Fios reminded us
To be clear, this thread was started to address some lackluster fans at FedEx Field (an observation I have also made), not the fan base in general.
My one experience at FedEx is that the fans are friendly, good-natured, classy, but a bit quiet. Part of that could be the bungled design of the stadium, although RFK benefited because it was both a baseball park and a football stadium. The grandstand roof tended to reflect all noice back down to the field.
However, FedEx has this strange jumbotron message that tries to tell fans to be loud when the defense is on the field and quiet when the offense is playing.
That should not be necessary, and I wish the fans would crank up some enthusiasm for the offense as well.
As for showing up on a Thursday night, compare the crowd to the Giants Stadium crowd on last Sunday night: about 2/3 full, at most, and about half of those were stupidly drunken 20-year-olds who bought tickets from season-ticket fans. As I mentioned someplace, a real Giants fan apologized to my daughter and me for the steady obscenities, the gang attacks on Redskin fans, and the mass ice-ball throwing at Redskin fans.
They were loud during the few times when the Giants seemed alive, but they turned like snakes.
Would that have happened at FedEx?
I doubt it.
However, I noticed empty seats at Fedex during the Sean Taylor game against the Bills. Should not have happened: that was a special game.
So...my tentative guess is that Fedex holds about 20,000 fans more than it should. Hey, no one but a select few would ever see the team, but I kind of wish they could move back to RFK!
That is, I'd rather increase RFK to maybe 60,000 or 65,000 seats, and have it filled with devoted Redskin fans. A fantasy...impossible, of course...but it used to look great.