

(By Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post)

Even Larry Michael — the Redskins Minister of Happiness, Good Tidings and Subtly Airbrushed Super Bowl Optimism — has his breaking point. This week, it arrived.

“Well, it stinks worse than any of the previous [losses],” Michael said on ESPN 980 Monday morning, when reviewing Sunday’s home loss to Tampa Bay.

“They’re struggling, struggling bad right now,” Michael said of the Redskins.

“The locker room emptied out immediately after that game, immediately,” Michael said. “That was the quickest exodus I’ve ever seen.”

“Just pathetic mistakes everywhere you looked,” Michael said.

“Guys were falling apart all around [Robert Griffin III],” Michael said.

“That was really the lowest of the lows,” Michael said.

The lowest of the lows? I mean, this is the Voice of the Redskins! There are only highs! It’s like the local Giant’s PA man popping on the loudspeaker to tell shoppers that all the fruit is spoiled, the milk is rotten, and the frozen aisle is defrosting into a giant pile of soggy potato product. So this prompted host Kevin Sheehan — a lifelong Redskins fan, an employee of Daniel Snyder’s radio station — to offer his own take.

“It’s the franchise,” said Sheehan, a man whose e-mail address ends in @Redskins.com. “The franchise is a bottom-rung franchise. It just is. They can’t get out of their own way.”

Michael, a senior vice president for the franchise, understandably wouldn’t go that far. But this conversation — which happened early Monday — was emblematic of the week to come.

Now this is kind of a delicate line we’re approaching. It can sometimes look like media members are reveling in the latest Ashburn meltdown, and that’s not a place I want to be. There’s an audience for easy laffs and cheap jokes, but it’s not as big or as lasting as the audience for good football and happy sporting memories. But the fact is, this particular loss has prompted another swell of communal sports angst, with lots of people wondering why it’s all gotten so bad, and whether it will ever get better.

Look at the e-mail responses I received about my Sunday FedEx Field experience, for example. From John DiMarco:

Dan – I am a 53 yr old, white, male who grew up in Alexandria south. Diehard ‘skins fan for my entire life. I remember going to RFK where the fans where “in” to the game and not so much the booze. My last visit to FedEx was 5 yrs ago and I vowed to never return. I am sure I am not the only one in my age group or younger. I never considered taking my daughters there for a game when they were growing up.

From John Godenick:

I went through [the FedEx Field experience] for years then gave up my season tickets after the 2011 season. I too “hate that I love them”. I’ll never go back to a game. EVER.

From Jim Tingley:

[Consider] the despair that I feel every time I watch the team play on TV or read an article about them. To read about that same feeling times 70,000 is a shame.

From Norman Rushefsky:

Last year my wife begged me to take her after we had free tickets made available to us. We left after the 3rd quarter with a promise from her of let’s just do Nationals games.

You’ll note that these readers are often of a certain age. That’s no coincidence. The pain, the urge to share — I suspect it’s largely because these fans remember something different. The most frequent laments I hear come from fans in their 30s, 40s and 50s — fans who don’t really remember when the team was pathetic in the 1960s, but who reveled in the team being the class of the NFL in the 1970s and 80s. These fans still hear “Redskins” and think “elite,” but then they see “Redskins” and think “barf.”

“That was, in my opinion, the worst game I’ve ever watched,” Golf Channel’s Steve Sands, a native Washingtonian, said on the Junkies on 106.7 The Fan. ” I think it’s the worst loss I’ve ever seen….I’m telling you, [Sunday’s] the first time I’ve ever turned off a Redskins game in my life….It’s the first time I’ve ever turned off a Redskins game in 45 years….These kids, how can they watch this garbage? I mean, honestly. When we were their age, we were actually a good football team and a proud franchise. You don’t have to win every year, but you can at least do things in a classy manner and actually be competitive, which we have not been consistently for 20 years now.”

“I’ve been a fan since I was 10 years old,” Fox 5’s Tony Perkins said on the same program. “My dad took my brother and I to my first game when I was probably around 11 or 12, RFK Stadium. Went to many games at RFK….The great joy in my life was finally being able to go to a game with my own son; he’s 11 years old. The first six games I took him to, the Redskins lost….

“I don’t hate the Redskins,” Perkins said moments later. “I have many cherished memories over my years with the Redskins. I’m just fed up. I’m done. I don’t want to support Dan Snyder’s team anymore. They are a team in disarray. As far as I can see, there is no hope for the immediate future, and by that I’m not just talking about the next six games — I’m talking about the next couple of years. Because the issues that they have are so deep, and come up time and time and time again. I’m just tired of it.”

“I am lucky,” ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt said on his national radio show. “I’m incredibly lucky as a sports fan. I grew up there when they were good. I saw Joe Gibbs teams win three different Super Bowls….The Redskins were great, so I was incredibly lucky to see greatness. And a lot of people in this town are familiar with that. If you’re young, you’re not. But what they are now isn’t particularly good….

“You got beat 27-7 by the Buccaneers. The BUCCANEERS, man!” Van Pelt said. “There’s nothing to believe in there….Imagine the despair.”

Then there were the tweets from fans. Clearly, I can’t judge how genuine these feelings are. But it seems raw. It seems real.

@dcsportsbog @BurgundyBlog My 10 year old asked me for permission to root for another team. What do I tell him? Breaks my heart. — Michael Zodda (@IceColdZodda) November 17, 2014

@lizclarketweet I think it has happened. Been season tix holder since 2004, record is 69-101. Cannot support any longer. — David Heyman (@dcborn61) November 17, 2014

@BurgundyBlog @dcsportsbog guys, it has gotten so bad I am gonna cancel my nfl Sunday ticket next year. I can't take it anymore. — Dansterdam (@DabberDanLit) November 17, 2014

My friends at Mister Irrelevant put together a list of Redskins sponsors. Why?

“At this point, I think the only thing we can do as Redskins fans to affect change is to A) switch teams or B) stop giving the team money,” wrote Jamie Mottram, which is just an amazing reaction to a mid-November loss.

I mean, CBS Sports put out this Vote For Colt graphic on its Facebook page. Vote For Colt? The answer is Colt McCoy? What is the queston? What is this? What’s happening? Where are we?

Sure, some of this is probably done for effect, and some of it is hyperbole, and some of it is just bluster. Two years ago, merchandise sales were soaring, and strangers were hugging, and everything was the same as it ever was. But now fans are burning stuff. Radio hosts are finding coffins. Larry Michael — Larry Michael — LARRY MICHAEL! — is calling it the lowest of the lows. It’s a weird week, is what I’m saying.

“In that town, where the Redskins are the religion, you’ve got people trudging to church, and they’re not leaving feeling better, man,” Van Pelt said. “They put their cash in the collection plate, and there’s just no belief. It’s sad when it reaches this point. Reset button, [Chris Mortensen] says. For what? To do what? Then what? My God. Hail to the Redskins.”