Rick Snider: A perfect time for the Redskins' bye week
By: Rick Snider
Examiner Sports Columnist
October 28, 2009
The bye week can't happen soon enough for the Washington Redskins.
Players departed after Tuesday meetings. They get five days away from the madness and want every minute. Surely more than one will second-guess their decision to board a return flight on Sunday.
There's nothing to come back to for them. There's nothing for fans to return after finding something else to do on Sunday. Good luck to those watching good teams on TV instead. That will really anger them.
Everyone just wants to move on to 2010 and hope for better days. Then again, why should 2010 be any better than 2008 when owner Dan Snyder couldn't find a big-name coach to take over the team? If Snyder doesn't change his personnel system, it's all for naught, like a fat man eating a candy bar while on a treadmill, which I've seen, and it wasn't in front of a mirror.
Fans are finally realizing they've been played by the grandest fantasy league player in world history. Snyder wants to win, but he wants to win his way. And when the definition of madness is to do the same things over and over expecting a different result, then the Redskins are certainly amid madness.
Fan unrest could be turned into the second coming of Les Miserables. Find three tenors for vice president Vinny Cerrato, coach Jim Zorn and Snyder and you have a tragedy on turf with someone stabbed in the back. Maybe two bodies.
There's talk of boycotts, but some fans are instead donning messages on shirts and signs that reportedly make security guards see red. And these are the people who still care enough to come. The last two games have seen massive no-shows despite official crowd counts.
You have a feeling fans gathered at Dulles International Airport for player departures -- wishing them a good trip and warning not to return.
There's nothing to come back to for the final nine games except more misery. Maybe the team can duplicate 1998 when returning from an 0-7 start to win 6 of 9. But then, this time the schedule gets much harder than the past turnaround. Washington faces eight playoff contenders and Oakland.
The offense didn't greatly benefit from a new playcaller. It took special teams plays to set up the Redskins' only touchdowns in the 27-17 loss to Philadelphia on Monday. Now playmaker Chris Cooley could be out for the season with a broken ankle. Bernie Madoff had fewer holes in his gameplan.
The Redskins will spend the weekend forgetting football. After all, it has been pretty forgettable.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com or e-mail rsnider@washingtonexaminer.com.
