad took me to see a game at RFK. I remember the big party at my aunt and uncle’s house for the ’92 Super Bowl. The old lady who babysat my brothers was related to a Hogette, and he gave us all kinds of memorabilia when we were kids. I snuck one of my brothers his first beer at a tailgate party at FedEx, and went to the first game played there against Dallas when it was JKC stadium. And a million more memories like that.
It ain’t rational but is wrapped up in a lot of really important stuff.
I’m an INTJ. I read something about emotions once. Actually, I’m glad to hear that a longtime Redskins fan like yourself can still feel something inside.
When football is on tv I will watch it. I am in the market so in that sense I imagine I will be. I stopped buying merchandise years ago because of ownership, but admittedly have been talked into attending a game here and there. At least the tailgating is fun.
The big challenge will be if my son gets into it. He is already ‘football aware’ and I will not have one of those households that rationalizes rooting for a non-home team. The best case scenario for me is Snyder moving the team to London and us getting an expansion.
They will always be Washington [REDACTED] to me.
An organization where everyone is a commander reminds me of those farce Latin American insurgencies where everyone is a colonel.
A scene from Taxi:
Latka, watching football: “Why are dey called de Giants? Dey are de same size as de ozzer team. And dese are called Redskins but dey are almost all black!”