Considering their NFL teams, it's even farther from Green Bay to Washington, D.C., than you think
As a D.C. native transplanted to Wisconsin, I’ll be in the stands at Lambeau Field on Sunday to watch the Washington Football Team (WFT) take on the Green Bay Packers. While the scoreboard will likely favor the green and gold, my hometown team lost a lot more than a game a long time ago.
At the center of the WFT’s downward spiral is Daniel Snyder, the arrogant Washington owner who purchased the team in 1999. From cutting down 130 trees so he could have a better view of the Potomac River from his mansion to the sexual harassment of the team’s cheerleaders to completely misreading the shifting national zeitgeist about the team’s former nickname, the Redskins, Snyder may hold the title for the worst owner in professional sports. He once haughtily proclaimed about the team’s patently racist moniker, "We'll never change the name. It's that simple. NEVER — you can use caps," Snyder’s leadership has eroded a loyal fanbase and turned a once proud franchise into a joke. He only belatedly agreed to consider the team’s name in 2020 after league sponsors FedEx and Nike as well the team’s minority shareholders finally brought the issue to a head. There are eight finalists for a new name that should be in place by next season.
More recently, the WFT is again in the middle of controversy. Ex-Las Vegas Raiders head coach Jon Gruden’s racist, homophobic and misogynistic emails were sent to the WFT’s former President Bruce Allen. Gruden’s emails only became public because of the NFL’s investigation into Snyder’s running of a “highly unprofessional” workplace where bullying, intimidation and fear were commonplace. The team has been fined $10 million and Snyder was forced to cede the day-to-day operations of the WFT to his wife, at least for a brief period of time.
On the field, it’s been hard to watch a DC team that has been less than mediocre for decades. Since the 1991-1992 season, the last time Washington won a Super Bowl, the team has gone 186-262-2, (a .413 winning percentage). Tickets, once impossible to score, are now hard to unload. And the team’s home field, which used to be located just south of the Capitol (RFK Stadium) with its own subway stop, has been exiled out into a soulless patch of suburban Maryland. Cursed with traffic issues and poor parking, games might as well take place in Uzbekistan for most of the city’s fans. During the span of the past 30 years, the WFT has had a revolving door of head coaches and more than two dozen starting quarterbacks, including this year’s sacrifice, journeyman Taylor Heinicke, who has an inspiring rags to riches story, but is unlikely to be around much beyond this season.
The Packers couldn’t be any more different than the Washington team they are hosting Sunday. Perennially playoff bound, despite grumbling about multiple losses in the conference championship in recent years, a stable coaching staff and two primary quarterbacks (Favre and Rodgers) for the past three decades is the envy of the league. Throw in that games are sold out and the new Titletown district around the iconic Lambeau Field has become a thriving economic center that draws fans and venture capital from across the nation.
LeRoy Butler:Packers may own the Bears but can't look past Washington
Unlike the WFT’s authoritarian owner Dan Snyder, the Packers are the only publicly owned franchise in the NFL. And the summertime caravan to rural towns across Wisconsin is a nice touch. My high school friends from DC don't believe that you can walk into any elementary school across the state on a Friday before a Sunday game and half the class, as well as the teachers and often the principal, are wearing their green and gold proudly. The best time to go to the grocery store is always whenever the Packers are playing and the aisles are clear.
The same vibe used to exist in the greater DMV (District, Maryland, Virginia) in the 1970s and 80s. Win or lose, Washingtonians cared deeply about the team. Local journalists parsed the seating arrangements of Edward Bennett Williams’ owner box with the Cold War precision of a CIA analyst. Fans wore buttons debating the merits of which quarterback should start on Sunday; did you love Billy (Kilmer) or Sonny (Jurgenson)? And 35 years later, I can still find instant karma with any fellow D.C. native over the video loop in our heads of Joe Theismann’s leg snapping in two on Monday Night Football.
Green Bay fans don’t know how lucky they are to have had solid leadership on and off the field for so long. The Packers long time president, Mark Murphy, a Georgetown University Law School grad, was also the co-captain of the 1982 Washington team that won Super Bowl XVII. Several years ago, I told him that my friends and I still talk about him and his teammates John Riggins, Art Monk and Dexter Manley all these years later. Those memories help connect me to my hometown childhood, but awful ownership, terrible decision-making and losing season upon losing season will impact the franchise for years to come.
Zach Messitte has been president of Ripon College since 2012. He is stepping down in January and returning to his hometown of Washington, D.C.