Peter Rosenberg faced a major scheduling conflict last Sunday. With his first child due next month, he and his wife, Natalie, had organized a baby shower to celebrate.
Unfortunately, the shower coincided with the Washington Commanders game.
Rosenberg, a lifelong fan who grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, never misses a game. He is especially invested now that the team — after nearly three decades of poor performances and multiple scandals — is finally doing well again.
“I’ve wanted to have kids for a long time, so this is very, very exciting. This is a really, really big deal,” Rosenberg, a 45-year-old radio and TV host, said in an interview. “But I cannot emphasize enough how big of a deal it is in my life that this team doesn’t bring me misery.”
With the Commanders fighting for a postseason spot, every game is crucial. They were supposed to easily defeat a struggling New Orleans Saints team starting a backup quarterback. However, late in the fourth quarter, Washington allowed a 17-point lead to shrink to just one.
“The party is really getting going,” Rosenberg said, watching on an iPad. “I’m trying to be present and be a part of it, but all of a sudden they give up a field goal, then another field goal, and then a touchdown.”
When the Commanders finally stopped the Saints from completing a two-point conversion and won the game, Rosenberg felt comfortable returning to the event.
“I threw my arms up in the air,” he said. “I walked around the room and greeted everyone officially, appropriately, and happily. Natalie and I hugged and celebrated for a moment, and then I was able to fully enjoy our baby shower.”
What Rosenberg experienced — joy from a team that has mostly brought him frustration — mirrors the sentiment shared by many fans. Once a proud franchise with three Super Bowl victories, in 1982, 1987, and 1991, the team fell into despair after the much-criticized Dan Snyder purchased it in 1999. However, since Snyder sold the Commanders in April 2023, a renewed sense of hope has emerged. With a 9-5 record, Washington is off to its best start since 1992. The team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2005, meaning an entire generation of fans has never experienced what it’s like to support a winning organization. But times are changing.
‘The experience had been destroyed’
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’s game. The team outfitted him in a full uniform and let him run onto the field at RFK Stadium before the game. He then sat in the end zone and “watched them kick the teeth out of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Wright, now 59 and an award-winning actor with Emmy, Golden Globe, and Tony accolades, smiles as he recalls that afternoon. Despite his success, memories of attending games with his mother, who had season tickets starting in 1970, remain just as meaningful in shaping the person he is today.
The team Wright grew to love as a kid changed completely when Snyder took over in 1999. Once a franchise considered a pillar of the league, it spent much of the last 25 years losing on the field and mired in negativity off it. Under Snyder, the team experienced more name changes (three) than playoff victories (two). So, it’s no surprise that Wright was fine letting go of his mother’s seats after she passed away in 2019.
“It obviously wasn’t the happiest thing to do. But it wasn’t so difficult,” he said in an interview. “The franchise had been destroyed. The experience had been destroyed. I felt that something had been carved out of the heart of my childhood. I just felt, like a lot of us did, kind of abused by the relationship to the team. You just had to cut loose.”
Many fans shared the same sentiment.
In 24 seasons under Snyder, the team made only six playoff appearances, won four NFC East titles, and had three double-digit winning seasons. Snyder cycled through 27 different starting quarterbacks and 10 head coaches. The team’s .427 winning percentage ranked 27th in the NFL from 1999 to 2022.
On top of the team’s poor performance on the field, Snyder faced widespread criticism for how he ran the franchise. In both 2021 and 2023, the NFL fined the team $10 million and $60 million, respectively, following investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct.
Snyder also drew backlash for his treatment of fans, such as charging to attend training camp — the first time in NFL history this had occurred — and suing fans who tried to back out of ticket renewal plans. One of these fans, a 72-year-old grandmother, had held season tickets since the early 1960s.
The team’s name was another divisive issue. Snyder famously vowed never to change the name “Redskins,” even though it had long been condemned as an anti-Indigenous slur. However, in 2020, after pressure from the NFL, major sponsors, and groups like the National Congress of American Indians, the franchise finally made a change.
While not all fans were pleased, those who had opposed the name felt they could finally support the team without guilt.
“We were not only the laughingstock of the NFL, but 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: ‘Whoa, this is terrible. Dan Snyder is terrible. The name is bad. There’s a lot of bad stuff going on.’”
Asked to sum up Snyder’s tenure in one word, Wright said, “Misery.”
Grant Paulsen, a local radio host at 106.7 The Fan who has covered the team since 1999, understands the pulse of the community better than anyone. He began as a beat reporter with the station and transitioned to a midday host four years later.
Paulsen said Snyder was so unlikable that fans refused to buy team merchandise and stopped attending games because supporting him felt wrong. In Snyder’s final season, a franchise that once led the league in average attendance ranked dead last.
“To me, if the fandom of his team was a block of ice, he was taking a chisel and just swinging it,” Paulsen said. “Little by little, just chipping away and chipping away until it was all gone.”
A new hope
For a long time, it seemed impossible that Snyder, 60, would sell the team.
When he finally agreed in May 2023 to sell the franchise for over $6 billion to a group led by Josh Harris, the decision sent shockwaves through the fan base.
Harris’ group, which included NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, enlisted advisers like former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers to help search for a new general manager and head coach. They hired Adam Peters, the former assistant general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, and former Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn.
The biggest move came in the 2024 NFL draft when the Commanders selected LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner, with the No. 2 overall pick, hoping he would be the franchise’s savior. So far, he has lived up to the hype. Through 14 games, Daniels has thrown for 3,045 yards, 17 touchdowns, and just six interceptions. He has also rushed for 656 yards (46.9 per game), the second most in the league behind reigning MVP Lamar Jackson.
“He’s the quarterback we’ve deserved after all these years of suffering,” Huang said. “He’s the guy. I absolutely think this kid is the face of the NFL for the next 15 years.”
Nothing captured that sentiment more than Daniels’ Hail Mary touchdown pass in the final seconds against the Chicago Bears in October. Trailing 15-12 with six seconds left, Daniels evaded multiple defenders and launched a 52-yard bomb toward the end zone. The ball tipped off several players before landing in the hands of receiver Noah Brown for the game-winning score.
More than 65,000 fans at Northwest Stadium in the Maryland suburb of Landover went wild, including Wright, who was filming Showtime’s The Agency in London. He said he immediately headed to Washington Dulles International Airport after the game and, despite the jet lag, “could have stayed up for three days after that flight.”
“There hasn’t been a moment like that in a stadium in D.C. in decades,” he said. “I was just so pumped. That was an absolute jet lag cure. That was a memorable, memorable night in the story of this franchise. It was just a stamp on the beginning of a new era.”
