Why the Redskins Will Kill Me-Week 10

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:04:18 +0000

In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1997 opus Batman & Robin, his character, Mr. Freeze, spoke the following profundity: “In this universe, there’s only one absolute… everything freezes!” And, like every other utterance that has come out of that man’s teutonic gullet, be it “If it bleeds, we can kill it” or “It’s not a tumor,” it was proven correct. For on Sunday afternoon, Hell froze over. The Redskins won a game.

I'm a student of the Dom DeLuise school of coping.

Like any sane individual, I was fully prepared for a Redskins loss. I had advised my mom to pick against them in her office football pool and had ordered a titanic sausage pizza that I intended to sit and eat with more and more fervor as the game state progressively worsened in order to make myself stop feeling pain. And, in the game’s early stages, my plan seemed flawless. Redskins down by a touchdown? Bam, a slice down the hatch. The Redskins’ secondary looking positively pathetic and giving up a second, massive pass to Brandon Marshall? I didn’t even waste time chewing that slice: It’d just get in the way of me getting my medicine!

I had another slice wrapped up on itself like an egg roll so I could take it as a suppository in case the Redskins botched something else and my stomach was too stuffed for more medicine when the unthinkable happened: The Redskins converted on a trick play by their punter, Hunter Smith, who lobbed a beautiful pass that seemed to hang in the air forever. And, as the Redskins tied the score at 14-all, I felt reborn.

Yeah, it was kinda like that.

The tears fell like I had just seen the Baby Jesus or a woman undressing in my bedroom after an unfathomably long dry spell. I hurled the rolled-up slice of pizza in my hand across the room, disgusted at how far I had fallen, at what fate had reduced myself and my once-proud team to. There would be no ass-pizza on this day! As the game progressed and the Redskins continued to play tenaciously, long-forgotten behaviors slowly came back to me: A friend’s Facebook status, which read “At the Skins game!” was greeted with my comment of “I’m jealous!” instead of my usual “Thanks for financially supporting the infidel whore who has corrupted the team which I grew up worshiping!” I actively rooted against an opposing quarterback in a losing situation, in this case, Chris Simms, architect of at least one painful Redskins defeat as a Buccaneer. With every hit he took, I howled with delight, determined to see him get sacked so hard that his surgically repaired spleen shot out of his rectum.

Hudson, I'm going to miss you most of all.

As the final moments wound down and the Redskins’ victory was assured, I felt…well, I’ll quote Jim Zorn for that one: “We’ve had a desert experience – very arid, if you will – for the last few weeks. To be able to come out with a win, you almost don’t know how to feel.” And he’s absolutely right. I’ve been witness to a lot of crappy Redskins teams this past decade, but I can’t recall a time when I have ever felt such apathy toward their entire season, such a belief that they were doomed to lose every game they played. To taste victory again, to see the team play with heart for a full 60 minutes, has added a bittersweet quality to the remainder of the season for me. Because, barring a miracle, the majority of these guys are going to be gone at the end of the season. It’s like watching Aliens for the millionth time: You know pretty much all of the space marines are going to die by the end. But you hope against hope that, somehow, this will be the time they pull it out.

This victory combined with the Cowboys’ loss has made next week’s game in Dallas infinitely more compelling. Do I think the Redskins are going to make it two in a row? No, probably not. But I’m not 100% convinced that they’re going to lose, either. And that means, when it comes time to order a pizza, I’ll only be going with a medium.

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Why the Redskins Will Kill Me-Week 10