“Perpetually A Mess; At Least Be Publicly-Traded, So Fans Can Have Something To Invest In, That Somehow, Still Makes Money”
(The End of Looking At, Most Everything Outside of The Scope of Business)
A mid-round pick. Meaning, a deep third round pick, in the 2024 NFL draft, next spring. All of that, for a 24-year old defensive end, who hasn’t even rounded out into the perennial force he looked to be headed toward — and what anyone with a brain; forget having actually scouted players for the NFL, before an ugly knee injury — will end up being; and, almost immediately. Now that he’s gone from the albatross, formerly, in great times, known as the Washington Redskins. Yes, long before white people’s bullshit politics…for all of you millennials out there (can the Alphas read, yet? My double-entendre game is silly, by the way), that’s what the team name was. And for the first 13 years of my life, I knew winning. The Cowboys had come to mainly stink; nobody cared about the ST. LOUIS Cardinals; and Philly was always Philly. I’ll let you figure that one out.
To say that I’ve seen Washington lose, a lot — would do words a disservice — it has been abysmal, pathetic. I’m just a man with a dream, deferred. We don’t live there anymore, and neither does my affinity for the team (which, I admit, I’ll still want to see do well, if only for area and nostalgia’s sake) that I grew up screaming at televisions for; arguments with loved ones, and at least for me; rooted not just in the team that chose me, but also a passion for the game that I’ve loved so long, I can’t even put a time-stamp on the first time I fell in love with it; football has simply always been a part of me.
The world can become cut-and-dry, if we take the position of what sports — particularly, the untaxed NFL, where the commissioner makes more per annum than the top player — have taught us about companies and business in general. Well, a couple of things.
One, all teams should be publicly traded entities, and the league itself, should be the parent company. My social media lines have been flooded, since another supposed “hometown boy made good”, replacing the previous owner, with the same distinction, in all of his dubiousness; traded away two young and capable Defensive Ends, in Montez Sweat and Chase Young. These trades amounted to two whole draft picks.
Thus far, Washington is slated to have over ninety-million dollars in cap space, at the opening of next season’s business. Oh, did I mention that the salary cap is also slated to climb another twenty-million dollars?
Every August, a fan base gets its hopes up for a modicum of “success” in the coming year. We’ve seen big names get big money, and basically retire while playing. We’ve watched top draft picks and potential franchise-changing players, hall of fame talent, either be and feel disenfranchised and get traded for nothing that makes sense (Trent Williams, Champ Bailey, though, we did get Portis); or have suffered career-altering injuries, and have even passed away. Every year, we’ve paid outrageous prices for stadium food; to the point where the food was still more expensive than the tickets, after having to almost give them away, in order to keep fans in the seats.
And what have we gotten for it, except a bunch of wishing for the next year to be better, by the time that the. current season reaches its halfway point? Meanwhile, the franchise sold for over six-billion dollars, just this past spring. We understand that it’s business. It’s just that it’s also politics as usual.
Rest in Peace, always, Sean Taylor.
