Seems like since the mask mandates in Virginia were dropped a week and a half ago, I’m finding more and more experiences closer to the normal ones I enjoyed every day before words like pandemic and COVID became mainstays of everyone’s vocabulary.

One simple pleasure always occurred around Memorial Day. While I follow all sports, I’m first and foremost a football guy. I played it as a kid, I understand it, and I look forward to football season every year. Doesn’t mean I don’t care about the Nationals, Capitals, basketball or racing, but if I can only watch one sport, football is going to be the pick.

My wife has even asked many times over our 40-year marriage how many days there were until football season, because she knows the odds of me going anywhere on a Saturday or Sunday is pretty close to zero. I’m going to be parked back in my office, where I have a setup of more television screens than any sane man would have, and I watch every game I can. Since there are snacks, Maggie the WonderBeagle joins me, usually sleeping on my lap.

So every Memorial Day, to be prepared for such a question, I pull out a spreadsheet that is designed to provide an answer. It has three columns, and you can see it in the upper right part of this post. It tracks six events that are important to me: The first NFL exhibition game (the Hall Of Fame Game), the first NFL regular-season game, the first college football game, the first Virginia Tech game and the first WFT exhibition and regular-season games.

My NFL fandom hasn't consisted of much success.

From the days I could comprehend the sport, I was a Washington Redskins fan. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family was a Redskins fan and my dad and I were the two strongest fans in the family. We would watch every game, follow the team through the offseason and when we could, we’d make the trek to Fedex Field to watch the team in person.

No, the team wasn’t very good. In fact, the Redskins made the playoffs just five times after 1994, the year I was born. I was fortunate enough to get to see one of those games in person — a 27-13 Wild Card round win vs. the Lions in 1999.

Despite all the losing — and there was a lot of it — I miss it deeply. Things just aren’t the same anymore. And when it came to light that longtime Redskin Ryan Kerrigan was signing with the Philadelphia Eagles for the 2021 season, that felt like the nail in the coffin.

Kerrigan was one of my last deep connections to the franchise. Drafted in 2011, Kerrigan became one of the most feared and reliable pass rushers in the NFL. He registered 95.5 sacks in his career in Washington and from 2011 to 2020, Kerrigan missed just four games. Before 2019, Kerrigan hadn’t missed a single game in his NFL career.

As sports weekends go in the Nation's Capital, local teams may have just finished a rare great one.

Think about it. The Capitals won an opening-round Stanley Cup playoff game. The Wizards rallied to win and clinch an 8th-seed in the NBA playoffs. The Nationals won a series on the road. Plus the Mystics opened their season, DC United took to the pitch, and even the Washington Football Team and Hokies down in Blacksburg had an eventful last few days.

Not  bad. Not bad at all. Here are the details:

Capitals Win A Postseason Thriller

Caps fans had their hearts in their throats early when starting goaltender Vitek Vanecek left in the first quarter due to injury, leaving the game in Craig Anderson’s hands. Anderson only had two starts this season, his last win was in May of 2017, and while they said he was 39, it was just barely. He'll be 40 this week. So on top of concerns for injuries to TJ Oshie and the return of Alexander Ovechkin from injury, Caps fans had plenty to worry about.

But soon after realizing Anderson was even on the team, Caps fans realized they were seeing a calm, experienced goaltender who kept the Boston Bruins in check. Tom Wilson scored the game’s opening goal, showing he can score AND fight, then Jake DeBrusk responded – which was also the play on which Vanecek left with an injury. The call-and-respond action continued in the second period, when Brendan Dillon and Nick Ritchie traded goals, and the teams held each other scoreless throughout the rest of regulation.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about Mitchell Gold, and in it I mention that I ended up getting a chair autographed by both Mitchell AND his dog. Some found that a little unusual.

“That’s not the only thing unusual about my Dad,” would be my daughter’s response.

