[djnemo65]

What I think is so frustrating to people is not so much the collapse of a season but the collapse of an era. This year is shot but there is no reason to believe we'll be able to contend for several years. What we are seeing is the final dissolution of a team that first started to come together with the Portis trade, the Griffin, Washington, and Springs free agent signings, and the addition of several other key players through the Gibbs years: the core Redskins. It's busted and we are (hopefully) going to be starting over from scratch next year with one playoff win and only a few key young players to show for it.

In today's NFL, there is absolutely no reason for teams to lose for prolonged periods, with the salary cap and draft structured to punish winning and award losing to an extent. Throw in the tremendous monetary advantage the Skins enjoy and you have a team that, at the very least, should be above average over any 5-10 year period. But here we are, in exactly the same position we were in when Spurrier split, with a team falling apart, lacking discipline, lacking leaders, lacking any sense of direction or purpose. And we have precisely one playoff win to show for it.

This is a tough pill to swallow and it's not so suprising to me that the angst is starting to bubble over. But doesn't it make us all feel better to come here and commiserate? The most awesomest Shakespeare play King Lear talks about such shared grief quite well.

When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers suffers most i' the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'er skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow,