At what point is it time to say enough is enough?
At what point do you become so dejected that you start looking elsewhere to find happiness?
At what point do Washington Redskins fans look in the mirror and decide to literally throw in the towel, opting to brandish a new set of colors and cheer for a different team on Sundays?
For some, it was earlier this year when Team President Bruce Allen showed a glaring lack of awareness when he proclaimed that the culture in Washington was “actually damn good” in a press conference that announced the firing of head coach Jay Gruden. For others, it was several weeks later when the team once again added an ugly chapter to the Trent Williams Saga by going all year refusing to trade him and then subsequently putting him on the block less than 48 hours away from the NFL Trade Deadline.
In a new piece from the Washington Post’s Scott Allen, there are many fans in Washington that, after growing up deeply engrained in the #HTTR world, have found it impossible to continue their fandom beyond this point.
“It had been multiple things, from RG3 and the Scot McCloughan fiasco to the Kirk Cousins contract,” said Jason Simmons, a 33-year-old Washington D.C. native. “It was just like chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. That was it. I said ‘I can’t do it anymore.’”
These fans aren’t just quitting the Redskins, but many of them are finding solace in a new franchise; a better franchise; one that is close to home, and a heck of a lot closer to championship contention.
“I’ve had Ravens fans welcoming me,” said Andy Serwer, a 60-year-old editor in chief of Yahoo Finance, who announced in a column last month his decision to give up the Redskins. “I’ve had other people say they’re standing by the Redskins, but they can’t blame me and it’s hard. No one has accused me of being a rat jumping off a ship, although I suppose that would be apt.”
You may be reading this and whispering the word ‘traitor’ under your breath, and I suppose that’s accurate. You may still be waving your Burgundy & Gold flag every Sunday, holding out hope that at some point the team will be able to string together enough right decisions and find success at the end of this road of turmoil. You may be in it for the long haul, through thick and thin, never wavering.
But not all Redskins fans are like that; some are doubting the validity of their fandom, and deciding that the answer to that “when is it enough?” question is “right now.” Those people may be few and far between, but they are out there, and they’re growing by the week. That’s a major problem for Dan Snyder and the Washington Redskins, and unless ‘change’ is the answer, there doesn’t seem to be another solution in sight.
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