Beltway Tribes

Clips Episode!

Everyone's favorite kind, right? In any case, we’re overdue a recap. So here it is. A rerun in new episode's clothing.

Eight weeks in, we’ve visited with six teams in our whirlwind tour of six Washington D.C. metro bars. It’s been fun. It’s been an ordeal. I’ve watched some great football and eaten some great bar food, though never in the same week, it would seem.  Rest assured this has been a blast.  

But, consider this your warning that in two weeks’ time, the tour will come to an end. Life on the road has beaten both me and my 99 Dodge Stratus down.  As every man needs a home, so must every man have a home team, and once I’ve visited with each of the last two teams on my schedule I’ll choose one team – ONE TEAM – to ride out the season (and the postseason, God-willing) with, at one Metro-accessible venue. A decision is in order, obviously, and while I can honestly tell you I have no idea which team I’ll choose, a set of criteria have finally begun to crystallize. And these are they:

Venue  

[Sidebar] Guess what – I’m unemployed. Yup, after bitching and moaning about balancing the blog with the rigors of my work-week, I am, at the moment, a full-time student. And that means two things. 

1)      I’m ready to kick it. All that junk about abstaining from beer during the games so I can stay fresh for my afternoon workload. It ain’t me. And it’s not gonna be me. No sir, not any more. I make no promises about getting plowed at 1:00 pm on a Sunday as I don’t see how that would enhance your  experience or mine, but let’s just say that the bar culture, which,  until this point, had been merely an ambient presence in my world, just got a lot more important. 

2)      I’m on a budget. If this were Oregon Trail, I’d be set to Meager Rations. In other words nothing on this Earth would set me off more at this point than showing up to a bar that advertises Game Day Specials only to find that the best they’re offering is $4.00 taps. I can’t afford it, I won’t have it, and as a practical matter, I will disqualify venues and the team they host on this basis. I’m sorry. This isn’t a game. Nobody’s floating me rent. 

Fans

When it comes to fans, I like intensity. I like commitment. I also like congeniality, humor and a heavy dose of perspective. Look, freak out when your team’s up big. Freak out when they’re getting murdered. But  in between, let’s get in a little chit chat. Come on. We got drinks and everything.

Team

I, like anyone else, prefer watching good football to bad football. And for the purposes of the blog, I’d rather run with a team that’s headed for the playoffs. That said, this project is about the ‘Tribes’ and their dwellings more than anything else, and as such, I’ll be careful not to over-penalize those whose teams happen to suck this season.

And now, a run-down of how the teams stack up so far, in order of how they appeared.

I hope that's your 'disappointed but not surprised' face, man. The writing was on the wall.

Washington Redskins The hometown team in the town nobody calls home for more than three years at a time. I liked Redskins fans perspective coming into the season and I like it now. They’re 4-4 in a Division in which no team has excelled and one has fallen completely off the map (Cowboys). Redskins nation whispers about the playoffs, but sounds more concerned about developing young talent to replace their veteran rentals (McNabb, Haynesworth). And speaking of McNabb, he’s officially ushered us into Stage 2 of Black Quarterback Fanhood. His commitment to and knowledge of the game have been brazenly questioned. Check. He was benched in favor of an inferior backup (Rex Grossman? Be serious).  Check. And now Stage 3 is knocking at the door as Redskins management has apparently been sneaking QB prospects into FedEx Arena just to ‘throw a few balls with the second unit’. Uh huh. I’d get mad if I hadn’t already been mad in advance.  

Don't be jealous, just come with me.

 Baltimore Ravens At 5-2, they’ve gotten their shit together since I checked in with them, which ought to surprise no one. Their offense is stacked, their defense (albeit long in the tooth) is resilient. This team is elite. Expectations are sky-high going forward. But MORE IMPORTANTLY… McFadden’s in Foggy Bottom has $6 dollar crab cakes sandwiches during games. I love crab cakes. I get upset if I travel North of the city and don’t get to eat a crab cake. The thought of getting to go somewhere – nay, being obligated to go somewhere – that serves crab cake sandwiches on the cheap every Sunday almost makes me forget that Ravens fans are weirdly intense. 

I'm gonna pass, bro.

 Philadelphia Eagles I’m going to be honest. They benched Michael Vick. The pre-eminent Eagles watering hole in DC is a frat bar in Georgetown. I don’t think I can do it. I’m sorry, I’ll do them the courtesy of saying ‘jury’s still out’, but on real – it isn’t. 

One more time, Jamal and his dad, finer gentleman than my crappy camera phone could ever do justice.

 Buffalo Bills GREVEEEEEEY’S! Win, lose or draw the Bills fans will always occupy a soft spot in my heart by virtue of where they hang out, Grevey’s in Falls Church, the most hospitable bar on earth. Every man’s a King at Grevey’s, and by king I mean you don’t rule shit but rather sit comfortably while they serve you their finest bread puddings. At 0-7, the team is historically bad, and if they somehow cop their first win against my Chicago Bears this Sunday, I might have to pull them from consideration. But taking in sum everything BUT the on-field product – surroundings, good people, free and abundant parking – they’d be ahead of the pack by a mile.

The Pats generate new arm flesh in the bye week, baby!

 New England Patriots I already vetoed the Eagles, didn’t I? Damn. Two vetoes would be bush. And that’s fine; I can find a way to get behind this team. Marinate on this:  a lot of the talking heads guessed  that unceremoniously dumping Randy Moss would make the Pats offense worse, and they were right. With Randy Moss, they’d averaged 36.25 points per game this season. Since the trade? Just over 25. Recipe for disaster, no? NOPE. Their defense has held the Ravens, Chargers and Vikings to 20, 20 and 18, respectively, in each of the last three weeks. Offense goes soft – defense steps up, coincidentally. How does that make sense? It doesn’t. It really doesn’t…UNTIL you remember that football is a machine sport and the Pats are an almost perfect machine. Wounded by the Moss departure, they went all Terminator and absconded into a public bathroom and used broken sink fragments to repair their bio-mechanical arm. Which is all to say, if once I plug all of their metrics into my Pick-a-Squad calculator, the Pats turn out to be the ones, there’s lots to maintain my interest there.  

Pierogis, per Google Images. I don't remember them looking so much like won tons. Huh.

 Pittsburgh Steelers Did I mention I’m from the Midwest? Dropped a Bears reference a couple paragraphs up so I could circle back on it. Catch it? No? Anyway.  I’m from there. And this past Sunday, watching the Steelers game at the Tortoise in the Hare bar in Crystal City, Arlington felt like going home. First, the menu: pierogis and kebasa and brats and tots and sauerkraut. That’s 100% Chicago right there. Also 100% Chicago were the Steelers fans, who looked like they’d eaten a lot of pierogis and brats and tots and sauerkraut, which, I promise you, is an affectionate observation on my part.  I found it oddly reassuring. The Steelers kinda play like the Bears, too – how they used to play, I mean. Hard hits that verge on head-hunting (or at least as you can come to that under the League’s new helmet to helmet rules). Strong running game. Conservative play-calling. That stuff pulls at my heart-strings. If over the course of the next two weeks I’m overwhelmed by nostalgia. Like if I don’t find another job in this cut-throat city and the proverbial wolf is at the door, believe me, the Steelers, and the Tortoise and the Hare bar, will receive strong consideration.

That’s it. Those are the teams we’ve covered. And the teams remaining are only two: the Jets and the Giants.  I’m working on renting a space for the selection party and buying bulk card stock for the invitations. Check your mail, hold your breath - the search is almost over.