Why the Redskins Will Kill Me – Week 6

Boy, I’ll tell ya, some days… One of these days it’s just gonna be like…[mimics sound of machine gun fire]
-Peter Gibbons, Office Space

I guess Peter was a Skins fan.

So who’s up for it? I know we all like to think we bleed burgundy and gold, but is anyone out there actually fan enough to pull a Tom Berenger, “One shot, one kill” on Ol’ Danny Boy? I’m not advocating violence against Dan Snyder. I’m simply pointing out that there isn’t a jury within 100 miles of Washington, DC that would convict you if you went that route. And I’d write a bitching article about you, to boot.

Writing about the Redskins has become a real chore. I mean how many ways can you write that a team needs to have its owner, general manager, coach and quarterback rendered into Soylent Green and fed to a fan base that, after today’s loss, I’m confident in saying is bearing witness to the most pathetic days in team history? I have made more searches on thesaurus.com for synonyms to words like “disappointing,” “underachieving” and “failure” in order to write my articles than the Redskins have had three and outs this season. For those of you that pee sitting down, that means it’s happened a lot.




At this stage of the season, I have tried to numb myself as much as possible to the fact that the team I grew up loving is in a dead heat with the Raiders for the role of league’s urinal. Mercifully, the networks broadcasting Redskins games have made things a little better the past two weeks: Last week, FOX’s signal scrambled like the Playboy channel for easily a quarter, giving me an excuse to bail to the Ravens-Bengals game. This week, CBS completely lost their feed and started broadcasting the Ravens once more, who were this time playing the Vikings. I felt like a man married to Roseanne Barr who suddenly had Eva Mendes fall in his lap. So this was the magical game they call “football?” How exciting it was to behold! Oh, how I wished to someday watch it again! Unfortunately, the feed was eventually fixed, and I was again saddled with my fat, asexual, burgundy and gold wife.


There is something shameful I did during the course of this game that I’m going to confess: When Jason Campbell was benched in favor of Todd Collins, and Collins’ threw that first pass, 42-yard dagger to Santana Moss, I actually…believed. I naively thought in that moment that Jim Zorn may have saved our season (actually, I came so hard in my shorts that it looked like I’d spilled clam chowder in my lap, but “believed” sounds much classier). Thankfully, Collins sucked for the rest of the game and I quickly re-learned my lesson about ever investing my hopes in the Redskins. But still, it stung.

So what is most likely to come in the next few weeks for the Redskins? Jim Zorn is as good as gone after the bye week. The fallout should be impressive, given he’s also the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. For all we know he was also cleaning jock straps and helping fry the $14.99 chicken finger platters they sell at FedEx Field. Either way, his departure is going to leave a massive hole in the organization. Thankfully, the team has a quarterback with a burning passion for the game that has displayed incredible cool on the playing field and whose amazing focus is going to lead them through these bleak times. Wait. Crap. I was thinking of the Vikings’ quarterback. The Skins are boned. But, if you can, watch that Vikings guy. He’s awesome.

In case you didn’t get the “Chappelle’s Show” reference above. Enjoy.

Tagged as: Brett Favre, Dan Snyder, Jason Campbell, Office Space, Peter Gibbons, Ravens, Redskins, Santana Moss, Todd Collins