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Washington Football Team: 50-year anniversary of the playoff return

By Jonathan Eig

WASHINGTON, D.C. - DECEMBER 5: Billy Kilmer #17 of the Washington Redskins drops back to pass against the New York Giants during an NFL football game on December 5, 1971 at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington D.C.. Kilmer played for the Redskins from 1971-78. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, D.C. - DECEMBER 5: Billy Kilmer #17 of the Washington Redskins drops back to pass against the New York Giants during an NFL football game on December 5, 1971 at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington D.C.. Kilmer played for the Redskins from 1971-78. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) /
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WASHINGTON, D.C. – DECEMBER 5: Billy Kilmer #17 of the Washington Football Team drops back to pass against the New York Giants during an NFL football game on December 5, 1971 at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington D.C.. Kilmer played for the Washington Football Team from 1971-78. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, D.C. – DECEMBER 5: Billy Kilmer #17 of the Washington Football Team drops back to pass against the New York Giants during an NFL football game on December 5, 1971 at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington D.C.. Kilmer played for the Washington Football Team from 1971-78. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) /

Fifty years ago, as the start of the 1971 NFL season approached, the Washington Football Team had not sniffed the playoffs for twenty-six straight years.

You had to go back to the final year of World War 2, when Sammy Baugh was still slingin’. There had been a breath of life in 1969, when the legendary Vince Lombardi came to town and produced just the fourth winning season for the Washington Football Team since that ’45 playoff run. But then Lombardi was tragically struck down by cancer and the future was uncertain.

After another disappointing year under coach Bill Austin in 1970, that future stopped being uncertain. That future became “NOW.”

That was the strategy of new coach George Allen. And it was more than a simple strategy. It was an all-encompassing philosophy of life. The man who said “every time you lose, you die a little,” was not about to take the slow lane back toward respectability. The Washington Football Team fan base was similarly tired of waiting. The future was indeed now.

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