But I will grant you that I do look at the whole autograph deal a little different than most. I have some sports memorabilia – an autographed picture of Julius Erving in a Virginia Squires jersey, a throwback Redskins helmet (the gold one with the big “R”) signed by Sonny Jurgensen, and a Virginia Tech helmet signed by Frank Beamer and Michael Vick.

The first one I ever pursued was Erving. I grew up in Norfolk watching the brief tenure of pro basketball in the area, and Erving was amazing. At the same time, Jurgensen was the quarterback for the Redskins, and at the age of 13, I thought he was the best quarterback of all time (still do, for that matter).

But it was Erving who soured me on any further sports hero worship. Later in life in the late 1990s, a great friend and business partner knew one of the then-minority owners of the Orlando Magic, and Erving worked for the team at the time. My friend and I were in Orlando, so he arranged for us to get tickets to the Magic game that night and meet my childhood idol.

It’s been a busy day, as I’ve been running around to grocery stores to stock up, since the local weather people are saying Thursday we could have anywhere between 2 and 103 inches of snow and ice.

Nice job of nailing that forecast down with precision, guys.

So as I'm catching up on what I’ve missed this afternoon, I came across a graphic from the good people at Fangraphs rating every Major League Baseball team’s postseason odds. At this time of the year, common wisdom has said, everyone has a chance. Everyone’s 0-0. Hope springs eternal.

Except if you’re a fan of the Baltimore Orioles.

Their chances are listed at 0.0 percent. Senator John Blutarsky’s GPA in Animal House. The membership fees on a Discover Card. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. You know that meme that says “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” They’re not. They are saying you have NO chance.

This may have brought a smile to my face. You see, if you don’t live up here in the Northern Virginia/DC/Maryland area, you may not be aware of the “special” relationship between fans of Washington and Baltimore professional teams. It’s a nice way of saying Baltimore fans can be one colossal pain in the backside to Washington fans, never just being happy with their own success. They’ve got to make sure you know about it, whether you want to or not.

Over the years if I post something good about how the artists formerly know as the Washington Redskins are doing, I can count on at least two fans from Baltimore telling me how much better the Ravens are doing. When the Nationals won the World Series, they jumped in my feeds to make sure you knew that all Nationals fans were at one time Orioles fans and were just front runners without any real character who abandoned the O’s for the Nats.

I was saddened to learn today of Marty Schottenheimer’s passing. Was even more saddened to see some in the media focus their stories not so much on a successful, regimented teacher of the game, but instead shining the light on his 5-13 record in the playoffs.

That’s not fair.

Schottenheimer passed away yesterday from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease while in hospice care, and if you’ve ever watched a family member deal with that, well, you know that’s not fair either.

Schottenheimer was an old-school coach who insisted on rugged defense, a Vince Lombardi-type running game, and doing things the way he taught them. No one was immune to it, either, as he even once critiqued Darrell Green’s way of returning punts, despite Green being an all pro and student of the game.

With his passing, I remember the day with Green, the straw hat he wore in practice (I even went out and bought a replica and called it the “Marty” hat, and my initial belief that when he came to Washington, the game may have passed him by. All this attention to detail and strict views on conformance to how he viewed football, I thought at the time, won’t work any more.

Then it did.

The Redskins started off 0-5, his coaching ways were mocked, and folks wondered for the first of many occasions if Dan Snyder had a clue. He had, after all, fired Norv Turner in the middle of an 8-8 season, one year after going 10-6, then winning a playoff game against Detroit before losing the division final to Tampa.

8-8 may not have been great, we all thought at the time, but it beat the heck out of 0-5.

Marty never wavered in insisting his plan would work. He had bounced Jeff George a couple of weeks into the season and was willing to rely on a tough defense, Tony Banks at QB, and a belief in the players he had.

It’s cold and gray outside this morning. It’s going to get colder. There’s even suppose to be a foot of snow on the ground by the end of the weekend.

