Some Tuesdays are just terrible. You know it when you feel it. Food doesn’t taste quite as good as it usually does. The sun seems unusually determined to hide behind a cloud.
And it all happens when the Redskins lose during Monday Night Football. Lose they did this Monday. They were humiliated. Obliterated by Pittsburgh. I’m an emotional football fan, and when my team crashes and burns, it brings me down.
Were those even the real Washington Redskins out there? Not the practice squad? Not the local high school JV team? We made Byron Leftwich look like Joe Montana. Our O-line acted more like piglets than The Hogs.
But, of course, I will endure as a Redskins fan. You don’t put two decades of your blood, sweat and tears into a team just to grow grumpy when a rookie coach slips up against one of the best teams in the nation.
Stick with your team through good times and bad. If you don’t stop believing, if you hold on to that feeling, sooner or later it will give you a game that you’ll remember forever.
For me, that game came Sept. 19, 2005.
I’m not the only one who thought the game was special.
“It was one of the greatest moments in sports for me,” then-coach Joe Gibbs told The Associated Press.
I want to take a few moments and share the story of this game with you, in case you don’t remember it. I sort of need to relive a happy game from the past to get me out of this football funk. And maybe it will help you other Redskins fans out there keep your chins up, too. After a loss as ugly as Monday’s, we faithful need whatever morale boosters we can get. So, here it goes.
Just like this past game, it was a Monday Night Football game. Unlike this past game, though, it was against the Dallas Cowboys.
We Redskins fans hate the Cowboys more than pirates hate ninjas, more than Andy Reid hates diets. To see our ‘Skins take them on in a prime-time Monday matchup with the whole nation watching made it an even bigger deal. Think Yankees-Red Sox game seven. To cap things off, both teams came in at 1-0. It was one of those hyped games of the century that seem to happen every other month. But, as far as I’m concerned, it fully lived up to its billing.
Kickoff finally rolled around at Texas Stadium and I plopped myself on the couch in front of the TV screen. The game started, and it was a little bit dull at first. The teams alternated fruitless drives until the Cowboys finally cashed in on an interception to go up 3-0 in the early second quarter. The teams continued trading punts and turnovers through halftime. There was very little that was exciting about the game.
Finally, something happened, even if it helped the bad guys. A few minutes into the third quarter, the Cowboys ran a flea-flicker, and quarterback Drew Bledsoe lobbed the ball down the field for a 70-yard touchdown pass to receiver Terry Glenn to go up 10-0. Besides this one trick play by the Cowboys, neither team had managed to do much all night, though.
With 12 minutes left in the game, after a couple hours of being a snoozer for the ages, the game picked up its pace.
The Cowboys pushed a six-minute drive down the field, methodically stripping away my hope for victory. I was tempted to turn the TV off out of disappointment, but when the Redskins held the Cowboys to a field goal to keep it a two possession game at 13-0, I decided to keep watching, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the Redskins can shake off 54 minutes of lifelessness and show a spark in these closing minutes.
Then, on 2nd-and-10 with 5:15 to go in the game, Mark Brunell was sacked for a 17-yard loss. At this point, I phoned it in. Oh well. Nail in the coffin. You tried, Redskins. Better luck next week.
Fortunately, the Redskins hadn’t quite given up. All of the sudden, running back Ladell Betts dashed for a 25-yard gain. On fourth down, Brunell connected to receiver James Thrash for another 20 yards. First down for the Redskins on the Dallas 34, down by 13 with 4:14 to go.
But as fast as a few good plays reignited my faintest bit of hope for the game, the Redskins threw it away again. A false start penalty, followed by three incomplete passes, left the Redskins with a 3rd-and-15 with 4:01 to go.
Now I’ll try to recall what happened during the next few minutes, but I can’t guarantee it will be accurate. You see, it all happened so fast. And, like I said, I’m an emotional football fan. Three years later, it’s all just like a blur of euphoria.
But I think what happened next was that Brunell chucked the ball downfield and, somehow, it ended up in receiver Santana Moss’ hands in the end zone. 39-yard TD pass. 13-7.
I was nervous and excited again. Could the Redskins still be in this? Was there any reason to believe that they’d play any better than the pathetic performance they’d put up for most of the game?
But the good fortune continued for the Redskins. After kicking the ball off, they held the Cowboys to just one first down before forcing another punt.
With 2:52 to go and down by 6 points, the Redskins needed to execute immediately. First-and-10, Brunell tosses the ball to Clinton Portis for a 10-yard gain, first down.
First-and 10. Brunell drops back. Winds up, tosses the ball far downfield. The ball rises, and falls and ... what!? Santana Moss caught it! Again!
It’s a moment that, three years later, still pops up as a photo when you search Santana Moss on the Internet. The ball sneaks through the hands of Cowboy safety Roy Williams and into Moss’ grip. But the photo can’t do justice to Moss’ mad dash to the end zone that followed his miraculous catch. Touchdown! Kicker Nick Novak drilled the extra point. 14-13, Washington.
I’ll never forget it. Not much earlier, the game and even the season were looking bad. Now the Redskins were up.
You had to see it. It was invigorating. I was jumping up and down with joy, shouting, probably waking up my little siblings and maybe even the neighbors, but I wasn’t the only one. I could hear my dad, apparently watching the game as he was lying in bed, celebrating upstairs. He ran downstairs in his pajamas (his briefs) to cheer with me and give me a high five.
But it wasn’t finished yet. The Redskins still had to play some defense to finish the game off. Following a big return on the kickoff by the Cowboys and a little bit of momentum, Dallas was making a push to get into scoring range when the late Sean Taylor made a play just as big and important as the touchdown passes.
On third down in Washington territory, Dallas receiver Patrick Crayton looked like he had just made a big third-down catch that would have put the Cowboys in field goal range and in a comfortable position to wind down the clock and kick a game-winning field goal, when a white-and-burgundy blur came from nowhere to deck Crayton and knock the ball loose, forcing an incomplete pass. That blur was Taylor and that hit is the greatest Redskins hit of the past decade.
Stopping the Cowboys on their desperate fourth down, the Redskins took control and ran out the clock. Final score: 14-13.
And, to think, just four minutes earlier they were being shut out. Four minutes earlier, they looked like they couldn’t play an ounce of offense or a dime’s worth of defense. But all that changed with just two long touchdown passes.
That Redskins win was the first win in Texas Stadium in more than a decade and it still stands as one of the most thrilling sporting events I’ve watched on live TV.
It reminded me that even when the Redskins are up against it and the breaks are beating the boys, sometimes they’ll go out there with all they got and win one just for their loyal fans. The fans like me, who watch every game whether they’re 15-0 or 0-15. The fans like those of you out there who watched this past Monday’s game until the final buzzer.
Every fan will have a few games he or she remembers. This one is one of mine. So stand by our Redskins despite the loss, and whenever you wonder whether it’s worth it to be so invested, take a flip through the history books and remember the many times the team has done you proud.
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