BGO.C.D.: Performance Anxiety

[Boone]

To quote my late great Aunt Leo… Bless our little hearts. Redskins fans worry. We worry a lot. We worry about disastrous drafts. We worry our...

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[Elephant]

And the worst part of the feeling is a memory of when we knew every Sunday that the Redskins were the better team on the field. The last 20 years has been tough!

 

[Fear The Spear]

It would be an amazing story to see Santana Moss be part of a winning Skins team, after paying his dues for so many years on crappy Skins teams.
So many great Redskins' players have come through this organization with classy attitudes, approaches, and work ethics, only to see their Redskin's (and NFL careers) hit a dead end, when their Redskins' dreams never came to fruition.
People like Ken Harvey, Philip Daniels come to mind, just to name a couple.

 

[Canadian Hog]

What a great read!

It describes what I'm going through and I'm sure what many of us are going through right now. I've been telling myself all week that I have a bad feeling about the Arizona game. We beat a division rival (finally) who has bullied us over and over again over the years and we've got a prime time game coming up in week 3 at Dallas. Will the coaches let our players overlook the Cardinals? Will the players themselves allow that to happen? I'd answer "yes", and "yes" to both of those questions without hesitation in almost all of the past 20 seasons. I guess I'm a creature of habit right now. I've been programmed to expect the worst from this team and that's no different this coming Sunday against a team that they should be able to be successful against.

Let's just say I hope I'm pleasantly surprised come 4 o'clock Sunday or so.

 

[redskins26]

I would love for us to have back to back winning seasons and make the playoffs both seasons.

 

[NewCliche21]

This summed up my feelings perfectly. I am so ridiculously beaten down by our team's performance for the past twenty years that the idea of something positive just causes such cognitive dissonance that my anxiety can't be controlled.

It's funny because today I did a foster parent training on loss and grief. One of the things that we covered was how some of the worst behaviors can come from foster children after their foster parents give them the best day that they can remember. They get this little blue screen of death. Error, error, does not compute, launching fail safe program of depression and anger.

Even in our pick'em, I am so hesitant to pick the Redskins to win anything. People keep asking me for predictions for this year, and I just have no response. I can't feel excitement because I'm just waiting for it to blow up in my face. Hell, we even see people on the board sabotaging their own feelings, just like my foster kids do.

I'm more nervous for tomorrow than I was for my SATs, grad school finals, and licensing exam all put together. And you know what? It's only going to get worse as we get better.

Here's to premature death due to ever-increasing anxiety!

 

[Boone]

What a great read!

Thanks CH - appreciate the kind words.

Here's to premature death due to ever-increasing anxiety!

Ahh. La petit mort.

 

[NewCliche21]

I would love for us to have back to back winning seasons and make the playoffs both seasons.

It's funny, because as much as that would be such a vast improvement, I feel like my energy has pent up for so long that anything less than a Super Bowl is a failed season.

This also coming from the guy who expects to lose any given game. I really need meds.

 

[servumtuum]

I'm more nervous for tomorrow than I was for my SATs, grad school finals, and licensing exam all put together. And you know what? It's only going to get worse as we get better.

Here's to premature death due to ever-increasing anxiety!

That sentence in bold is insightful, IMO.

If indeed, as I think may be happening, the Redskins have actually turned a corner and are heading in the direction of becoming a winning football team the "waiting for the other shoe to drop" feeling is likely to intensify in the short term-at least in my case it probably will, and I think possibly with others as well until a level of consistency has been established sufficiently to show a measurable trend.

The past seems to fade for me more quickly than for most people I've noticed but the emotional memory and dagger-to-the-heart impact of "falling off the cliff" in the 2008 season-followed by the surreal atmosphere of 2009-is still too fresh for me to be easily erased in spite of intellectually knowing that major changes have taken place in the FO, in coaching, and with the team itself and it's going to take a notable body of evidence to be able to become emotionally accustomed to the reality and permanence of the change.

 

[China]

Maybe we need to see more. See that improbable performance against the Giants repeated. Experience the sights and sounds of something resembling success and good football over and over again to rewire our neural paths and synapses. Perhaps only time and consistent experience can replace our Pavlovian expectation of doom at the sound of the bell with something more promising.

This is it. I'm gun shy. After 20 years of misery, one win against a wounded opponent isn't enough. But it's a start.