Washington is a historic city filled with triumphs and failures, not only in government but also in sports. For the D.C. community, there has been mostly failure and little success in the sports world.
In the early 1990s, the Redskins were on top of the football world. In 1992 the Skins won their third Super Bowl in nine years. The team had players like Brian Mitchell, Darrell Green, Joe Jacoby and Art Monk who fans in Washington still love. Behind the Redskins, every other team in D.C. was an afterthought.
Oh, how they have fallen. Today’s version of the Redskins is one of the laughing stocks of the NFL. The fall from grace began when Daniel Snyder bought the team in 1999. Since then, the Redskins have been through seven head coaches and 10 different starting quarterbacks.
The team has traded high draft picks year after year for players like Jason Taylor and Mark Brunell, both of whom were past their prime. Then there was 2006, when they traded a third round pick for T.J. Duckett after their starting running back Clinton Portis was injured during a preseason game. Duckett played in 10 games, rushing the ball 38 times for a total of 132 yards with two touchdowns and was out the door at season’s end.
About a month and a half ago, Daniel Snyder hired the first general manager since he has owned the team. The team also brought in Mike Shanahan to be the new head coach. Washington and their fans hope these hires will bring stability and prestige back to the organization.
The Redskins are far from the only dysfunctional team in D.C. these days. The city’s NBA team, the Washington Wizards, finished the 2000-2001 season with a 19-63 record and received the first overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft. The team drafted center Kwame Brown out of high school. It proved to be one of the worst first-round picks in NBA history. Now in his 10th season in the NBA, Brown has a lifetime average of 6.9 points per game.
However, it looked as if the troubled franchise was turning a corner when they traded for Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler in consecutive years. In 2005, the Wizards won their first playoff series in 23 years. The future of the Wizards looked bright, with Arenas leading the way.
That future quickly crumbled into a nightmare. Today, Arenas awaits sentencing for a gun possession charge to which he pleaded guilty last Friday. In the incident, Arenas brought handguns into the Wizards’ locker room at the Verizon Center in December. He claims he was playing a “practical joke” on teammate Javaris Crittenton, who supposedly took out his own gun and chambered a round of bullets. Not only do they have off the court issues, but the Wizards are in last place with a 14-28 record.
The future of the Wizards is uncertain. Many believe the Wizards are looking to trade Jamison and Butler and rebuild. In the meantime, they are doing all they can to try to terminate Arenas’s contract, which has him receiving over $88 million over the next four years.
Of course, the sports ineptitude in Washington can’t be discussed without mentioning the Washington Nationals MLB team. The biggest problem for the Nationals is that they have no consistent fanbase since they have only been in the city since 2005. Prior to that year they were the Montreal Expos. Since coming to D.C. the Nats have finished at .500 just once and that was in their first season. They have put together back to back atrocious seasons, losing 102 games in 2008 and 103 in 2009.
Yet, the team looks to be heading in the right direction. With the first pick in the 2009 draft, the Nationals selected pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg out of San Diego State University. The righty throws a high 90s fastball with a devastating slider to go with it. How well Strasburg handles the pressure and high expectations that come with the first overall selection is yet to be seen. He has yet to pitch in the major leagues. If he does reach his full potential, the Nats have the prospects in their system to be a force to be reckoned with in years to come.
There is one good team in this city these days. Sorry Mystics fans, not you. What the Washington Capitals have managed to do is remarkable. If you went to a Caps game during the 2003-2004 season, you probably went into the Verizon Center and saw an arena half empty on a good night. The team’s leading goal scorer that season was Jeff Halpern who had a whopping 19 goals.
With the odds against them for getting the first overall pick after that season, the Capitals got what they hadn’t had a lot of in their history: luck. With the first overall selection in the draft the Caps took the savior of Washington hockey, Alexander Ovechkin.
When the league finally began playing again after a yearlong lockout in 2004-2005, “Alex the Great” made his debut. In his rookie season Ovechkin scored 52 goals and won the Calder Cup for being the top rookie in hockey. Ovechkin has won the last two MVP awards and already has 32 goals this season.
Now if you go to the Verizon Center for a Caps game, you see a completely different scene. The arena is filled to capacity nearly every night. Thousands of Caps fans are screaming and “rocking the red” on a nightly basis.
It is not just about Ovechkin though. The team has a nucleus of young players that will have the team competing for a Stanley Cup for the next decade. Finally Washington has one team that can win a game.
After all, winning is what it is all about. Fans are happier when their team is performing well. It does not matter how dysfunctional the locker room is. Fans are willing to overlook a lot of things when the team is successful. There is one remedy for everything that is wrong with a team. In the words of the NFL’s Oakland Raider’s owner Al Davis, “just win, baby.”
You can reach this columnist at sports@theeagleonline.com.
