Peter Rosenberg had a major scheduling conflict last Sunday. With his first child due next month, he and his wife, Natalie, threw a baby shower to celebrate.
Unfortunately, it was during a Washington Commanders game.
Rosenberg, who grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, is a lifelong fan. He never misses a game and is especially invested now that the team — after nearly three decades of poor performance on the field and numerous scandals off it — is good again.
“I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, so this is very, very exciting. It’s a really, really big deal,” Rosenberg, 45, a radio and TV host, said in an interview. “But I can’t stress enough how big a deal it is in my life that this team doesn’t hurt me.”
With the Commanders vying for a postseason berth, every game is bigger. They had to cruise against a hapless New Orleans Saints team that was starting a backup quarterback. Except late in the fourth quarter, Washington allowed a 17-point lead to dwindle to one point.
“The party’s really going on,” said Rosenberg, who watched on an iPad. “I’m trying to be present and I’m trying to be a part of it, but all of a sudden they hit a field goal and then another field goal and Then give up a touchdown.”
When the Commanders won the game and didn’t allow the Saints to complete a two-point conversion, he finally felt comfortable returning to the event.
“I threw my arms in the air,” he said. “I walked around the room and greeted everyone formally, appropriately and cheerfully. Natalie and I hugged and celebrated for a moment, and then I was able to fully enjoy my baby shower.
What Rosenberg experienced — joy on a team that has mostly given him anything but — is a common sentiment among the fan base. The once-proud franchise, which won three Super Bowls with three different starting quarterbacks in 1982, 1987 and 1991, fell into the depths of despair when much-maligned owner Dan Snyder bought it in 1999. However, since he sold Commanders in April 2023, there has been a renewed sense of hope. Washington, at 9-5, is off to its best start since 1992. It hasn’t won a playoff game since 2005, meaning an entire generation of fans hasn’t experienced what it’s like for a winning organization. Times are changing.
‘The experience was ruined’
When Jeffrey Wright was 6 years old, he won a raffle at Hecht’s Department Store to be the “Mascot of the Week” for that Sunday game. The team fitted him with a full uniform and let him run out onto the field at RFK Stadium before the matchup. Then he sat in the end zone and “watched. [them] Knock the teeth out of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Wright, an actor now 59, smiles at the thought of that afternoon. He’s won Emmys, Golden Globes and Tony Awards, yet memories of attending games with his mother — who had season tickets in 1970 — are just as important in shaping who he is today.
But the team Wright grew to love as a kid changed completely when Snyder took over in 1999. A franchise once considered a pillar of the league has spent much of the past 25 years mired in constant on-field losses and off-field negativity. Under Snyder, there were more name changes (three) than playoff victories (two). So you can imagine why she was leaving her mother’s seats when Wright died in 2019.
“Obviously it wasn’t the happiest. But it wasn’t that hard,” he said in an interview. “The franchise had been destroyed. The experience had been destroyed. I felt something had been carved out of my childhood heart. I felt, as many of us did, with the team. You just had to cut loose because of the relationship.”
It was a notion shared by many fans.
In 24 seasons under Snyder, the team made just six playoff appearances, four NFC East titles and three double-digit winning seasons. He had 27 different starting quarterbacks and 10 head coaches. The team’s .427 winning percentage from 1999 to 2022 ranked 27th in the NFL.
On top of a poor product on the field, Snyder found himself surrounded by negativity. The team was widely criticized for how it was run from the top down. In both 2021 and 2023, the NFL fined him. $10 million And $60 millionAfter investigating allegations of sexual harassment and workplace conduct, respectively.
Snyder also faced backlash for his fans’ behavior, including charging them to attend training camp. It was the first time in NFL history. – and sue people who tried to back out of ticket renewal plans. One of those fans, a 72-year-old grandmother, has had season tickets since the early 1960s.
The team name was also a hot button topic. Snyder publicly promised that “Never change the nameFrom the “Redskins” though he was long condemned as anti-local filth. But in 2020, after years of pressure from the NFL, major sponsors and groups like the National Congress of American Indians, The franchise moved on.
While not all fans were happy with the decision, those who opposed the name felt they could finally root for the franchise without feeling wrong.
“Not only were we the laughing stock of the NFL, we were morally corrupt,” said Eddie Huang, a writer, director and chef. “I had Redskins stuff. We all did. But when you get older, you’re just like: ‘Wow, this is terrible. Dan Snyder is terrible. The name is bad. There’s a lot of bad stuff going on.’ are.”
Asked to sum up Snyder’s tenure in one word, Wright said, “Misery.”
Grant Paulson, a local radio host at 106.7 The Fan, has covered the team since 1999. He started with the station as a beat reporter and transitioned to afternoon host four years later.
With countless fans calling every day, no one else knows the pulse of the community like he does. He said Snyder was so obnoxious that people refused to buy team merchandise and stopped going to games simply because he felt it was wrong to support him.
In Snyder’s final season in charge, a franchise that once Led the league in average attendance. Dead last
“To me, if his team’s choice was a piece of ice, he was taking a chisel and swinging it,” Paulson said. “Slowly, just sticks and goes until it’s all gone.”
A new hope
For a while, it appeared that Snyder, 60, was unlikely to sell.
When he agreed to sell the franchise to a group headed by Josh Harris in May 2023 for more than $6 billion, the decision sent shock waves through fans.
Harris’ group, which included NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, brought in advisers such as former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Mayer to help search for a new general manager and head coach. They landed Adam Peters, formerly the assistant general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, and former Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn.
But the biggest move came in the 2024 NFL Draft. The Commanders selected LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner, as the franchise’s savior at No. 2 overall. So far, he’s lived up to the hype. Daniels has thrown for 3,045 yards, 17 touchdowns and just six interceptions through 14 games. He has also rushed for 656 yards (46.9 per game), second in the league behind MVP Lamar Jackson.
“He’s the quarterback we deserve all these years of suffering,” Hwang said. “That’s the guy. I absolutely think this kid is the face of the NFL for the next 15 years.
Nothing beats the feeling of Daniels’ Hail Mary touchdown pass in the final seconds against the Chicago Bears in October. Trailing 15-12 with six seconds left, Daniels avoided multiple defenders and launched a 52-yard bomb toward the end zone. The ball tipped several players and landed in the hands of receiver Noah Brown. For the game winner.