Washington beat the New York Jets in the league's kickoff game last year on a Thursday on ABC, which was pawned off as "Monday Night Football."
But the Redskins' last official Monday night appearance came more than two years ago in a blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Cowboys players celebrate a sack of quarterback Mark Brunell, who nearly rallied the Redskins despite looking lost during the game.
(Jonathan Newton -- The Washington Post)
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The game's theme music going on 34 years -- "Dun-dundundundun!" -- blared from the stadium's sound system continuously prior to kickoff, until the noise reached a fortissimo in the stadium. The way the masses stood, the music was almost an identity referendum, as if their team had made it back to prime time.
If it was not quite a return to glory, a Monday night date at least meant a return to the national consciousness for the Redskins. And much of that perceived marketability and the renewal of a rivalry was due in part to the two Hall of Fame coaches and the men who hired them. Jerry Jones, the Dallas owner, shook hands with Redskins owner Daniel Snyder before the game, and they soon left the field, leaving it to the relatively new faces of their respective franchises.
Gibbs and Parcells engaged in some of the most draining trench-warfare battles in NFL history in the 1980s, and while Parcells held an 11-6 advantage in head-to-head matchups he always said Gibbs was his most respected nemesis. It was Parcells who dealt Gibbs his only shutout, a 17-0 loss in the 1987 NFC championship game at Giants Stadium, and without the two men on opposite sidelines the game simply would not have had the same allure.
Hours before kickoff, the parking lot smelled of charcoal, beer and barbeque sauce. To beat Beltway traffic, many tailgaters appeared to have either left work at noon or taken the day off. Ribs slathered in hickory smoke and sweet tomato sauce sizzled on grills, next to homemade German potato salad. Fathers and sons tossed footballs in some lots; in others, inebriated men stumbled as their friends asked them to "go long."
Indeed, it wasn't all a G-rated atmosphere. The hand-made placards ranged from "HONK IF YOU HATE DALLAS" to teen-agers who conveyed their affection for the Cowboys with four-letter expletives on their T-shirts.
Two Dallas fans, one wearing a replica jersey of Cowboy safety Roy Williams, withstood the verbal abuse walking toward the stadium.
"You poor souls," a woman of maybe 40 said, as her chili bubbled on a Coleman stove. "You look so lost."
