2025 NFL Conference Championship Weekend: A Look Back, A Look Ahead
Predicting the 2025 NFL conference championship games with a deep dive into the history of the Washington Commanders' feel-good story
If you haven’t heard, or if you didn’t watch last Saturday night, the Washington Redskins Commanders are going back to the NFC Championship game for the first time since 1992.
For those of you not great at math, that’s 33 years ago, and a lot has changed since then.
Like, back in January of 1992, I was a gangly sophomore at Pope Paul VI High School, then located in Fairfax, Virginia, where in addition to a failed candidacy for class president, I wrote for The Panther Press, the school’s newspaper. I believe one of the students on the paper attended and reported on that Super Bowl, and the sports editor, a girl who was a senior at the time, and maybe 18, felt so mature to me, that she might as well have been 35.
This era would be the ultimate height of Redskins fandom, whose supporters were enjoying a 10-year run of four Super Bowl appearances, including three Vince Lombardi Trophies.
The Washington Post, led by legendary sports columnist Tony Kornheiser, rolled out the Bandwagon, figuratively and literally, with a series of columns written by Kornheiser highlighting the Redskins’ march to glory, and also packing a tour bus and driving it to the site of that year’s game — in Minneapolis! In January!
I remember watching that NFC Championship game, against the same Detroit Lions franchise the Redskins Commanders defeated last week, on a Sunday afternoon, listening to the legendary duo of Pat Summerall and John Madden on CBS. I remember the raucous crowd in RFK Stadium, the torn-up field, and the grass stains it would leave on the Redskins’ home white jerseys.
It happened at a stage in my life where I deeply hated the Redskins. They made my life as a New York Giants fan miserable. Much in the same way Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs make my 9-year-old son’s existence a misery comprised of tears and tantrums as they get call, after call, after call, just as they did this past Saturday afternoon against the Houston Texans.
While I was rooting for the Lions that day in 1992, I knew damn well there was no way the Lions, even with running back Barry Sanders, were going to stop the Redskins. And so I sat helplessly on the couch, watching the inevitable, as the Skins destroyed the Lions, 41-10.
As I said, a lot has changed since then.
Those halcyon days of Redskins glory, just like my gangly body, are faded from memory. There’s an entire generation of Redskins fans who’ve grown up never seeing their team reach a conference championship game, let alone a Super Bowl, and never mind hoisting the Lombardi Trophy.
Nothing, even waistlines, ever stay the same.
At the conclusion of the 1992 season, Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs would retire and found a NASCAR racing team.
In 1997, owner Jack Kent Cooke died, leaving the team to a trust, with explicit instructions to sell the team. Later that year, the team would play it’s first game at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, its new digs in Maryland.
The home field advantage the Redskins always enjoyed has never been the same. Case in point, sometime in 1997, quarterback Gus Frerotte concussed himself when he slammed his head into the wall after scoring a touchdown.
Finally, in May of 1999, the franchise was sold to Daniel M. Snyder, a 35-year-old lifelong Redskins fan and business wunderkind, who made his fortune with Federal Express, known today simply as FedEx.
He sold the stadium naming rights to FedEx, and so Jack Kent Cooke Stadium became FedEx Field. It didn’t deliver any home field advantage.
Daniel M. Snyder may have been a sharp and astute business man, but when it came to the business of football, he was sorely lacking.
He was petulant, with coaches and players, preferring big, splashy signings that would garner headlines, if not victories.
He signed an aging and hobbled Deion Sanders. An aging, although still useful, Bruce Smith.
He signed the “ole ball coach” Steve Spurrier, from Florida, hoping the college coaching legend would transition nicely to the professional ranks. The highlight of Spurrier’s time with the club for me is a slow-motion replay of him flapping his lips after another horrendous Redskins error.
Snyder and those he put in charge couldn’t find a quarterback in the draft if one fell into his lap. Evidence is shown by the roll-call of illustrious quarterbacks the Redskins drafted while Snyder was owner: Todd Husak, from Stanford, in Round 5 in 20001. Sage Rosenfels, Round 4 in 2001. Patrick Ramsey, Round 1 in 2002. Gibran Hamdan, Round 7 in 2003.
While Husak, Rosenfels, Ramsey & Hamdan has a nice ring to it for a law firm, the results on the football field were…objectionable.
Then there was Jason Campbell, Round 1 in 20052. Jordan Palmer, Round 6 in 2007. Colt Brennan, Round 6 in 2008.
Alright, I’m going to stop there, because even I don’t remember some of those names, and I was knee-deep into professional and fantasy football back in those days, and I don’t want to trigger friends, some who are die-hard Redskins Commanders fans, and who read my posts.
Okay, one more! In the 2012 draft, the Redskins drafted Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, with the No. 2 pick in the 1st Round. They followed that up by drafting another quarterback, Kirk Cousins, with the 102nd pick…in the same draft!
There was nothing but constant tension between the two, even while Griffin won NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and lifted Washington to a playoff berth.
Things only got worse. RGIII would tear up his knee and never be the same and Snyder & Company would never really commit to Cousins.
Miscalculations weren’t contained to the field.
While Snyder basically said the team’s Redskins name, which some groups found offensive, would change only over his dead body, the pressure against the name grew following the summer of 2020 and the death of George Floyd.
