Since this team’s last Super Bowl in 1992, it has had 18 quarterbacks, nine losing seasons, eight head coaches and only three playoff appearances. What team am I talking about? That’s right, the Washington Redskins.
Starting from the top of the organization with its owner Daniel Snyder, all the way down to the players, this team has been a complete disaster for the last 17 years. The Redskins have been by far the worst sports team in Washington over this time period.
Despite being one of the richest franchises in the NFL, the Redskins still manage to be terrible. Every year, Snyder tries to act like a general manager and spend a ton of money on high-profile players in free agency. Though he is trying to acquire good players, Snyder does not spend his money wisely. He has offered large contracts to players like Deion Sanders, Adam Archuleta, Bruce Smith and Jason Taylor because they have big names without realizing they were all past their prime when signing them. All of these big signings turned out to be busts and only made the Redskins worse.
Snyder’s ineptitude was also evident in the draft. Snyder repeatedly traded away draft picks in order to acquire more big name players, instead of building the team through the draft. And when the Redskins kept their picks, the players never panned out. The team drafted LaVar Arrington second overall in 2000 and six years later he was playing for the rival New York Giants having led the Redskins to a total of one playoff victory.
The Fun n’ Gun offense led by coach Steve Spurrier was another adventure. Heisman quarterback Danny Wuerffel, who Spurrier coached while at the Univeristy of Florida, joined the Redskins and was supposed to be the savior. However, none of Spurrier’s ideas worked and his Fun n’ Gun antics made the team the laughing stock of the league.
Fans got excited again when Snyder hired three-time Super Bowl winning coach Joe Gibbs, who coached the Redskins to their last Super Bowl victory in 1992. Surely another Super Bowl was soon to follow. Well, as we all know, that wasn’t true.
When Gibbs left for the second time everyone was expecting a big splash with Bill Cowher, or some other big name coach. No. Instead it was Jim Zorn, former quarterbacks coach of the Seattle Seahawks. “Who?” was the collective reaction of many Redskins fans, but they tried to convince themselves that the former All-Pro quarterback, who groomed Matt Hasselbeck, could turn the franchise around. Again, we were sorely mistaken. Zorn’s tenure as coach was an embarrassment. The players and coaching staff had many arguments, disagreeing over various stances. In one of Zorn’s last games as head coach, he called one of the worst plays of all time on national television, making the Redskins the laughingstock of the league.
Snyder’s new head coach hire, Mike Shannahan, will be responsible for preventing the Redskins from being considered the worst sports team in Washington.
