For my entire conscious life, being a fan of the team known sequentially as the Redskins, the Washington Football Team, or the Commanders was cosmic punishment.

Being a supporter of this team meant meditating on what communal sin or inner flaw one’s investment of time and emotion was paying for. Each failed season raised the inevitable questions of what have we done to deserve this and why are we doing this to ourselves, for which there was never a shortage of possible answers. A year of John Beck as starting quarterback, a half-decade with a lesser Gruden brother as head coach, a high-stakes gamble on the incompetent Dwayne Haskins, who is literally dead now — none of this could be without meaning.