A newcomer and a die-hard both won’t be in the stands on Sunday at FedEx Field. The Burgundy Revolution finds followers from both ends.
Tim Brown finally gained Washington Redskins season tickets this fall after a 16-year wait. Ryan DeBonis drove from the Philadelphia area for five years, staying overnight for late games. Both expected to attend for many more years. Instead, they’re already out.
Brown is a transplanted Chicagoan who arrived locally in 1985 when the Redskins were in the midst of three Super Bowls under Joe Gibbs. The Cubs fan was caught up in the local team’s success and joined in. Finally, he bought four tickets in section 417.
Brown didn’t mind the mile high view, saying he could see one red zone well. Too bad the Redskins are seldom in it, but that didn’t drive Brown from coming anymore. Neither did the long walk from the gray lot parking where Brown tailgated for the first time with fellow Redskins fans.
“I don’t care if they lose,” said Brown, a project manager from Fairfax City, “but you can lose with character, with style points, with heart. This is like going to a football stadium and watching Dilbert.”
DeBonis is a rabid sports fan who seems to text message me from every venue in the mid-Atlantic. The grocery store chain executive’s home seemingly doubles as a Redskins shrine, but DeBonis tired of fan rowdiness and dirty conditions to keep paying $3,700 for a pair of lower bowl tickets.
“I’ve been to games in different stadiums and everything around it is so much better and clean and different,” DeBonis said. “The atmosphere was changing more and more of just drinking and drinking till you can’t walk. I love to tailgate and have a few beers and a cigar, but people were getting ignorant and belligerent.”
Brown has given away his remaining tickets. DeBonis is watching from his living room, too. The real question is what will it take for them, and many other Redskins fans, to return?
“Maybe if Dan Snyder got a little psychological counseling to buck himself up and just open his heart that this is not only bad for everyone, but it’s also embarrassing,” Brown said. “I want to hear Dan Snyder say, ‘It’s on me.'”
Said DeBonis: “If they put a consistent winning team on the field then I might think about it.”
Certainly, many fans will be thinking when it comes to renewals.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more at TheRickSniderReport.com and Twitter @Snide_Remarks or
e-mail [email protected].
