Redskins Easter Message: Setbacks, comebacks, and everything between

It’s Easter Sunday, also commonly referred to as “Resurrection Day.” Suddenly, a thought popped into my mind about the resurrected careers of the greatest of the greats during the Redskins Super Bowl glory days.

A good Pastor friend of mine, Pastor Tom Moffett, from Arizona, once said “Every setback is a set up for a comeback.” I’ve loved that saying, as things like that seem to stick to me for some reason. Moffett himself is a former NFL QB who jokingly says he spent some time playing quarterback in Miami until some guy named Dan Marino showed up.

His words, however, ring true, really true. Like church bells in my head this Easter Sunday.

It’s an Easter Sunday that sees us all in the same boat, living in an unprecedented time and traveling through uncharted proverbial waters. At least in the NFL with the coin toss, we all know it’s either going to be “Heads or Tails.” It’s a 50-50 shot. It’s not like the thing is going to land on its side. However, with this, the coronavirus pandemic, none of us really know how it’s all going to play out.

As my mind wanders, I’m reminded of three shining stars, our three Washington Redskins Super Bowl MVPs. None of the three had any idea how it would all play out as their paths had so many ups and downs, twists and turns.

None of them probably had any idea, as each traveled down roads much like the famous poem Robert Frost once penned, “The Road Not Taken.” Each of these hallowed names — Riggins, Williams, and Rypien — took the “one less traveled,” and as the poem concludes, “and that made all the difference.”

I’m dating myself, but I was born in 1973, ironically the same year our Washington Redskins appeared in their first ever Super Bowl, Super Bowl VII, and I’m writing this by memory, so if I get any facts or figures wrong, please forgive me.

This story is more of an allegory than it is anything else. There are enough facts and figures out there to fill up an entire salary cap, but I feel like something more is needed, something deeper, today of all days. Call this more of an Easter daydream.

I’ll never forget the story of my favorite football player of all time, John Riggins, originally drafted by the New York Jets and one day signing with the Redskins.

That was until he’d had enough and he walked away from football. Riggins always was one to march to the beat of his own drummer and he was done. He was done until new Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs traveled to find him and literally talked him back into playing again in Washington.

Flash forward to Super Bowl XVII in early January of 1983, the year I became a Redskins fan while growing up in Minnesota. I was eight years old, wearing blue pajamas with feet in them with a little red t-shirt my Grandma had given me as a gift. On the t-shirt was a “44” screen printed in yellow on the front and back with the name “RIGGINS,” across the top of the back. I’ll never forget it.

On 4th and 1, down 17-13 in the 4th quarter, standing across from what amounted to Goliath in the Old Testament, Don Shula, a young and pretty much unknown Joe Gibbs decides to roll the dice and go for it. The play call: “70 Chip.” I can still see the scene in my mind’s eye as my all-time hero dragged a Dolphins defender, Don McNeal, about five yards until he fell off the back of his jersey in a futile attempt to tackle the Diesel.

It was a mythical scene, and it was the day the legend of John Riggins was forever cemented into the hearts and minds of Redskins fans throughout the universe. It’s the day John Riggins brought the Super Bowl Trophy home after traveling 43 yards to the endzone to put the Redskins up on the scoreboard for good. I can’t help to wonder, what would have happened, had Riggins never decided to come back?

Then there’s the story of Doug Williams, one of the first African-American quarterbacks to start in the National Football League and the first to ever become MVP of the Super Bowl, which he did in Super Bowl XXII. I even remember the date, January 31, 1988, from memory. I don’t even need to look it up.

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It was one of the best days of my life. Funny, I can’t remember what I had for dinner last Tuesday, but I remember that game like it was yesterday. I can still remember watching the 1988 Redskins Season Highlight tape my Grandma bought for me for my birthday the following year, and I can still hear the voice of NFL Films as the highlights were playing, referring to the second quarter of the game: “The Quarter, fifteen minutes of madness for Denver… of might for Washington… and a blur to the millions who watched.”

It was in that 2nd quarter, No. 17 Doug Williams lit up the skies at Jack Murphy Stadium, as it was known as back then in San Diego. The Redskins exploded in the second quarter to put up five touchdowns and 35 points, all but burying Denver by halftime.

I was a teenager and I had the flu, but I went nuts just the same. It was incredible, it was a magical time. It was like a video game where you can skew and manipulate all the settings; the Redskins just could not do anything wrong as they dominated the Broncos. Wow, was I happy. In fact, I think that game cured my flu, if I remember right.

However, Williams didn’t just roll out of bed that morning and decide to become the hero of our Nation’s Capital. He had a hard road, a very hard road even getting to that point. Originally drafted in the first round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Williams led the Bucs all the way to the NFC Championship in 1979.

They lost that game and he basically got the boot out of town. He ended up losing his wife to a brain tumor after they had a little girl together. Williams found himself out of the NFL and playing for the now-defunct USFL, another league that was formed back then.

It wasn’t until Joe Gibbs, who used to be Tampa Bay’s offensive coordinator back when they made their run in ’79, looked up Williams and called him to Washington in ‘86, that they were reunited. He was a backup when he arrived in D.C., to the starter at the time, Jay Schroeder, who ironically is my favorite Redskins quarterback to ever step between the lines. I loved Jay so much, I wrote a letter to Joe Gibbs begging him not to trade him, which Gibbs responded to; the letter from him is in my book, Whatever it Takes.