Something, I thought, needs to happen to brighten the day.

That “something” turned out to be the Rivera family announcing the best news I think anyone could hear: “Thank you all for the love and prayers,” Washington Coach Ron Rivera’s daughter posted on social media. “Just got off the phone with mom and dad leaving the hospital and @RiverboatRonHC is officially cancer free.”

Two of the greatest words I think you can ever hear put together: Cancer free.

I doubt there are any diseases people think positively about, but when it comes to the most hated of them all, cancer is the one most deserving of burning in the fires of hell. It’s an awful disease that is not some theoretical condition that you read about involving others. It’s personal, and it seems like it ends up touching everyone in some way.

I’ve lost friends to it, I’ve watched my own father battle it, I’ve seen people who have made bad life decisions get it (like by smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day) and I’ve seen perfectly healthy people who eat right, exercise every day and never touch any of the world’s vices get it.

It transforms the notion of the freedom to do whatever you want into a case where every sentence regarding the future starts with the word “if.” As if it weren’t evil enough in the first place, it also seems to have a nasty habit of taunting people through the ebbs and flows of its attack on the human body.

When my Dad was fighting it, some days we’d hear the cancer had aggressively grown, and he might not be around in a week. Then a few days later we’d hear the treatment had worked, and things looked good. It seemed like it was cancer’s way of saying “don’t take me for granted or I will have to show you who is running this show.”

Which is why I hate cancer so much. Cancer is a jerk. Cancer is perpetually invited to look at the mistletoe hanging from my back belt loop and kiss my backside. Cancer has robbed me of friends I hoped to tell juvenile jokes to and remember the old days with for many years to come.

Cancer sucks.

Because of this, I find myself rejoicing even when it’s a total stranger ringing the bell to tell the world you’ve finished your final treatment. It also signals that person is one tough individual, who has been to the mat with the 800-pound gorilla of medicine, and sent it away crying for it’s mom.

Back in 1986, my career took me to High Point, NC, and for the next 14 years I would remain a resident of the Tar Heel state. During that time, the Carolina Panthers (and the Charlotte Hornets, for that matter) came into existence, launching a tug of war for my pro football soul.

A lifelong fan of what was then the Washington Redskins, the newbie in town was hard to ignore. The stadium was only an hour down the road, the area was flooded with Panther merchandise, and they were decent out of the gate, going 7-9 in that first season playing down at Clemson.

When they finished the new stadium in Charlotte (I was at the very first game, an exhibition contest with San Francisco) they were even better, going 12-4, getting good at just the time the Redskins were getting worse.

To say the least, I was torn.

Turns out in looking at today’s news, I didn’t really have to pick one or the other, because it sure is looking like the Washington Football team is becoming the Washington Panthers.

First it was head coach Ron Rivera, who then brought along some players and coaches from Carolina. Today, there are reports he’s chosen former Panthers' GM Marty Hurney as the team’s new general manager, and one of the first things he’ll have to do is decide what to do with the quarterback position.

Anyone want to take a guess where Cam Newton ends up in the offseason?

It may have been the last time we will see the team with no name for many months, but the Washington Football team did accomplish something significant last night.

They were fun to watch. They gave us hope. They might have even found a quarterback.

If so, it will mark an important step for the team, as it has been a constant weakness for this franchise for decades. I don’t care who your favorite team is, if they don’t have a quarterback with “it”, that ability to get in the huddle and against all odds, come to the line of scrimmage and make a big throw when you need it most, your team isn’t going anywhere.

Look back to the glory years of the team called the Washington Redskins. For 8 straight years, it was Joe Theismann. Jay Schroeder held the job for two years with a major Super Bowl assist from Doug Williams, then it was 5 straight years of Mark Rypien. They had stability at the position, so there were guys who knew the offense, inspired confidence the plays would work, and more often than not, got it done.

