My Washington Commanders will play in the NFC Finals next Sunday, just one game away from the Super Bowl. I’m an anxious NFL fan who has somehow stuck with his home team through thick and thin. More than 30 years of pain, torment, and heartbreak. The NFL is in my DNA, growing up in the Washington, DC area, with two parents who are passionate about Washington football. I admired the resilience of the Over the Hill Gang in the 1970s, diligently reading The Future Is Now, lighting candles when Coach George Allen left. I worshiped Coach Joe Gibbs in the 1980s, lived and breathed the Hogs, the Fun Bunch, and reported Huff and Puff’s radio games.

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We participated in many playoffs, won three Super Cups. We expected to win. I remember listening to sports radio after the game when a fan called 911 to report a robbery – a bad call during a game. Years before StubHub and the NFL ticket exchange, I paid a scalper $300 for three tickets to a game at beloved rickety RFK Stadium in 1991, where the wide receiver Art Monk set the passing record almost right under our feet. I finally put my name on the season ticket waiting list in 2002 at the “new” stadium in Landover, Maryland, miles from the nation’s capital and all the monuments and memorials that The NFL loves to highlight on game broadcasts. And somehow, just two months later, Gibbs was back as head coach. My seat was too high, and I was so afraid of heights that I spilled most of my beer shivering on the way to the top and rarely stood up for the National Anthem.