If you find yourself confronted with an NFL postseason without a rooting interest and unmoved by Don Cheadle soliloquies, you must draw from the well of that most powerful of human emotions. Ok, well, lust probably won't do here. But the second most powerful, hate, will serve as a fine proxy. This is the first in a series of posts filled with bile, spleen, vitriol and all-around nastiness toward all the teams involved with the sordid roundelay we know as the NFL Playoffs.NFC 6th Seed -- Washington Redskins (9-7)
There are several factors that might make it difficult for me to root against the Redskins: the death of Sean Taylor, the fact that Shawn Springs went to my high school, that my mother, uncle and many of my friends are fans. But it is, in truth, not really all that hard at all.
There's always the all-too-easy litany of charges against them: the megalomaniacal imp Dan Snyder (who blocks out other games in the time slot when the 'Skins are on), the team's racialist name, its fanbase of Blackberry-toting doucheocrats, the Dead Tree Crew and FedEx Field being a slightly more unpleasant experience than Dachau and about as easy to get to as the Kwik-E-Mart corporate headquarters.
If that doesn't prove sufficient, I can always draw upon this chestnut: In January of 1992, when I was in 4th grade, the week before the Redskins beat the Bills in Super Bowl XXVI, my school had an assembly where we did nothing but sing "Hail to the Redskins" for an hour. ON LOOP. FOR A FUCKING HOUR. The song is less than two minutes long. Such is the torpor-based education you get in public schooling in Maryland, I s'pose.
Did you know they won their playoff clinching game by 21 points? And that Sean Taylor wore the number 21? You know who'll be sure to remind me? The woman who rings up my groceries. The UPS guy. The guy who hits me changing lanes on the Beltway. My drug dealer. Someone looking at DVDs next to me at Best Buy. The stick up kid who steals the DVD from me when I leave the store. The cop who takes my statement. The guy at the gun store. The people who I rob when I turn into a vigilante.
-There she is. The world's first convenience store.
ReplyDelete-This isn't very convenient.
-Must you dump on everything we do?
4th grade in 1992. I'm old.
ReplyDelete"FedEx Field being a slightly more unpleasant experience than Dachau"
ReplyDelete+1
If it makes you feel better, upstate underdog, he was 12 years old.
ReplyDeleteOutstanding, Ape.
ReplyDeleteI remember my last trip to Fedex when they took on the Lions earlier this year. Our entire section was filled with the Second Coming of the Dead Tree Crew. It was horrifying that I was rooting for the same team. (I brought my friend who was a Lions fan. I think he still hates Eagles fans more, but only just.)
Plus 2+1=3 which Joe Gibbs told me is Jesus's lucky number or something.
ReplyDeleteThe douchieness of Redskins fans is criminally overlooked.
ReplyDeleteTalk about a "God wants us to win, we deserve it" mentality . . . ugh.
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ReplyDeleteOh god... I can't stand people who engage in compulsive numerology or other such superstitions to explain why sports victories are destined to happen. Even as a lifelong Sox fan I wanted to punch every single person who reminded me about the 2004 ALCS when we were down by 3-1 to the Indians this postseason. "No, no, don't ya remembah? We gotta win it in seven, just like in oh-fowah! Remembah? When Pedro beat up Don Zimmah?" Thanks, dude, because obviously I a) have been living in a cave on Mars with my fingers in my ears and my eyes shut for the last decade, and b) would rather find stupid reasons that my team HAS to win than watch and hope that my team does well and gets the win they've earned with stellar play all season. GUHH.
ReplyDelete(Note: I took this down because it sounded so bitchy, but then I decided ah, fuck it. Happy New Year's.)
All this numerology stuff reminds me how much I enjoyed hearing the Wu-Tang Clan talk about the significance of the 36 Chambers. I mean, they REALLY thought about that shit.
ReplyDeleteA Todd Collins/Tom Brady Super Bowl would lift this Michigan fan to an unprecedented level of smugness.
ReplyDeleteGrimey,
ReplyDelete"If you wanna get into numbers, then there's 9 members of Wu-Tang, and 4 chambers in the heart. 9x4=36. 36x10=360. 360 degrees in a circle"...umm, what?!
I saw that too. Rza really got deep, yet failed to mention what ODB's role was other than comic relief.
-Threadjack
ReplyDeleteI know I'm a little late (68 hours) but did The Sports Gal rip TSG appart worse than anything I've ever seen here or on deadspin...or is it just me.
When you're wife calls you a sperm donor to the world, isnt that grounds for divorce?
My Texans are 8-8, dead last in their division without a prayer of sniffing the playoffs. Oh yeah, and the other 3 teams in the AFC South are going to the playoffs. Fuck I hate my division. Why can't we be in the NFC South?!?
ReplyDeleteTotally off topic, but I just had to get that off my chest before the year ended.
As you were...
Don Cheadle moves me.
ReplyDelete4th grade in 1992. I'm old.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that. I was a sophomore in college back then.
"When I was twenty, I drank some very good beer...."
Otto, I was a junior. Now get off my snow covered lawn !
ReplyDelete4th grade in 1992. I'm old.
ReplyDeleteAmen to that. I was a sophomore in college back then.
Heck, I must be ancient then....I was getting married for the first time then....I think I was drinking them too....yeah, I was...
If I had spent only 4 years in college, I would have been graduating in 1992!
ReplyDelete/1995
Yeah, I had fun.
i was 13 in 1992 and merely prayed my Bills wouldn't be embarrassed that year after such a crushing loss the year before but MOSTLY strangely worried the Bills would somehow return to the Superbowl the next 2 years and get thoroughly demolished by a team full of coke-heads, future 'announcers' who need to "sneak more dearly," and that fat dude who Don Beebe stripped the ball from while he was asshatting his way toward the endzone.
ReplyDeletegood times.
I'm with you ferd, I had to suffer through 3 of those 4 loses my last 3 years in college. Ah, the early 90's when the Bills were good and the pats sucked.
ReplyDelete@ Ape...and as of now there are 21 comments on this thread.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait, fuck. Forget it.
The Redskins are the only team in their time slot if they sell out a home game. That's part of the blackout rules. Applies to every team, and in every NFL market.
ReplyDeleteAh, well. I refer you to the other 5,478 reasons why Snyder is unlikeable then.
ReplyDeleteGood shit Ape. And you are one young bastard. In January 1992, I was in my 2nd year of college. In September 1992, 3rd year. You gotta love being underage and walking around campus with gin and juice in a water bottle just to fool 5-0.
ReplyDeleteOh and Redskins fans? Savor that win for a week until the Seahawks get in that ass. Then your numerology means shit.
Go Cowboys!
Ape, that is hilarious because I definitely had to sit through a Redskins assembly in 4th grade, too, although I don't think we had to sing the song for the whole hour.
ReplyDelete@jackin4beats: ...Like the Seahawks got in your ass last year?
ReplyDeleteI went to preschool in Arlington and they taught us "Hail to the Redskins" before they taught us the goddam Pledge of Allegiance.
ReplyDeleteI hate to defend Ape, but on Sundays, Snyder does black out everything not Redskinated on every sports radio stations within a hundred miles of DC. It's easy--he owns them all.
ReplyDeleteAnd Ape? I'm really sorry that you went to elementary school in Surrattsville. Really, that just sucks Theismann. But I'm still not paying reparations.
In 1992, I was 5 and wore Chicago Bulls elastic pants to school. I went to Catholic school, so the only thing we hailed at pep rallys was the sweet love of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteIt's okay - we had that exact same pep rally in private school. It was the only time anyone in my school ever admitted to watching a football game.
ReplyDelete