MONEY QUOTE

It's almost August, and that means that pre-season football is right around the corner. I don't really like pre-season, but its arrival heralds the coming regular season, and that is worth celebrating. I can't wait!

REMINDER: Happy Day, celebrated annually by the greater Tate confederacy on the occasion of the Redskins first nationally televised game is on Sept. 12th this year- Sunday night, at home, and against arch-rivals Dallas Cowboys.

I know I risk losing some of my readers by posting about football too much, because my own informal research has told me that roughly three-quarters of you out there are women, and that is not traditionally a demographic that follows football with great fervor, but, indeed yea verily, I cannot help myself.

I'm full of optism for my beloved Redskins this year, but everybody tells me I need to dial that back a bit. After all the Skins were an abysmal disappointment last year, finishing with an anemic record of 4-12, and it's not often that a team can right the ship this quickly. I don't want to be guarded though. I want to be excited and hopeful. I'm tired of hedging my expectations with pragmatic talk of a building year, and so forth.

So I was glad to read this quote from head coach Mike Shanahan over at the official Redskins blog ;

Q: This town always expects a return to greatness and expects it quickly. Do you have to ask people to dial back their expectations after a 4-12 season and so many changes?

A: "You don't have to temper that. That's what you should expect and that's what the fans should expect. If you don't have that belief, if you don't believe and the fans don't believe, chances are the players aren't going to believe. To go through a season 8-8 in Denver, I didn't want to go out, I didn't want to eat. You're embarrassed because it's your name on the football team. You represent the city and the football team and you don't want to have those tough years."

I'm all in! I'm not tempering anything. I haven't decided who is going to the Super Bowl from the AFC yet, but the Redskins will be representing the NFC. No doubt. Thanks for setting me free, Mr. Shanahan, and for giving me the license to revel in unmitigated optimism.

Hail to the Redskins! Hail victory!