The Redskins have spent this season in a frenzied sprint away from their past, convinced you can’t start a new era if you’re still hoarding toxic keepsakes from the past, that even a fleeting glance back might turn them into a pillar of stadium pretzel salt. It’s as if the entire organization has donned a blond wig and a fake mustache, plus a Starter jacket for good measure.

Twenty-three of the team’s 53 active players arrived either in calendar year 2015 or in the first week of 2016. Add in the practice squad, and there are 33 players who have been here less than a year. Forget talk of Shanahan or Gibbs; a majority of the team’s locker room hasn’t experienced a losing season in Washington. They might as well put put up a banner at FedEx Field, reading “These aren’t the Redskins you’re looking for.”

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Peer through the shiny renovation, though, and you’ll find a few men who remember. There’s DeAngelo Hall, who arrived midway through Zorn’s first season in 2008. And there’s 2006 draft pick Kedric Golston, the team’s longest-serving player and the only remnant of the Joe Gibbs era.

Has Washington’s recurring elevator trip — the Redskins have finished either first or last in each of Hall’s eight seasons — given these veterans a different perspective on the latest playoff run? This is perhaps not the moment for deep public reflection; Hall finally told me Wednesday to stop asking questions about his historical perspective. But both players agreed on their primary message to younger teammates: Don’t assume the team’s window is now jammed open, and don’t even think about what lies beyond Sunday afternoon.

“More than anything, just appreciating the moment,” Golston said. “Not to put burdens on them that they didn’t have anything to do with, but just to let them appreciate how special it is. Not to take it for granted, but understand that man, this doesn’t just happen.”

“Just trying to tell everybody how important it is, how hard it is,” Hall said moments later, recounting his trip to the NFC title game as a rookie in Atlanta. “Losing that game as a rookie, you kind of think, ‘This is kind of easy. We can do this every year.’ And to not get back until [2012], and go a couple years and then get back this year, you just never know when an opportunity is going to present itself again. And so we’re just harping on everybody giving everything they’ve got. We’ll worry about whatever’s next, next. But right now, all we can do is worry about what we’ve got to, and that’s Green Bay.”

Rapid turnover is standard NFL fare, especially on a rebuilding team led by a new GM who has had to patch months’ worth of injury-related divots. But it means this rare home playoff game might not have quite the same resonance inside the locker room as it does for the famished fan base. Even 20-something Washingtonians remember Sean Taylor’s 2007 death and the ensuing playoff drive, Zorn’s maroon and black, the bingo caller, McNabb and Beck, 2012’s thrilling bender and the crushing disappointment and dysfunction that followed. Good luck finding a familiar face in Redskins Park able to reminisce.

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The past three playoff seasons each felt like the start of a new era of prosperity. In each case, a massive January tremor changed everything: Gibbs hiring a new offensive coordinator in 2006, Gibbs stepping away in 2008, Robert Griffin III’s shredded knee in 2013. So you want to ask Golston and Hall whether this time feels different, whether this month will be remembered as a first act more than a discrete flirtation with success.

“I hope so,” Hall said. “I think the guys in this locker room would tend to give you that sign. So I hope so. But we’ve seen stranger things happen. As long as we stay intact, I think we’ll be pretty good to go moving forward.”

“You’re asking me to read into a crystal ball,” Golston said. “I mean, when people read into the future, they’re just making a guess, you know? Every year’s a new year. From an organizational standpoint, there’s things that you look for as a successful organization: continuity, the mindset, and having good people. And so from that standpoint, I feel like we have the right pieces put in place — from the front office, coaching staff, players, and everything included in that — to have success. But it’s up to us to go out there and continue to grow as an organization.”

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Even if they don’t ask for tales from 2009, the newcomers recognize how much Golston and Hall have seen. Will Compton calls Washington’s longest-serving player “Uncle Ked,” a nickname that is spreading, and said Golston’s wisdom has been invaluable.

“Probably the most influential person in this locker room, to me,” the linebacker said. “He’s always influencing. He’s driven by the right stuff. And he lives by it.”

Hall also carries a certain cachet among the dozens of teammates who arrived in recent months, especially because he helped recruit several of them, including DeSean Jackson and Ricky Jean Francois.

“He’s DeAngelo Hall,” said Francois, who was lured to Washington during an offseason meeting with the veteran defensive back. “I was a fan of his since he was at Virginia Tech, and that was a very long time ago. And just to sit across the table from him and be recruited by him to come to this team, I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the type of guy I want [to play with].’ … Everybody loves being around him, everybody wants to hear what he’s got to say. That’s the type of guy you look to when you walk into a locker room like this.”

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Hall’s volunteer stint in player acquisition only reinforced his goal to work in a front office when he’s retired; he called himself “the closer” this week.

“I’ve got a pretty good eye for talent,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I pull a John Elway?”

Golston — who, like Hall, is 32 — also has thought about life after football. He already has a Pilates studio in Ashburn, while his wife has her own local real-estate business. They consider Washington their home, and plan to remain here when Golston stops playing.

Have the two veterans thought back to the team’s occasional wacky lows during this latest high? Hall said volatility is merely “the nature of the beast, the nature of the business.” And Golston referred to former defensive coaches Gregg Williams and Greg Blache, who “taught me at a young age just to worry about what you can worry about, control what you can control.”

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Fair enough, even if those swinging gates continue to swing in my mind. But that Golston remembers playing for Williams and Blache already puts him in a different category. When he and Hall arrive at FedEx Field on Sunday for just the third playoff game in that stadium’s history, they will share dozens of memories with the team’s longtime supporters, things that would be meaningless to most of their teammates. You can’t will away those experiences, even if you’re not looking back.