Anyways, as fate would have it, Doug Williams took over for Jay Schroeder for good, ironically in the game I was at in Minnesota: December 26, 1987. It was my first ever Redskins game I ever got to go to in person.

Williams took over at halftime as Schroeder was benched, and from there, he orchestrated a victory over Chicago in the divisional round of the playoffs, in what would prove to be Walter Payton’s last game and again, much to my personal happiness, beating Minnesota again for the second time in three weeks in the NFC Championship, before the team triumphed over Denver.

I often wonder what would have happened, had Williams given up after facing so much racism, as I recall he had to endure in Tampa? What if he’d given up after his wife died? What if he just threw in the towel and decided to not play in that other league?

Then there’s the story of another signal caller, the story of Mark Rypien. Even his last name was butchered by so many when trying to pronounce it. I still remember some people thinking he was Cal Ripken’s little brother. Nobody had much of an idea what the Redskins had in him, drafted in the sixth round, much like Tom Brady was.

I remember in the 1987 team picture, he wasn’t even wearing a uniform; he was standing there in a coach’s sweater while buried on the team’s depth chart. From what I recall at first, his cannon of an arm saw many of his bombs sail way beyond his receiver’s hands. However, he eventually found his groove and got his game on.

In 1991, the Redskins went 14-2 behind Rypien’s golden arm. It was bombs away. His play action was like watching poetry in motion. I can still hear the radio call of legendary Redskins radioman, Frank Herzog, “Rypien fakes the handoff, drops back, sets, fires, he’s got a man deep, Gary Clark, 20, 15, 10, 5, TOUCHDOWN, WASHINGTON REDSKINS!” The way Herzog said touchdown and Washington Redskins, was really drawn out; it was his trademarked and patented radio call.

I’ll never forget one game against the Atlanta Falcons, the mouth from the south, Jerry Glanville and his squad, came to D.C. and Rypien threw like six touchdowns in the game. It was one of those games they refer to as “being in the zone.”

Everything “Ryp” touched turned to gold that day, and eventually into silver, when the ‘Skins won their third Vince Lombardi Trophy, January 26, 1992 at the H.H.H. Metrodome in Minneapolis. Yet another date that’s seared into my memory, partially because I was there. I still lived in Minnesota at the time and I was a senior in high school.

My Grandma, affectionately known as “The Redskins Grandma” at a local sports bar she used to take me to in order to see all the Redskins games off the big satellite dish, had gotten me a ticket to the big game for my high school graduation present.

My ticket was lower deck, corner end zone, about ten rows up by where the ‘Skins came out of the tunnel, but in the BUFFALO ENDZONE! I was dressed in my Redskins gear from head to toe, literally. I had red and yellow warpaint on my face, my red No. 11 Rypien jersey, Redskins sunglasses featuring the Redskins logo, Redskins Zubaz (now I’m really dating myself), complete with my big foam Redskins No. 1 hand.

All around me was a sea of blue, Bills blue. I remember some guys wearing these Dearth Vader outfits, others wearing these Buffalo heads screaming, “B-U-F-F-A-L-O, put it all together and you get a Buffalo.”

It was intense, super intense. When the PA announcer said, “And now let’s welcome the 1992 NFC Champion Washington Redskins, the boos were so loud as the ‘Skins were coming out onto the field, it was like sticking your head up to the engines of a 747 airplane.

I couldn’t even hear myself think. All I did was turn towards the ascending seats and hold up my big Redskins No. 1 foam hand, pointing to it and shaking my head, “Yes,” up and down. I thought someone was going to kill me. You should have seen the looks on those guys faces, the Buffalo fans; their faces were redder than the warpaint I had on my face!

I’ll never forget this “Buffalo fan,” at halftime pulling off his Bills sweatshirt, revealing a Redskins t-shirt underneath. I tapped him on the shoulder and he said, “Hey, what, I want to be on the winning side!”

It was yet another shining example of every setback being a setup for a comeback for No. 11 that day. Once passed over by every team nearly six times over in the NFL Draft, “Ryp” lit it up and ripped apart Buffalo’s secondary.

I vividly remember the knockout punch, a deep six to star receiver No. 84 Gary Clark. Next thing I knew, Tina Turner’s song was playing, “Simply the best, better than all the rest…” the confetti was flying, and the celebration was on! Redskins 37, Buffalo 24. The game really wasn’t as close as the score.

I find myself wondering, what if Rypien had been so discouraged he didn’t get drafted higher, he would have quit or walked away from the game? What if he gave up during his rougher beginnings? I mean, he was drafted in the sixth round in 1986 and he had to wait five years for his big moment. That’s patience.

As we look at these three greats, what do we see in them? I know when I look at the names Riggins, Williams, and Rypien, I see three men who decided not to give up, three men who refused to give up.

So get out your Easter egg coloring kit and color some of them burgundy and the others gold, and always remember, every setback is a setup for a comeback.

Next. Daniel Kelly's story: Thanking Bruce Allen for a chance. dark

It was true for them, it’s true for you, it’s true for me, and it’s true for all of America on this Easter Sunday.

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