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A Case of the Mondays: I Told You So

I told you so. I want to be gracious about this. I want to be the kind of man who wins quietly and says something about how it's a long season and there's a lot of football left. I am not going to be that man today. On Sunday morning, before the sun came up, I wrote that by pure mojo, by force of will, by whatever it is three related men can generate in a stadium on a Sunday afternoon, we were going to take this game, and that the reigning Super Bowl champions could file a complaint. Final score: Washington 33, Seattle 31. File your complaint. We were due. Two weeks of this team getting kicked down the stairs had to land on somebody eventually, and the fact that it landed on the reigning Super Bowl champions, in the rain, with our backup quarterback driving, is the funniest available outcome and I intend to enjoy it well past the point of good taste.

The Red Lot, and everything after

Sunday, from a wet parking lot in Landover to a stadium that spent the fourth quarter shouting.

A foil tray of wings and a bowl of macaroni salad on a folding table in a parking lot, with a bottle of bourbon and an orange cooler behind them. — Four pounds of meat and cheese, forty-five minutes, three men, zero regrets. The bourbon was not strictly necessary at that hour and was therefore mandatory.

A blue pop-up tent in a wet stadium parking lot with people in Commanders jerseys setting up food on tables underneath it. — The twelve-by-twelve tent, fully erected, photographed as evidence. Total assembly time: classified. Consultants: YouTube.

A group of seven people in Commanders jerseys standing shoulder to shoulder in a wet parking lot in front of a blue tent. — Josh's crew, who broke this entire operation down in roughly four minutes. I have chosen not to ask how. The answer is that they are younger than me.

A bottle of Miller High Life and a bottle of Elmer T. Lee bourbon on a table next to an old pewter Redskins tankard. — Miller High Life, Elmer T. Lee, and a pewter mug older than at least one of us. The champagne of beers and then some genuinely good bourbon, because we contain multitudes.

A Gameday Live broadcast position inside the stadium, with presenters at a counter and the stands visible behind. — Gameday Live, doing broadcast things, while the rest of us stood in a parking lot holding beers. Different jobs, same building.

Three men leaning into the camera inside the stadium concourse, one in a Commanders jersey and cap, one older in a gray jacket, one in glasses. — Dad in the middle, where he belongs.

A wide view of the inside of Northwest Stadium from the stands on an overcast, rainy afternoon, with the field and far stands visible. — Northwest Stadium, roughly an hour before it lost its mind.

Commanders players in burgundy huddled on the field with Seattle players in white standing nearby, crowd packed behind. — The reigning Super Bowl champions, standing right there, having absolutely no idea what was about to happen to them.

A Commanders receiver in burgundy running a route against two Seattle defenders in white, viewed from the stands. — Football, occurring.

A selfie from the stands with the field and the stadium screen visible behind, crowd all around. — Proof of attendance, filed in case anybody wants to dispute the I told you so.

The day started with a headlamp. I ran in the dark, came back, and my dad pulled up around 6:45 with the sun barely over the treeline. We pointed the car at Keswick to collect my brother Josh, and by then the back was packed to the roof with tailgate equipment in a way that suggested none of us had any idea what we actually needed. Somewhere in there I consumed a quantity of Red Bull and coffee that I would estimate at twelve million, which is to say I had manufactured legal cocaine in my own bloodstream. If you are old enough to remember Cornholio, I was that guy. I was him for about four hours.

The forecast said rain in Landover and we did not believe a word of it, because the sunrise on the way up was genuinely beautiful and it is hard to take a weather app seriously when the sky looks like that. Then I took a wrong turn, entirely my own doing, and we treated ourselves to a scenic drive-by of downtown DC before finding the interstate again. And then, of course, the rain came. Not a downpour, which you could at least respect. The other kind. The mist that isn't heavy enough to justify doing anything about it and soaks you anyway over ninety minutes. Apart from my navigational contribution, smooth sailing.

We parked in the Red Lot, which if you know, you know. Then came the tent. Twelve feet by twelve feet, brand new, never before assembled, versus three grown men and YouTube University. We got there eventually. We later learned that one of Josh's friends is an actual NASA engineer who arrived roughly ten minutes after we finished, which is the funniest possible timing and I will be thinking about it for a while. The reward was a food truck plate lunch, teriyaki chicken and mac salad, plus a smoked queso my brother made that I am still thinking about. We put away something in the neighborhood of four pounds of meat and cheese in forty-five minutes. Shout out to Josh and his whole crew, who broke that tent down in record time so we could actually get inside for kickoff.

A man in a burgundy cap and sunglasses drinking from a large bottle of beer under the tent in the parking lot. — A forty of High Life, consumed in honor of my buddy John, who could not make it. John and I have a long and distinguished history with the format. He was there in spirit, and in volume.

