Hope Springs Eternal

by Steve Thomas

First things first: on behalf of all of us at The Hog Sty, I would like to say thanks, and welcome, to the small but growing group of you who have joined us and have been listening to our podcasts over the past 6 weeks. We started this endeavor as an experiment to see whether five diehard Redskins fans without any contacts, insider information, or media training of any kind could create a competent and informative 60 – 90 minutes of talk a week about our favorite team that an audience would appreciate. Thusfar at least, it has been a success. We have received positive feedback from listeners who seem to be enjoying what we have been doing. Thanks for allowing us to take some of your time. Please stick with us! We will continue to make this project better every week, including as regular a stream of written material as we can muster. We are open to any comments, questions, topic ideas, or criticisms – constructive or otherwise – that you may have or want to get off your chest, so email us at TheHogSty@gmail.com, or hit us on Twitter @TheHogSty, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hailtothehogs.

But on to what I really wanted to say in our first blog post here at our new website.

In the past, every year around this time for as long as I can remember, most Redskins fans usually start to ramp up their excitement level in preparation for what we all hoped was another winning season. This fan base has been one of the most passionate in all of sports, going back to well before most of us have been alive. “The Streak” that we have all heard about – every game sold out since 1966 and counting – is something of which to be proud, for both the team and the fans alike. No other team in American professional sports can say that, and it speaks to the level of support that the Redskins have enjoyed from the residents of the Washington, D.C., area and beyond for almost 50 years. Together, over that period of time, we have been through good years, bad years, hall of fame careers, careers that barely got started, rivalry games, playoffs, conference championship games, Super Bowls, off-season drama, two changes of ownership (one of which you may not remember, depending on your age; I do not), countless coaches, the death of a beloved owner, the retirement of an icon (twice!), a new stadium, the tragic in-season passing of a legend, and head-scratching, self-inflicted public relations disasters.

My personal fandome goes back to the late 1970s, to the days of Billy Kilmer and Chris Hanburger – good times, but not great times. Each year since then, as winter ended, and spring turned into summer, my excitement for the season slowly grew, built on the possibility of continuing with the good season that had just ended, or the changes that had been made during the offseason to get us back where we belonged. During the 1980s, all Redskins fans could be assured of a competitive team that contended for the division title each year. Some years the players changed, or the style of play changed, but what was always present at that time was success and a commitment to excellence from the top down. From a fan’s perspective, it was quite simply the best of times for a team and its fans. Hope sprang eternal, with good reason.

During the 1990s, fans still harbored the same hope, albeit under a new regime – the title years were fresh, and the team always looked like it was ready to contend with a few simple tweaks. We had a new coach, a new general manager, a few great players, and were at one point an errant snap on a last-second field goal away from another shot at a conference title. During that time, each spring, the fans were able to hold onto the same feelings – hope always sprang eternal.

Remember the new stadium that the late Jack Kent Cooke built across the Beltway from the Cap Centre? At the time, the entire city was excited and dreamed of replicating the triumphs that had occurred at Washington’s Cathedral to football, RFK Stadium. The last game in the old place was, fittingly enough, a romping triumph over the Dallas Cowboys. We all cried a little bit that day, some at the stadium, most from home, but all with our hearts in the rickety old RFK. Hope still sprang eternal, borne from the promise of future success and glory in a brand-new, sparkling home in Maryland, a monument to the late, great Jack Kent Cooke.

As the late ‘90s came and went, and the 2000s arrived, even the chaos that reigned at Redskins Park in the form of a meddling, unlikeable new owner and his incompetent general manager-puppet in the form of the hated Vinny Cerrato, and a myriad of coaching changes and incomprehensible player signings could not stop the fans from buying into the hype and hope of success each and every year. The fans were strong enough to set aside prior bad results and keep faith in future possibilities. We, the fans, still believed in the possibility of the resurrection of past glories from the ashes of ruined seasons. Why? Because we were Redskins fans, and we remembered. In spite of everything, hope sprang eternal, each and every summer. Even after the smoldering dumpster fire of the Jim Zorn era, most vividly symbolized by the infamous swinging gate play, which showed the world that the franchise truly was a laughingstock, we still believed, lured this time by another hall of fame coach and a venerable name brought in to replace Vinny Cerrato as new president.

But something clearly changed, though, didn’t it? I think every fan, if asked when that moment occurred for them, would likely give a different answer. For me, that moment was the playoff game against Seattle in 2012 when Robert Griffin’s knee was injured. As we all painfully remember, in the first half of that game, the Redskins were rolling – the team was handling the Seahawks in the playoffs in a way that harkened back to an earlier era of Redskins football. However, watching the quarterback go down in a heap, with what everyone in the world knew was surely a torn ACL, burst my bubble. Since that moment, nothing has been the same. Ever since, I, along with an ever growing number of fans, have not been able to bring myself to believe in good fortune to come. I could no longer crow about the good things that were in the team’s future, and I could no longer bring myself to continue to proudly and naively predict 10 – 6 seasons.

To me, that moment represented the final straw that had been waiting to be pulled for what seemed like years. Drama, in-fighting, chaos, and incompetence ruled. The unique and powerful symmetry between a team and its city suffered what seemed to be an irreparable injury. In the three years since, Washington-area fans have found the Wizards, the Capitals, and particularly the Nationals in a way that has never been in this city for as long as I can remember. Ever since that fateful game against Seattle in 2012, that the Redskins have no longer had the heart of the city. At the end of the 2014 campaign a few months ago, fan apathy appeared to be at an all-time high. The vaunted season-ticket waiting list was not much of a list, and fans acted like the Redskins simply did not matter very much to them anymore. It took twenty years, but the team that had seemingly been doing its best to chase its diehard fans away had finally succeeded in a way that I never thought possible. It was the lowest of low moments.

Now, though, in the 2015 offseason, a new hope appeared on the horizon in the form of one Mr. Scot McCloughan. He is just one man, one career “football guy”, but his handling of the team in just a short time has provided hope that has been missing for quite a while. Finally, we have a person in charge who seems to have a long-term plan in mind, one that begins with building from the trenches on both sides of the ball with young and coachable players in order to establish an identity and core competence. We now have management that understands the value of the draft and the importance of developing and retaining home-grown players. Under Scot McCloughan, a player who performs well and serves the Redskins in an outstanding manner be will rewarded. Can anyone remember when the Redskins last held this philosophy? I am not sure I can.

Something just feels different this time, like a corner has been turned, finally, by a franchise that has been an NFL doormat for nearly a generation. Yes, there are plenty of issues to resolve, and the team has a long, long way to go in order to return to NFL prominence, starting with a coach who is seemingly over his head and a highly-drafted quarterback who might not have the skills to become a good NFL pocket passer. Yes, I predicted a 5 – 11 record this season in last week’s podcast, but I sincerely believe that the team will look decidedly better and will finally begin a journey down the long road to recovery.

So, as you spend your time listening to the Hog Sty argue about the merits of Robert Griffin, the coaching abilities of Jay Gruden, and the drafting philosophy of Scot McCloughan, just keep faith that this time, maybe, just maybe, the future finally looks bright once again. Hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?