Welcome to Riggo’s Rag, the Washington Redskins fan site.

Welcome to the newest and I hope soon to be best Redskins website around. Depending on how you stumbled across our little corner of the internet you may or may not know this site is a part of the Just the Fans Network, a group of websites dedicated to providing the best fan experience possible for NFL fans of every flavor. We have a main forum that can be found at justthefans.com and will soon have sites dedicated to all 32 teams. If the Redskins aren’t your cup of tea or you are one of those delusional fans who think you can like more than one team just click on the team logos above and check out our other sites.

As for this site, I will be your guide for what I’m hoping will be a fun ride. We will try to have new material every day with one major goal in mind—getting you as psyched up about being a Redskins fan as possible. My greatest memories of being a sports fan come from the days of RFK where the stands would literally shake from the noise. While the internet will never replace the feeling of being one of 92,000 at Fed Ex on a crisp, autumn Monday Night, what it can do is bring people together every day to relive those moments and get amped up to make new ones.

In the coming months you’ll see articles ranging from hard core analysis of the team to funny links from days gone by and everything in between. But by way of introduction I thought it was important that you get to know some important things about what I think about the Redskins or about being a fan. Think of it as an incomplete manifesto. In no particular order, some things I believe:

I believe no real fan should ever boo a team for bad play. The only reason to boo a team is if they aren’t trying hard, and as long as Joe Gibbs is our coach I know that won’t happen.

I still think Heath Shuler would have been a good QB if we hadn’t booed him mercilessly. But what do I know? I thought Ryan Leaf would be a better QB than Peyton Manning.

I think one of the proudest feelings I have as a Redskins fan is that long before the league had Sharpees and cell phones in the end zone, we had the Fun Bunch. If you are too young to know what I’m talking about come back to this site. I promise a whole article on them soon.

I know some of you will hate me for saying this, but I do think the Redskins name is racist. The thing is I just can’t imagine not singing Hail to the Redskins after a score. How long can we let that keep us from doing the right thing?

I think I’m really tired of hearing the stat that we only had 19 sacks last year. Give it a rest, ESPN. You try to use Greg William’s blitz packages with injuries to half the starting secondary every week.

I believe that the only thing keeping John Riggin’s run in Super Bowl XVII from being the most famous play in the NFL is a catchy name like “the catch” or “the Immaculate Reception.” It is too late now, but I blame the sports writers at the time.

I will go to my grave believing Art Monk should have made the Hall of Fame before Michael freakin’ Irvin.

I believe the only thing keeping the Redskins from breaking their current tradition of not retiring numbers is that after they retired 3, 7, 9, 28, 33, 44, 81 and all the Hogs’ jerseys, our current O-line wouldn’t have any numbers left to wear.

I think if you don’t know who belongs to each of those numbers you are either in high school or you need to turn in your season tickets. Well, I’ll give you Sammy Baugh (#33) since most of the people I expect to be reading this probably are not WW II veterans.

I’m starting to think this would start getting dull if I kept it up much longer so I’ll only do one more.

I don’t care if he goes 0-16 for the next twenty seasons. If he wants to keep coaching this team Joe Gibbs should get to do it. Period. He’s our coach and he’s earned it. Besides, we’re going at least 10-6 this year anyway so all those idiots who think the game passed him by can go make fun of Norv Turner getting hired again instead.

OK, hopefully that gave you a hint into what you’ll be finding here in the coming weeks. We’ll try to have something new every day. Come back. It will be worth your time.

Dave Wagner