This is year 35 . . . . what happened? How did we get here?
February 16, 2025
by Steve Thomas
I’m going to ask for your forgiveness now, because today’s column is more of a bunch of my random thoughts about this franchise more than anything else. I just thought I’d take some time to expound on my views on the Washington franchise, how we got to today and what the team can and should do in the future.
Do you remember where you were on the evening of January 26, 1992? I do. I was watching my beloved Washington Redskins defeat the Buffalo Bills by a score of 37 – 24. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock for the past three and a half decades, that was the last time Washington appeared in a Super Bowl. Next year’s Super Bowl will mark the 35th anniversary of that appearance. While I was watching Super Bowl LX, featuring the Seattle Seahawks at the New England Patriots, it dawned on me just how long it’s been since the Washington Redskins were a franchise that could produce sustained excellence. For those wondering, four teams have never appeared in a Super Bowl: the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Lions, the Houston Texans, and the Jacksonville Jaguars. Three other teams have had draughts longer than Washington:
- New York Jets, Super Bowl III, 1969
- Minnesota Vikings, Super Bowl XI, 1977
- Miami Dolphins, Super Bowl XIX, 1985
Since the 1992 Super Bowl, Washington has made eight playoff appearances, including 1999, 2005, 2007, 2012, 2015, and 2024. In that time, Washington has won just 5 playoff games, including the two last season, and just 1 at home in DC in 1999. That isn’t alot of success in quite a long period of time.
In 1999, the average price of gas in the United States was $1.20 per gallon, as opposed to approximately $2.85 per gallon last month. The federal debt was a comparatively tiny $4.065T, as compared to $38T today and is now growing at more than $6B per day (thanks for the wise money management, federal government!). The top-grossing movie of 1992 was Disney’s Aladdin, which grossed a total of $504M. I could go on and on – the point is, the last time the Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington was good, it was an entirely different world back then.
There aren’t many franchises which have fallen to the depths of despair as has Washington, nearly all of it being self-imposed. The Dan Snyder years started off in a negative light, with him taking possession of the franchise over the son of the late Jack Kent Cooke in 1999, and went down a dark, dark road after that. We all know the story, so I’m not going to repeat it here. The big picture is that the expectations of the fanbase were slowly destroyed over decades of mediocrity that devolved into an historic level of ineptitude. A few years ago, a disaster season following a playoff appearance would have been expected, not disappointing. However, expectations changed after Josh Harris assumed ownership. For a time, the fanbase truly believed that things had changed for the better, and the arrival of Jayden Daniels seemed to be the sign of things to come.
That’s why the fact that the team completely fell apart in 2025 was so distressing. The post-Snyder expectations were alleviated for the briefest of moments, only to be dashed once again. What happened? Some combination of a much tougher schedule, injuries, a poorly-constructed roster, and a fall of performance by the quarterback. All of that is explainable. The tougher aspect of the 2025 fall from grace is that it devastated fan expectations. The fanbase for a franchise with more sustained success would’ve experienced anger. Instead, here in Washington, it felt like some sort of resigned disappointment. What people thought was a revitalization instead came crashing down in typical fashion. Again. That sort of reaction what 30 years of horrible franchise management will do.
What can be done here? The only cure to what ails this franchise is some sustained success on the field. New management showing basic professionalism isn’t enough. Leadership needs to produce a young team that slowly builds and gets better each year. Fielding teams full of older players trending towards retirement will inevitably fail on a long-term basis. The need young talent, and they need Jayden Daniels to live up to the hype and become a top-quality quarterback again, for the rest of his career.
My personal fandom goes back to my dad and I going to Redskins games when I was very young in the late 1970s and 1980s. I was fortunate enough to attend the famous 1982 NFC Championship Game win over Dallas, and over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a couple of those players in private settings. The Redskins franchise was one of the highlights of my childhood. The fact that the team surrendered to the political climate of the day and not only erased the name of the team, but is essentially ignoring its history, remains unforgivable to me. I simply can’t arbitrarily root for what I view is an expansion franchise that also isn’t good. For me to come back, they’ve got to perform at a consistently high level.
Finally, the fact that the team is now marketing a new logo that includes spears seems to be an attempt to link to the past without actually using Native American imagery. The spears appear to me to actually give more of a “Roman Empire” vibe. No thanks. Until the team actually begins to embrace its past again, I’m not going to be drawn back in.
So what’s the future for this team? New logos with spears aren’t going to matter. Until leadership learns to build for the future with young, up and coming players, they are never going to have sustained excellence. All we’ll see is more of the same, meaning a year or two of better performance here or there, and that isn’t going to bring the fans back.