Finally relenting due to a number of shareholders and league sponsors, the Redskins became the generic Football Team. Yep, the Washington Football Team. In fact, they would play two seasons as the WFT, leading many to wonder WTF?! Eventually, they decided on the Commanders.
Finally, after a toxic organizational culture was slowly revealed, thanks to employee lawsuits and Jon Gruden3 emails(!), pressure mounted so that Snyder’s ownership could no longer be ignored or accepted by the league’s fellow 31 billionaires.
In May of 2023, Snyder agreed to sell the franchise to a group led by Josh Harris.
If you ever wonder how important the role of a leader is to an organization, Josh Harris and the Washington franchise is the perfect case study.
Following last year’s 4-13 season, Harris cleaned house, firing head coach Ron Rivera and his staff. He hired head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Adam Peters, who made an immediate impact by drafting Jayden Daniels with the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft.
Seemingly overnight, three decades of anguish and frustration have been wiped away.
I doubt this will be a flash in the pan for the Redskins Commanders. Daniels, the Rookie of the Year front-runner, seems to be a franchise quarterback that should be around the Beltway for the next 10-15 years.
Quinn, now a two-time head coach, seems to have learned from his time in Atlanta, and has shown he’s not only a good coach, but a capable leader.
As hard as it is for this one-time Giants fan to admit, I’ll be rooting for the Redskins Commanders.
Alright, not a great job last week, where I finished 2-2. This week we go for broke! Go big or go home! (As always, these picks are for entertainment purposes only.)
NFC Championship Game
Washington Redskins Commanders at Philadelphia Eagles (-6)
Sunday, January 26th 3 p.m. FOX
So for the NFC Championship we have a good ‘ole East Division rivalry4. The Redskins Commanders will only need to take a short trip up I-95 to take on the Eagles.
The teams split the two regular season games they played this year, the Eagles taking the first game at home, followed by the Redskins Commanders pulling out a victory a few days before Christmas at Jack Kent Cooke FedEx Field Northwest Stadium.
The storyline for me is whether the Redskins Commanders will be able to stop Saquon Barkley, and if the Eagles defense will be able to stop Jayden Daniels. That’s the game in a nut shell.
After watching Barkley run all over the Rams last week, it’s not an easy feeling. However, the Redskins Commanders are led by a defensive coach in Dan Quinn.
What Quinn has been able to do in turning around this franchise in just a few months(!), is one of the greatest coaching performances ever, regardless if Washington wins or not this week.
The Redskins Commanders are not the only ones with something to prove this week, however. Quinn has some playoff ghosts of his own to eradicate. Most notably the choke-job he and his Atlanta Falcons performed in Super Bowl 51 against New England, where they led 28-3 midway through the third quarter, before letting the game slip away to Tom Brady and the Patriots.
I’m also a new fan of Zach Ertz, the former Philadelphia Eagles tight end who got into it with Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni following the teams’ December match-up. I’ve told you how I don’t care for Sirianni, haven’t I?
I’m on this Redskins Commanders Bandwagon. Give me the Redskins 34-32.
Local Note: This game as features two coaches from Northeast Pennsylvania. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio is a graduate of Dunmore High School, where he played under legendary Bucks head coach Jack Henzes. Meanwhile, Commanders special teams assistant, John Glenn, played his high school ball at Lackawanna Trail before moving on to play at East Stroudsburg University.
This Season:
November 14: Eagles 26, Commanders 18
December 22: Commanders 36, Eagles 33
AFC Championship Game
Buffalo Bills at Kansas City Chiefs (-1.5)
Sunday, January 26th 6:30 p.m. CBS
The Buffalo Bills got lucky, and they have Mark Andrews to thank for it.
The Baltimore Ravens tight end had one of the worst Sundays in recent history, when he fumbled the ball after a catch while the Ravens were marching toward a needed score, and then dropped what should have been the game-tying two-point conversion at the end of the fourth quarter, to set up a possible overtime.
The end result is Ravens quarterback and likely MVP Lamar Jackson goes home, while Bills quarterback Josh Allan gets another shot against the Chiefs and a spot in the Super Bowl.
No one outside of Kansas City and t’ween girls are rooting for the Chiefs. The Buffalo Bills, meanwhile, are now truly America’s Team.
Fans of a particular age, okay, my age, remember the agony of watching the Bills fall short four Super Bowls in a row during the early ‘90s. It makes rooting against the Bills hard to do.
If the Bills are going to win this game, it will be because of Josh Allen. Chiefs D-coordinator Steve Spagnola is a Hall of Fame coordinator. Will he be able to stymie Allen? Will Allen be able to outplay Spagnola’s scheme?
I just can’t pick the Chiefs, just like I can’t pick against the Bills. Bills win 17-14.
This Season:
November 17: Bills 30, Chiefs 21
Tom Brady, winner of 7 Super Bowls, was drafted at No. 199 by the New England Patriots, three picks ahead of Husak. What might have been?
Aaron Rodgers, winner of 1 Super Bowl and a prolific passer, was drafted No. 24, one spot ahead of Campbell. Again, what might have been?
His brother Jay was Redskins head coach from 2014-19.
I heard today that while Washington and Philadelphia have met 180 times, they’ve never met in a playoff game.