I was a fat eleven-year-old when the Redskins won their third Super Bowl in 1992. I cheered on Mark Rypien, Gary Clark, Art, Earnest Byner, Ricky Sanders, B. Mitch, & D. Green as I shoved hot dogs into my mouth. Sunday meant sitting on the floor, like a little ball of mush, watching football after taking more than my share of sugar cookies and lemonade from the after-church snacks. Life was good.

Sure, I got made fun of at school for having multiple chins and being dressed by my mom in Dockers that would fit the waists of most middle-aged men, but my team was awesome! Little did I know that a couple years later, I would still be failing Presidential Fitness Tests because I couldn’t get my obese butt to run all the way around the track or to do anything resembling a pull-up but the team that I loved would have fallen faster than me in the gym class dodge ball draft.

As time passed, I grew up instead of out and eventually stopped crossing my arms all the time to hide my gut. However, the Redskins did not undergo such a fortunate growth spurt. Coaches and quarterbacks came and went with incredible regularity, and the once dominant force of my pre-pubescent youth, struggled for every win.

I drank the Kool-Aid when Joe Gibbs returned to Redskins Park in 2004. By that point, I was living in D.C. and could not help but be wrapped up in the return of our football savior. By comparison to the years since his first departure, reaching the playoffs twice in four years was a major accomplishment. However, it was evident early that the game changed while Joe was away. The media and fans were relentless as Gibbs stuck with his brother in the Lord, Mark Brunell, for far too long, and by year three, it seemed that Joe assumed a figure head leadership role responsible more for rallying the troops than offensive decision-making.

It is probably too early to pass final judgment on the second Gibbs tenure, but it does, at least, seem like the organization is in a better place than it was when the Ol’ Ball Coach left town. It is also too early to tell if the Danny has completely botched that forward progress.

There is no doubt that the powers that be made a total debacle of the search for a new head coach. In fact, it is probably a toss up as too whether the selection of Jim Zorn or Sarah Palin was more of a shock inside the beltway. However, despite their attempt to do as many things as idiotically backward as possible, someone actually took the job.

When their “choice” steps on the sideline tonight in Giants Stadium for his first regular season game as a head coach in the National Football League, we will begin to learn if the Redskins organization is heading toward a future familiar only to the fat eleven-year-old version of me or toward a future the current version of me is only all too familiar.