The Washington football team has now won two in a row and yet a co-worker and die-hard life-long fan of the team is furious!
Understanding her thought process can be very useful beyond sports.
Her thinking is something like this: such glimmers of better football are sure to be exploited by the team’s CEO, Bruce Allen, to convince the owner Dan Snyder that he need not make the radical changes that she is convinced must happen before the team can return to its glory days as a model franchise. Allen, of course, has a vested interest in selling such snake oil, since most fans, like her, are convinced that his head should be the first to roll in an organizational shake-up. In other words, short-range success would add credence to the delusion that mere reform around the edges is all that is needed.
One of the primary aspects of the delusion is that it makes no distinction between possibility and probability. In this case, the NFC East is so bad that Washington, at 3-9, can still “possibly” win the division. This possibility is bolstered by the fact that Dallas hasn’t beaten a winning team and Philadelphia just lost to Miami. So as of today, if Dallas and Philadelphia go a collective 1-7, with the one win being Philadelphia beating Dallas, and Washington wins its last 4 games, it would win the division. On top of that, it would be the number 4 seed in the NFC, ahead of either Seattle or San Francisco, and host a playoff game.
A win this Sunday in Green Bay over a 9-3 Packers team would be the weekly lotto ticket hitting for $50. That is to say it would be just enough reinforcement to convince many to stay the course.
It is mathematically “possible”.
If you believe it is probable, you likely also believe in Santa Claus.
The delusional grasp at straws in a desperate attempt to either maintain a status quo or rationalize an aspiration.
My friend and co-worker has no such delusions, nor did she about the former coach Jay Gruden.
Washington finally gave the arrogant Gruden his walking papers earlier this year. He absolutely deserved to be fired. He was 35-49-1, with no playoff wins. As if one needed more reason, this genius deactivated future Hall of Fame running back Adrian Peterson, who at 34 years old, was still arguably their most dependable offensive weapon.
And yet as justified as Gruden’s dismissal was and as justified as Allen’s dismissal would be, non-delusional Washington fans understand that there will be no significant difference until the entire organization is changed.
When I said that there are lessons beyond sports, I especially had in mind the police chief in my and the Washington football team’s home of Prince George’s County.
There is a grassroots effort to remove Chief Stawinski as the police chief and the case is solid:
- Citizen filed complaints about excessive force are increasing under his tenure, with little to no accountability;
- Stawinski opposes the immediate release of all video footage audio and other recorded evidence of police misconduct;
- Black and Latino Prince George’s police are currently suing the department for discrimination;
Chief Hank Stawinski
I am confident that eventually, the chief will be forced out. The value of that would be a win for those more interested in justice, rather than maintaining cozy relationships with the establishment. The foreseeable response to his ouster would be for the Prince George’s Black leadership to appoint a Black or Latino replacement as police chief… possibly even a female to appease the masses. He or she will be better at the PR aspects of being a police chief than Stawinski. However, the fundamental systemic factors that shield Prince George’s County Police from accountability will not change one bit. One such factor is the Law Enforcement Officer’s Bill of Rights (LEBOR). A version of this exists in every state, in some form or another, all over the country, and essentially provides police with an additional layer of due process rights that you and I simply do not have. As a result, it makes holding police accountable much less likely and is supported by the Fraternal Order of Police, which is the only organized labor faction supported by the Republican party. LEBOR needs to be abolished in its entirety.
The hope for both Washington football fans and Prince George’s County residents is that we have seen this story before and are wising up. The fans were as dissatisfied with CEO Vinny Serrato and coach Jim Zorn as they are with the current and most recent CEO and coach. Police brutality in Prince George’s County goes back decades and even as Black folks have pierced the county’s power structure, the outcomes have not significantly changed. The only rational conclusion that one can arrive at in both situations is that the primary issue is not the coach or the police chief. The primary issue is the organization and system. Until that is addressed, there is no reason to expect any meaningful change in the results.
Both factions see this and know, even if justified, that the removal of a coach, police chief, or even a president, will not be enough. Only the radical transformation of both entities will bring about the change needed.
So, in an odd way, the best thing for Washington football fans would be for the Cowboys to win tonight or for the team to lose to Green Bay, 57-4, to erase any illusions that the team is “close” to being a viable competitor. The phoenix bird rises from ashes. What is inescapable is that at some point, it had to be burned. No less will do for the entities of NFL Washington football or Prince George’s County Police.
