I Miss Being a Jersey-Wearing, Table-Punching NFL Fan
The fan who doesn’t sleep the night before games or sweats every transaction made by my favorite team
There’s a table in the basement of my parent’s house with a few knuckle-shaped indents in one of the corners of its surface.
I made those indents after one of the 20 interceptions that Rex Grossman threw as the starting quarterback for the Washington Redskins in the 2011 season.
Two floors above that basement, a crusty pile of cut-out newspaper stories from past Washington Post sports sections are tucked away in the closet of my childhood bedroom.
After every Redskins win and loss (the latter category dominated the former), I’d cut out the next day’s story and add it to the collection.
Right in between the table and the newspaper clippings is the dining room where my family held many Sunday dinners — dinners that, in the fall and winter, would either be on the cheery side or the tense side depending on how the Burgundy and Gold uniformed Redskins fared that afternoon.
I used to care so much about the Redskins. I also cared about other D.C. sports teams, too, but none mattered to me quite like the urinal cake of the NFC East that played their games at FedEx Field.
But after years of working in sports, and a few of them covering the franchise up close, the fandom that once occupied two out of every five thoughts I had growing up is now totally distinguished.
And I kind of miss it.
There are certainly bonuses to becoming an adult and realizing that life has aspects to it that outweigh the revolving (and malfunctioning) door of passers that Santana Moss had to run routes for or LaRon Landry’s tantalizing but never-realized potential at safety.
There’s my mood, for example.
For years, it was so heavily predicated on a scoreboard that it disregarded my chance to experience happiness. Now my mood is more stable.
There’s also my wallet, which so often opened up for purchases of gear that I’d subsequently wear and get made fun of for wearing. It’s now free to spend on other things (sexy things, too, like YouTube TV bills and special trash bags for my premium garbage can).
I’ve mostly viewed my diehard days like my days of building LEGO, playing PlayStation, and drinking three sodas at dinner: chapters of being a careless kid that I’ve long grown out of.
Aging, plus working five years on the Washington organization’s beat and now a job with NBC that’s largely devoted to researching pro football, have forced my unquenchable fervor to fade entirely.
Don’t get it twisted: I still adore consuming pro football. It’s just that I have no team-based attachment left in me. I’ll root for a proper bet, my fantasy team, or for the football contest currently on TV to go to overtime.
The 14-year-old me would be shocked to meet the 29-year-old me.
No one needs to weep about this. Working in sports has saved me from having to, you know, not work in sports — but allow me to, for a second, shed a light tear for my passionate, younger, crazy Washington fan self.
I miss not being able to sleep the night before the ‘Skins played.
I miss knowing the number of every player on the roster, from the studs to the goddamn backup guard who had to play too goddamn much, because the goddamn starter was injury prone, but the goddamn front office signed him to a goddamn extension anyway.
I miss getting mad at little things like this because I care about the team.
I miss getting tickets for birthdays and Christmas.
I miss giving head nods to fellow fans while out and about in public while we both wear our team-related stuff.
I miss the far-too-occasional late-season playoff runs that were fueled by the likes of Clinton Portis and Todd Collins.
I miss Todd Collins!
As I’ve settled into my gig at NBC, these feelings of nostalgia have picked up more recently as I find myself surrounded by maniac fans who, unlike me, remain extremely dedicated to their squads.
I’ve watched guys swear off the New York Jets and then lose their shit over a seven-yard completion by fourth-string quarterback Trevor Siemian.
“Glad that ain’t me anymore,” a part of me says while another part of me says, “You were once that, you douche — and it was fun!”
Then there’s the text I got from one of my sisters two weeks ago, where she sent a video of my nephew at his first NFL game, a Washington Commanders-San Francisco 49ers tilt in Week 17.
This one truly affected me.
“Jack’s first NFL game,” the message read. “Wearing your old jersey.”
The accompanying video was of Commander wide receiver Terry McLaurin’s touchdown and a reaction shot of her rabble-rouser, who was in my trusty Chris Cooley Redskin uniform paired with an Eagles beanie (a hell of a combo, I know).
Jack was only on screen for a bit, but even so, it wasn’t hard to pick up on the wonder in his eyes.
He had his hands on his head as well, wowed by what he just saw — an end-zone visit by a talented wideout at a stadium that probably seemed impossibly big to him.
I hope he experiences a thousand similar moments to that one in the future and doesn’t lose that excitement like me.
Maybe I’ll teach him how to punch a table sometime.
