Here’s how Ted Abela was getting his giddy on five days before the Washington Redskins kick off their unexpected appearance in the NFL postseason: He had lunch in a vacant parking lot. Abela, a season ticket holder, pulled into his usual Orange Lot space at FedEx Field on Tuesday just to commune with the empty asphalt.
“Sometimes when I need a boost, I drive by,” explained Abela, an engineer from Washington and lifelong Redskins fan. “I’m definitely getting ready.”
Hey, it may not be painting your body burgundy and gold and streaking through Dupont Circle. But for a fan base that has been traumatized, dramatized and spirit-crushed by their star-crossed franchise in recent years (okay, a generation), eating a doughnut outside a silent stadium pretty much sums up the cautiously happy way Redskins lovers are bracing for . . . whatever happens next.
“I really want to be thrilled because it’s so unexpected,” said Brian Gregory, 25, a management consultant who lives in Chinatown. “I’ve never seen a Washington sports team win a championship. But I just have an impending sense of ‘Oh God, what’s going to go wrong?’ I think that’s keeping people from going too crazy yet.”
There’s no question that Redskins Nation has grown increasingly animated as a team that many had written off before the first game has shocked them with its success. As the sleeper Redskins climbed to the top of a feeble division and locked up a postseason spot, sales of Redskins merchandise jumped by almost a third over the previous year, according to sales data.
“It seems like it didn’t really take hold until they got that playoff berth, and then stuff started flying off the shelf faster,” said Ryan Sullivan, retail analyst for SportsOneSource.
Abela has tracked the growing fervor through the watch parties he organizes for away games. At his first one, against New England, the crowd was small, and they had to beg for the sound to be turned up at the bar TVs. By the last, the delightful season-capper against the Cowboys, the broadcast was drowned out by the door-busting crowd at Brickside Food and Drink in Bethesda, and even the servers were riveted to the screen.
“No one cared if their food was late,” Abela said, who spent the next day driving to four different Modell’s Sporting Goods stores in search of the fast-selling NFC Eastern Division Champions T-shirt.
Gregory said the Redskins were a nonentity on his morning commute until recently. But Wednesday morning, he noted more than a dozen Redskins hats on his walk to the Gallery Place Metro station. And there, the station manager, a police officer and a passenger were arguing at the fare gates about quarterback Kirk Cousins, and the train driver was leaning out of his window to declare the Redskins “Super Bowl bound.”
“Some guy at the Green Turtle almost broke my arm with a high-five during the last game, and that was after they’d already taken Cousins out,” Gregory said. “People are feeling it.”
But beneath the buzz lurks a deep well of doubt, according to Eric Bickel, one of the “Sports Junkies” on 106.7 The Fan. Unlike previous playoff years, even eager fans seem to be holding back.
“This is a battered fan base,” said Bickel, leaning back in a Nats cap during a break from the show Wednesday. A view of the Capitol Dome out the window of the Southeast Washington studio was being slowly eclipsed by the condos under construction next door. “Everyone is just cautiously optimistic.”
The four-hour morning show is a daily town hall of Redskins ferment. And while call volume and ratings have climbed with the team’s march to the playoffs, according to program manager Chris Kinard, the fans sounding off Wednesday made it clear this wasn’t like previous years.
When the on-air light popped back on, co-host Jason “Lurch” Bishop opened the phones to fans who have been deeply seasoned by dreary seasons. Gone is the blind optimism that greeted previous playoff appearances, even though the Redskins are hosting a struggling Green Bay Packers team, and oddsmakers rate the game as a near toss-up. In style is the long view that, win or lose, the team is slowing going from bust to building.
Kay in Beltsville: “I think the fans are cautiously optimistic. I don’t think they want to get their hearts broke. I’m up and down.”
Carlos in Woodbridge: “It feels like Redskins fans are kinda ‘Eh, if we win, we win; if we lost, whatever.’ ”
Eric in Alexandria. “You gotta say that 2012 was better than this because we waited so long to get into another playoff.”
The team’s last postseason game in 2012 still looms large in the collective fan psyche. Quarterback Robert Griffin III was hailed as a superstar franchise savior and looked ready to deliver on the hype until he — along with city’s hopes and dreams — crumbled to the turf at the end of the losing first-round game against the Seattle Seahawks. Griffin’s ACL healed, but many fans are still limping.
“That just killed me; I’m still feeling that in my chest,” said Stanley Avila, a federal employee who was sporting a Redskins cap in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday. “Used to be, I’d be wearing my Redskins coat and my jersey, too. But I don’t feel it yet. If they win [Sunday], we’ll all go nuts.”
With the Redskins, nothing is simple, not even the joy of a 9-7 season. Bishop said the morning show hears from black fans who think race has played a role in the benching of Griffin — who is black — and the burgeoning hero worship of Cousins, who is white.
“It’s out there,” Bishop said. “A lot of black fans still think RGIII should be the guy.”
And some fans leaven the pleasures of victory with their disdain for the team name, which they consider a slur against Native Americans. Ian Washburn, a real estate broker from Arlington, is a diehard fan who is maintaining his boycott of FedEx Field even though he has a seat at the game — season tickets that he inherited from his grandfather.
“I’ll be cheering from home,” Washburn said. “I couldn’t be happier with the direction of the team.”
Redskins fans are like newly conservative investors, no longer trying to win it all on a risky tech start-up. Instead, they’re banking on blue chip stocks and solid bonds that will yield benefits over time.
Abela, who is famous for his lavish tailgate spreads, said his current favorite players aren’t even on the field right now. They’re on the staff.
“I’m mostly excited about the front office,” he said. “This seems like a bunch of people who know what they’re doing. The future looks bright.”
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