When negotiations to keep the federal government open through Christmas collapsed last week, so did the latest attempt to build a new N.F.L. stadium in Washington. The federal government is perhaps the rare entity in the nation’s capital more dysfunctional than the region’s pro football team.
At 7-8, Washington will miss the playoffs for the 15th time in the 20 seasons since Dan Snyder bought the team in 1999. Alex Smith, the 34-year-old quarterback the Redskins signed for $111 million this off-season, fractured his tibia and fibula in November, then spent a month in the hospital fighting off an infection. The team’s current quarterback is Josh Johnson, who had last started a game in 2011 before taking over for Mark Sanchez — who had last started a game in 2015 — in Week 15.
With precious little salary cap room, next year’s outlook on the field isn’t any rosier. But it is also the constant self-inflicted, off-the-field controversies and indignities that have drained many fans in Washington of any enthusiasm they once had for the team.
“The fan base is just worn down, frustrated, completely fed up with the front office,” said Eric Bickel, a longtime fan and host of The Sports Junkies morning radio show in the area. “This was once a proud, heritage-filled franchise. There is a large percentage of the population here that has no experience with that.”
This year has been more of the same. In May, The New York Times reported on the increasingly risqué and uncomfortable work environment for Washington Redskins cheerleaders. They had been sent to events that included a booze-filled outing on the yacht of a season-ticket holder; sponsors and ticket holders had been invited to a photo shoot in which cheerleaders were topless; and cheerleaders had felt forced to accompany sponsors to a nightclub.
After an internal investigation, the team implemented a number of changes in its cheerleading program, though two former cheerleaders said it wasn’t nearly enough to eliminate a culture of harassment.
Then in November, after the San Francisco 49ers released linebacker Reuben Foster following his third arrest of the year — his second for domestic violence — Washington was reportedly the only team to put in a waiver claim for him. The team offered shifting explanations to an exasperated fan base about how much due diligence it had done on Foster.
Doug Williams, the senior vice president of player personnel, said the team had a number of conversations with Washington players who had been teammates with Foster at Alabama. But two of the five former Alabama players on the Redskins roster said they had not talked to the front office.
In a radio interview, Williams played down Foster’s legal issues. Afterward, he apologized to the team and “especially the ladies of this area and across the country” without specifying what he was apologizing for. The team also did not contact police in Tampa Bay — the site of Foster’s most recent arrest — to find out more about what he had been accused of.
In the latest example of Washington’s off-field problems, safety Montae Nicholson was arrested earlier this month and charged with assault. Video of the incident seemed to show Nicholson knocking a man out cold.
Tony Wyllie, a spokesman for the team, declined to make Snyder or any executives available for an interview for this story.
Whether because of the team’s lackluster play on the field or the constant embarrassments off it, fans are staying away. The team used to claim that it had over 200,000 fans on a season ticket waiting list. But before this season, it announced there was no season ticket waiting list, and over the last several years the Redskins have ripped about 10,000 seats out of FedEx Field, their home in suburban Maryland.
Entering their last home game of the season, on Sunday against the Eagles, Washington averaged fewer than 61,000 fans, 27th in the N.F.L. FedEx Field has been only 74 percent full this season, the lowest percentage in the league. Fans aren’t particularly motivated to watch at home, either: The team’s local television rating ranks 22nd in the league.
All of this is happening as the team is trying to replace FedEx Field, which is just 21 years old, newer than the stadiums of 10 N.F.L. teams.
The only location within Washington that makes any sense for a new home is the site of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, simply referred to as “R.F.K.” locally, where the team played for 35 years until 1996. The site is on land owned by the National Park Service, which has leased it through 2038 to Events DC, a quasi-public organization that manages several city sports venues.
Building a stadium that the team would play in for the next few decades would require either the city’s owning the site, or a longer lease. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that team and District of Columbia officials were attempting to have a provision added to the federal funding bill that would have extended the lease to 99 years. But a number of powerful lawmakers have objected to both the plans and the team’s name, which many consider a racist slur, and the efforts died along with the funding bill.
Events DC doesn’t seem to be excited to get the team back. “At Events DC, we remain agnostic regarding which long-term anchor scenario may occur on the site and are instead prioritizing the short-term development program — currently: multipurpose recreational fields,” said Gregory O’Dell, the president and chief executive of Events DC, in a statement.
In the meantime, Larry Hogan, the governor of Maryland, has been negotiating a land swap with the Department of the Interior in order to secure a new stadium site and keep the team in Maryland. He told reporters that the team would have to pay for construction of its stadium, however.
“We are not going to build a billionaire’s stadium, either,” Hogan said.
None of this — poor play, muddled stadium plans, off-field controversies — is anything new. Things were bad enough back in 2010 that The Washington City Paper, the local alt-weekly, published an article about Snyder that it billed as “an encyclopedia of the owner’s many failings.” They included selling bags of expired airline peanuts to fans, firing a beloved announcer and suing a 73-year-old grandmother and season ticket holder.
Snyder later sued The City Paper and the article’s author, Dave McKenna, before dropping his suit.
Washington hasn’t won a playoff game since the 1991 season, when it won the Super Bowl. Since Snyder took over, they are 139-179-1 and have never won more than 10 games in a season.
“The only time really where there was a sense of peace and somewhat harmony was the Joe Gibbs Two era,” said Bickel, referring to Gibbs’s second stint as head coach, from 2004 to 2007. “And while it wasn’t overly successful, Joe did bring a calmness and a stability to the franchise that they didn’t have.”
Forget winning. At this point, Washington fans are nostalgic for a time free of the tumult of bad headlines and constant embarrassments. They might be waiting for a while.
Email Kevin Draper at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @kevinmdraper.
Source: Read Full Article