Last night, they were facing the king of longevity and consistency at QB in Tampa’s Tom Brady. He’s played so long, a graphic during the game informed that he was now older than George Blanda, the previous king of playing forever. The major difference, however, is Tom still looks young enough to play. George always looked like he was in his 80s, had just finished smoking a pack of Lucky Strikes and drinking a 6-pack of Carling Black Label, all while yelling in a raspy voice “come on, let’s line up, I’ve got somewhere to be tonight.”

Because of Brady, I didn’t expect Washington to win, which they didn’t. But I also wasn’t expecting to see Taylor Heinicke shine so bright on the big stage.

He didn’t disappoint. In fact, I might even go as far as to say he convinced me he has “it.”

He reminded everyone that it’s not how strong your arm is or how high you are taken in the draft, it’s your ability to process information, see what you’re facing, and quickly decide where to go with the ball. It has been Alex Smith’s strength, and it’s why even with a beaten and battered body, he still performed better this season than the other QBs on the roster. Knowing where to go with the ball on one leg still trumps having no clue with two.

It’s the morning after. A good night’s sleep has not changed my memories of the Philadelphia-Washington game being one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen where Washington actually wins.

But it was like being young and having a blind date where the date wasn’t very attractive. Then you found out they were rich. And had a private jet. And said “let’s go make some trouble, no matter what it costs.”

Years from now, ugly fades. Great memories, however, last a lifetime, and winning a division title after the things this team has been through certainly qualifies as one heck of a recollection.

I mean, let’s go back to August. The first thing that pops into my mind is the fear the season would never be played. The NFL would start, COVID cases would ramp up, and the whistle would be blown on the rest of the season. Lest you forget, College Football was trying to start its season and games were being postponed every week because of such issues.

Then came a Thursday night in late August where Adam Schefter tweeted out some dreadful news: Head Coach Ron Rivera had been diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. I have learned over my lifetime to not even think about how deadly cancer can be for fear of not being as positive as I could be while that person puts up the fight of their life.

But I have also learned over my lifetime that cancer turns every plan into “if.” I’ve celebrated many friends beating it. I’ve also been to the funerals of several friends who didn’t. If the season even got to a point where they were playing in December, my fear was Rivera might not be on the sidelines coaching. Everything became reduced to one day at a time.

There is a way to release a player in the NFL.

Then there’s the way Washington just released quarterback Dwayne Haskins.

The way Washington got rid of their 2019 first-round draft choice today just seemed to have a message written all over it. With only one game left in the season, they could have easily just made him inactive for Sunday night’s regular-season finale with Philadelphia. No one would have cared given his performance yesterday, and then he could have been quietly released in the off-season.

But no, Washington wanted this separation to include blunt force trauma. It’s like a couple breaking up and one person wants the world to KNOW what they really thought about the other. They released him with a week to go, and they did it promptly on Monday, less than 24 hours after Sunday’s game ended. Head Coach Ron Rivera was short and to the point about the decision.

"This afternoon I met with Dwayne and informed him that we would be releasing him," Rivera wrote in a statement. "I told him that I believe it benefits both parties that we go our separate ways. We want to thank Dwayne for his contributions these last two seasons and wish him well moving forward."

Notice he didn’t say they met and mutually agreed to part ways. It says clearly Rivera called a meeting and there was no conversation about anything other than him telling Haskins to not let the door hit him in the backside while carrying his stuff to the car.

My experience has been when you say things like that, at least in a corporate setting, the person you’re firing has finally gotten on your very last nerve, exhausted your last thread of patience, and you can’t wait to get that person out of the building.

Maybe that was the case with Rivera.

But he also could be sending a message to two groups of people. One could be his own locker room, where he’s saying there are things we’ll stand for and things we won’t. Haskins may have crossed the line in the “things we won’t” category far too many times, so perhaps Rivera was telling his team he wasn’t kidding around.

Or as many a parent has said, “don’t TRY me.”