ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden, speaking to reporters Wednesday, on the advantage of opening before the hometown crowd at FedEx Field Monday night:
“I would like to think our fans are going to come out in big-time numbers,” Gruden said. “There is a lot to be excited about this year. Pittsburgh Steeler fans do travel well, but I imagine our crowd will be the majority. I would sure as heck hope so. Home field advantage this day and age in pro football I think is the greatest advantage in all of sports.
“Home field, man, it makes it very difficult for the opposing offense to communicate. A lot of silent stuff, defensive line can get off the snap a lot better, and the momentum swings are huge when you’re at home. We were 7-1 at home I believe last year and it’s an advantage we take very seriously and we’re proud of.”
It’s easy for him to say. Jay Gruden has only had to watch this team play 17 times at home (21 times if you include preseason, but do you really think he was paying attention to those games?). There are people in this area who have watched this team play nearly 200 games at that stadium.
They’ve seen Super Bowl-winning coaches, national championship-winning coaches, dictators, divas and dummies walk the sidelines orchestrating failure more than success — Norv Turner, Terry Robiskie, Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier, Jim Zorn and Mike Shanahan.
AUDIO: Redskins defensive lineman Ricky Jean-Francois with Thom Loverro
None of them — zero — ever connected with this fan base. None of them really understood what it mean to be a Redskins fan. None of them really felt like they were part of the community, like they understood your passion and pain. Heck, one of them didn’t even know the colors of the team when he was hired.
I don’t know if Jay Gruden understands, nor do I know if it is important for him to understand.
The one coach who did was one most beloved sports figure in the history of this team — the one who will likely be the first Redskins statue to be put up whenever someone decides to get in on the sports statue craze at Redskins Park — Joe Gibbs.
Yes, I know winning, and winning Super Bowls in particular, may be the only conscious connection fans care about with their football team, and Gibbs had that.
But he never lost sight of letting the fans know he was there with them in spirit in the stands — and that they, as much as Art Monk or Mark Rypien or Monte Coleman, were part of this team.
He talked about it all the time — the fans, the fans, the fans.
Before the Redskins playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings in January 1988 on their way to their second Super Bowl championship, Gibbs told reporters, “Minnesota is playing the best football in the NFL right now. It’s going to take everything we’ve got, and everything that every one of our fans has got, for us to win.”
Again, I get that the most important connection is winning, and that Redskins fans, at this point, would worship a coach who insulted them every week if he built a perennial winner. But that connection with fans is what gets you through the tough times. It’s the benefit of the doubt when things go south.
Barry Trotz has been here just as long as Jay Gruden — both coming on board for the 2014 season. Trotz has continued the Capitals tradition of early round Stanley Cup exits — a tradition he himself had in his previous stint in Nashville. Yet everyone loves Trotz. He has established a personal connection with his fan base that gives him the benefit of the doubt — even though the Capitals fan base, more than anyone in this town, has a right to be impatient. There has never been a Super Bowl era for the Washington Capitals.
Unlike his predecessor Shanahan, Gruden comes across as a friendly, likable guy. He, too, should have that connection building with the Redskins fans that Trotz seems to have with this town.
Maybe it was the RG III war that the coach engaged in after he arrived — following the expectations after he was hired that he would fix Griffin. No one was more critical publicly of the quarterback than Gruden and that created some bitters feelings among Redskins fans that remain today for some.
After all, on the eve of his first regular season game for the Washington Redskins, Jay Gruden told fans about Griffin, “I think it’s started to click.”
As we know, it didn’t. It crashed.
If it is going to click for Jay Gruden and Redskins fans, he’s going to have to start beating teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers, because the benefit of the doubt may have crashed as well.
• Thom Loverro is the host of the “Cigars & Curveballs” podcast, available on iTunes and Google Play.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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