No WFT Fans For Home Playoff Game: A Smart Move

ASHBURN, Va. -- As the Washington Football Team gets ready for their first playoff game in five years and their first home prime-time game of the season, they'll have to play - once again - without fans at FedExField.

Maybe - just maybe, that's not such a bad thing?

The WFT has largely become used to that circumstance, as only one of eight home games during the regular season was played in front a few thousand supporters.

And, as it happens, it was one of their worst performances of the year, right out of the bye in a dreadful five-turnover performance against the Giants.

A road game played in Cleveland in front of about 8,000 fans also featured five Washington turnovers - a yucky effort.

This Saturday night, it's the NFL Playoffs and the stakes are very different than they were for those games. There will be no Sunday, in a football sense, if they don't beat the Bucs. Their season will be over.

READ MORE: Conspiracy Cesspool

Statement from the Washington Football Team regarding fans at Saturday night’s game @FedExField pic.twitter.com/fdn9TpDDfb
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) January 5, 2021

Due to COVID, it's probably a smart decision. But there is also some history here that, if you are just a bit superstitious, you are happy to avoid.

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Sure, there's been the occasional home prime-time win: against Green Bay in 2017 on Sunday Night Football, the division-clinching win way back in 2012 against the Cowboys, a crazy first home game of the Mike Shanahan era, once again against Dallas and on a Sunday night, a Thanksgiving win over the New York Giants. Also a home blowout of the Raiders.

But ...

Then there have been the night-time home disasters, including: the 'Monday Night Massacre' against the Eagles in 2010, season-opening Monday Night Football losses against the Steelers and Eagles, night losses to Ron Rivera and the Carolina Panthers, Eli Manning and the Giants (five turnovers), Peyton Manning and the Colts and even Mitch Trubisky and the Bears last year.

Who could forget the swinging-gate punt disaster in 2009, followed by a shutout loss to the Cowboys less than a week later on a bitterly cold night.

There are more. But that's enough. Prime-time at FedExField hasn't been a happy place.