And here's the thing underneath all of it. My dad is the reason I care about this team at all. Every bit of this traces back to him, and I don't get to say that to him in those words very often, because we are not really built that way. What we have instead is a wet parking lot in Landover at nine in the morning, three grown men arguing about tent poles, and far too much queso. That'll do. That does considerably more than fine.

Three men in rain hoods grinning at the camera in a packed stand, with the stadium screen and crowd behind them. — Three hoods, one dad, and the specific joy of getting soaked in a football stadium with your family.

My brother Nathan passed away years ago now, and he was with us on Sunday the way he is at all of these. Nobody had to say it out loud. That is just how it works: he is in the day, in the good parts especially, and Sunday was almost entirely good parts. And my youngest brother Jacob was not there, and should have been. Jacob, next year. I am not asking.

And Nicole, who is the love of my life and was not there either. Nicole works every UVA home game, which means her football Saturdays are a job, and by the time Sunday arrives what she wants is a couch and for absolutely nobody to need anything from her. That is completely fair and I support it without reservation. I am also going to get her to one of these, and I am putting that in writing where she can see it.

Now, the part I've been chewing on. I have never actually been to another team's stadium. Every game I have ever been to has been in DC. But over enough years that still means I have hosted every fanbase in the NFC East, and that is not a low bar: Philadelphia travels, Dallas travels, and the Giants bring their own weather with them. I have been given grief by all of them, given it straight back, and had a genuinely good time doing it every single time. I have never experienced anything like the Seahawks fans on Sunday. It started in the lot, with a guy hanging halfway out of a car window screaming profanity at a group of Commanders fans who were standing around their own tailgate bothering nobody, and the line he landed on was "sorry about your quarterback." Jayden dislocated his elbow. The man is hurt. Those people had not said a word to him. That is where he went.

It kept going inside. The guy directly in front of me applauded when a Commander went down injured. Applauded. I watched multiple Seattle fans yell at Commanders fans who were just walking up and down the steps, minding their own business, and I want to be precise here because I don't think every person who owns a Seahawks jersey is like this and I'm sure plenty of them were perfectly normal: this was not banter. Banter is fun. Banter is the whole point. This was aggressive and stupid and aimed at people who hadn't said a word. It's a football game. You can be better than that, and most fanbases manage it. Meanwhile everybody around us in burgundy was absolutely feral in the best possible way, which is exactly what a home opener in the rain should feel like.

As for the actual football, Marcus Mariota was magnificent and I will not be hearing otherwise. Our backup quarterback walked into a home opener against the reigning champions and beat them. The defense held Seattle to 44 rushing yards and forced three turnovers, and Washington turned those into 20 points, which the record books say we had not done since Week 17 of the 2005 season. Sonny Styles, three games into his NFL career and wearing the green dot, was everywhere. Kain Medrano came in off the bench and took one to the house in the fourth quarter. Dan Quinn got the better of the team he used to coach for. Quinn handed out game balls to Medrano and Mariota afterward, and nobody in that building needed convincing.

Twenty-one seconds of a football game, filmed by a man who could simply have watched the football game. The audio is the part worth having.

Mariota sealed it himself, which is the part I keep replaying. Third and seven, 1:15 on the clock, and he just ran for nine. No heroics required, no prayer downfield, just a 32-year-old journeyman putting his head down and ending the argument. I said before the game that I'd decided I liked him. I'd like to upgrade that.

A fan in a Commanders jersey holding up a hand-lettered cardboard sign reading I BELIEVE IN MARCUS MARIOTA. — Somebody made this sign before kickoff, when holding it was still a slightly embarrassing thing to do. He was right and the rest of us were cowards.

Elsewhere: the subreddit spent Sunday evening throwing what it formally titled a "COWBOYS LOSE UPVOTE PARTY," and I have no further comment except that Victory Monday hits differently when the whole division cooperates. Virginia did their part as well. I was at Scott Stadium on Saturday night watching them take Delaware to the woodshed 42-3, which means I did two stadiums in two days, which after two concerts in two days the weekend before suggests I have learned absolutely nothing and intend to learn nothing further. Mercifully, that streak ends this weekend: Virginia is away at Florida State, so barring something genuinely unhinged I will not be doing two things in two days for a third consecutive weekend. And Florida State, if you have been here since the beginning, is complicated for me. Short version: as a kid, their logo looked like the Redskins. That was the entire basis of the relationship. I was a child. I stand by none of it. And a correction on Jon Bernthal, who I told you on Sunday morning would be in the building. He was never going to be in the building. That one is entirely on me, I had bad information and I published it anyway, which is what I get for filing copy at 4:38 in the morning. Turns out we did not need him. His presence would still have been appreciated.

So: 1-2, a backup quarterback who just beat the champs, a rookie linebacker who looks like a problem for the rest of the league, and a day in a parking lot with my dad and my brother. I have been to a lot of these. Sitting here on Monday, I think that might be my favorite Commanders game I have ever been to, and the scoreboard is only part of why. I told you so. Hail.