ANALYSIS/OPINION
Who speaks for the Washington Redskins fan?
How about Dr. Seuss?
“How did it get so late so soon?” the great doctor said of the concept of time. “It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”
How did it get so late so soon? How did it get that this franchise is now entering yet another season with the same question as always, the question that always gets asked.
Are they any good?
The fans of their opponent in the Monday night opener, the Pittsburgh Steelers, don’t ask this question every year. If you don’t believe me, you can ask one of them at the Sept. 12 opener at FedEx Field. They’ll likely be the one sitting next to you, in front of you or behind you.
New England Patriots fans, we know, haven’t asked this question for 15 years, and it’s not a question under consideration this year, even with Tom Brady suspended four games.
But here in Washington, coming off a division title, the question remains unanswered. Are the 2016 Redskins any good? It’s hard to find anyone outside of the DMV that believes they answered that question with last season’s 9-7 record.
It’s a question that has been up for debate ever since seemingly time stopped for the Redskins the day Joe Gibbs retired following the 1992 season. Even when Gibbs came back for his second act in 2004, he started with a 6-10 record and the question remained, season after season.
This history lesson is hardly news for Redskins fans who have lived with these questions, year after year. But when you live it daily, you sometimes don’t realize how much time has passed. You live with losing for so long, you don’t realize how desperate the hope for winning is.
Maybe you don’t realize that quarterback Kirk Cousins is entering his fifth season with the Redskins — and that makes him the third longest tenured quarterback on the Redskins roster since the days of Joe Theismann and the 1982 Super Bowl championship season.
Yes, Cousins has been here longer than Jason Campbell, or Patrick Ramsay, or Doug Williams. His fifth season in Redskins uniform ties him with Gus Frerotte for third place on quarterback service time for this football team since the Gibbs era when the preseason question of performance for Redskins fans was how good would they be — not if they would be any good.
If Cousins returns for a sixth season, he would have been on the roster as long as Super Bowl winning quarterback Mark Rypien.
Four years as a Washington Redskin — entering his fifth season — and what is there to show for it?
For Cousins, there is the $20 million payday this year, playing under the franchise tag. But for Redskins fans, what is there to show for a Kirk Cousins jersey available for purchase every year at the Redskins store for five years now?
Is there faith? Belief? Confidence?
How can there be when the team, faced with that very question this off season about making a longer commitment to Cousins — a Theismann-like tenure commitment — insteaad made a contract offer that was more Frerotte-like in terms of cash and confidence?
If after five years, questions remain inside Redskins Park about Cousins, what does that mean for the future commitment of time for Redskins fans — and the desperation of hope?
After all, if Cousins doesn’t surpass Rypien in years in a Redskins uniform, that will have meant that the clock will have been reset one more time. More time will have passed before Redskins fans can enter a season wondering if the team they have invested time, money and emotion in for nearly 25 years, with little to show for it, will have the cloud of competitive uncertainty over it yet again.
Lots of NFL teams have those same questions every year, but only a few have to ask them year after year for a generation.
Those years add up and can numb a fan base to the passing of time.
Maybe Cousins is still in the early stages of a long Redskins career. Maybe the division champion, with the arrival of the greatest cornerback in the world, Josh Norman, means that time is finally moving in the right direction for this team.
Maybe finally it’s not so late so soon.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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