From the Depths of Despair

There's nothing quite like watching sports. On the one hand, it is merely a game. Non sports-fans look at a game like football and can barely track who has the ball, and wonder what excitement there must be in watching grown men wearing pads and helmets running around. What fun can there be in this? And, really, they're right. It is just a game.

But somehow, sports crystallize something so fundementally simple, something so primal, that it appeals to the most basic emotions beyond the obvious need for food, which is joy and disappointment. In sports, fans invest a great deal of emotion in their team. With every success, the fans are elated beyond belief. With every loss, the fans are inconsolable. And it gets worse if there's a series of losses.

This was year two of the second coming of Joe Gibbs, and after a mediocre 6-10 record last year due to an anemic offense, Gibbs had worked hard at revamping the offense, trying to find ways to add the deep ball, using the shotgun for the first time since, well, a very long time ago.

Already controversy swirled. Barely three series into the game, Ramsey, Gibbs's anointed quarterback, but one who he never quite trusted, was yanked, when he got injured. Brunell filled in, and even when Ramsey declared himself ready to return, he was told Brunell was the starter.

For three and a half quarters, the faith Gibbs had put in Brunell was beginning to look doubtful. Dallas was shutting out the Redskins, something that had never happened to Gibbs as a Redskins coach (during the regular season). After a botched field goal, Dallas was up 3-0, then 10-0 on a flea flicker, then 13-0. The defense was preventing this from being a blowout, keeping it within grasp, but with 5 minutes left, the Redskins had showed nothing that showed they could even score a single point.

Announcers Sam Huff just wanted one touchdown, something to give a little hope, and time was running out.

And then there was 3rd and 27. Who knew Brunell still had legs as he scampered 25 yards. Then, a fourth and 2. And boom, it was 13-7. Yet, with only three minutes left, the defense needed to hold stout. Throughout the years of offensive woes, the Redskins, much like the Ravens could always rely on their defense, and now they had to rely on them. Energized after a Santana Moss touchdown, the defense gave the ball back to the Redskins.

Then, they went for it all. A 70 yard touchdown pass, again to Santana, splitting two defenders, and trotting in for the 14-13 touchdown. Yet, again the defense had to keep the Redskins in. After all, Dallas only needed 3 points to win the game. And again, the defense came through.

And Redskins cheered. And it was good.

14 of 15 losses to Dallas will do that to you. Like any rabid sports fans, Redskins were desperate to beat Dallas. And, let's face it, it was Dallas. Once a rivalry where the teams would split wins, when both were good, since then, Dallas had a domination of the Redskins over many a coach. Snyder, a Redskins fan since he was a youth, had to lament the sad state of affairs.

His enthusiasm after the first touchdown was palpable. And after the second one, there was complete ecstasy. He wanted Gibbs back, had put his faith in Gibbs, and yet it was looking like Spurrier 2, not Gibbs 2.

In a series of improbably completions, Brunell went from goat to hero. And for the first time in a long time, the Redskins can go into a bye-week(!) 2-0, thinking good thoughts, with Redskins fans everywhere in pure elation.

So it comes down to placing your faith into the outcome of a game, to have a team represent your happiness and your despair, it seems silly, but how much in life can be boiled down to something so simple, and futhermore, it's so communal. Look left, right, and down the aisle, and you see tens of thousands of fans, and when you add those watching in sports bars, and at their friends house, and in dorm rooms, the number of people number in the hundreds of thousands or millions of fans who care how this team does.

There's nothing like a win to cheer someone up, and nothing like a come from behind win. Sure, it's not the Red Sox years of despair, down 3-0 to the hated Yankees, deep in the 12th inning requiring a home run from Dave Ortiz. And, then down 3-1, another late inning home run, and then down 3-2, pulling out yet another win, and then tied 3-3, finally winning an easy game.

There's nothing so deliciously sublime as wanting something so badly, especially when time and again, you've been let down, been disappointed by a late Aaron Boone home run when his brother is in the booth announcing, or a last minute Patrick Crayton touchdown last time the Redskins were at Dallas snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, letting Dallas celebrate a 13-10 win when a Redskins win seemed all but assured.

And so, when the last seconds ticked off, and Redskins had won, and won over a team that had dogged them time and again, even modest Gibbs had to relish the joy that comes from despair, a kind of payback for all the months of wanting success, and to have it come to fruition in the waning moments of a game where even the faithful begin to doubt, there is nothing more satisfying.