Washington Commanders Stadium Thoughts

Hello, all. I am a lifelong fan of the NFL football team in Washington, D.C. I have been rooting for them for 40 years, so I bring a perspective that is somewhat lacking today, as most fans like me were chased off by the Soon-To-Be-Former-Owner. I need not mention his name. I wanted to weigh in with my thoughts and opinions about the possible location of a new stadium for the team.

I have heard many fans passionately wish for the new stadium to be at the old R.F.K. Stadium site. I have to say that I don't have that strong an opinion about that. R.F.K. was a fantastic place to watch a football game. The fans were crazy, (including me,) it was intimate, it was unique, (as far as the stands shaking and the like,) and the teams were winners, for the most part. I would never take away from that magic.

People talk about the traffic going and coming from the new stadium being bad. It is. I always thought that the traffic to R.F.K. was also bad. Yes, there was a Metro stop a couple of blocks away. But I don't live in D.C., so that didn't benefit me. Traffic is bad for any event that attracts that many people. Have you ever been to a popular concert?

Just because a stadium is built on that site does not guarantee any kind of future success for the teams that play there. That is what made R.F.K. magical. Winning football. If, (let's suspend the reality of this situation for a moment,) the team continued to play there and never went to Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, (you fans around my age know what I am talking about,) the stands would still be mostly empty because of the product on the field and the misconduct and embarrassment off of the field.

Building a new stadium on that site will not bring back the glory days. Nothing will. We need to focus on building a new legacy for this team, while still honoring the past. A new stadium in D.C. could be great. The team is named after the city, after all. But the issue shouldn't be forced because of nostalgia. The choice of location should be made weighing all of the factors that drive it. Access for the fans, impact on the neighborhood, overall costs, local tax incentives and being able to build what the new owners envision. Let the best stadium site win, I say.