A month ago, the Washington Football Team was 2-6 and staring down a top 10 pick in the NFL draft.
Two months ago, the Washington Capitals started the season with one of the league’s oldest rosters and an injury to one of its best players, causing some prognosticators to predict that this would be the year they falter.
Three months ago, the Washington Wizards were preparing for training camp with only one star player in Bradley Beal, as the team had recently traded Russell Westbrook to the Lakers and received several role players in return.
Now, all three teams are .500 or better — something Washington fans haven’t experienced at this time of the year in nearly 40 years.
The last time all three pro franchises were .500 or better on Dec. 10 was in 1984.
The Joe Gibbs-led Redskins were 10-5 — fresh off a win against the Dallas Cowboys — in a season that would end in a first-round playoff defeat against the Chicago Bears.
The 1984 Capitals, led by coach Bryan Murray, were 13-9-5 en route to a second-place division finish and loss to the New York Islanders in the first round of the postseason.
The then-Washington Bullets were 14-7 on Dec. 10 under coach Gene Shue before finishing the season with a 40-42 record and losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Philadelphia 76ers.
While it’s been 37 years since all three teams were successful at this precise point in the year, it’s not surprising that each individual team is performing well.
The Washington Football Team made the playoffs last season and was expected by many to be a contender this year as well. Despite a bad start, the team has won four straight games to improve its record to 6-6 and put itself in position to earn a wild-card spot and even have a shot at winning the division.
The Capitals, meanwhile, have been one of the top NHL teams over the last 15 years, and they’re proving that fact once again with a 16-4-6 start that has them in first place in the Metropolitan Division.
The most surprising team of the three has been the Wizards, who have played strong defense and won several games in come-from-behind fashion to earn their 15-11 record, albeit against one of the league’s easiest schedules thus far.
This could be a short-lived moment in the light, though. The Washington Football Team takes on NFC East-leading Dallas on Sunday, and the Cowboys are 4.5-point favorites. And the Wizards are about to embark on a brutal stretch of road games that could see them dip below .500 later this month.
While Ronald Reagan was president the last time all three teams were .500 or better on Dec. 10, there have been other seasons that were close, particularly 1985, 1997 and 2015. Additionally, Dec. 10 is, after all, an arbitrary date, and there have been other instances in which all three teams were .500 or better earlier in the year — or later in the month.
Still, it’s worth noting, for sports fans out there wrapping presents and sipping egg nog, that Dec. 10 hasn’t been this collectively merry since Washington coach Ron Rivera was a rookie linebacker for the Bears, Capitals coach Peter Laviolette was a defenseman at Westfield State College, and Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. was the 9-year-old son of a former NBA star who was three years removed from playing for the Bullets and three years away from coaching them.
• Jacob Calvin Meyer can be reached at jmeyer@washingtontimes.com.
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