Allen shows confidence as he hands out turkeys Bruce Allen was in his element, greeting folks with a burst of holiday enthusiasm, usually a loud, “How are you!”
For a moment it was as if the Redskins general manager had truly forgotten about his team’s six-game losing streak as he handed out some of the 3,500 turkeys that the team provided to needy Prince George’s County families at its ninth annual giveaway at FedEx Field on Tuesday.
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“Your memory gets very short in the NFL,” Allen said. “So we remember the overtime against Dallas, and that’s unfortunate. But the great thing is very soon we go to Seattle and we can redeem ourselves.”
Team owner Daniel Snyder, clad in a black Redskins T-shirt, black Redskins baseball cap with “21” on the front and a heavy, black Redskins coat, did not take questions from reporters as he thanked event sponsors before handing out turkeys to the crowd. The Redskins (3-7) are in the midst of their longest skid since Snyder took over the team before the 1999 season. In 1998, Washington started the year 0-7.
Allen recalled staging smaller turkey giveaways inside of local grocery stores when his father, George Allen, was the team’s coach and said Tuesday’s activities had the chance to reach 22,000 people.
He briefly addressed the state of the current team with guarded optimism.
“I see an opportunity to win this week,” he said. “We had an opportunity to win last week, and we didn’t close it out, and this week we’ve got to do that.”
He refrained from an overt endorsement when asked about his thoughts on coach Mike Shanahan.
“He’s very focused,” Allen said. “He had a great team meeting yesterday with the players, and they are focused for the Seattle game. If we can bring some of the good we did last week to Seattle, we can come back with a win.”
