First off, allow me to completely disqualify everything I’m about to say. Your guess as to how the Redskins will perform this year is just as good as mine.

I must confess that I might have been too quick to get down on the Redskins’ prospects for the 2011 season. In hindsight, invocations of the worst team in NFL history were woefully premature.

The Washington Redskins will play an actual preseason football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers tonight. And as a Redskins fan, I don’t want them to lose. I’m just starting to accept that I expect that they will.

Donovan McNabb appears to be on his way out of Washington, and allow me to shed half a tear that his tenure in burgundy and gold has ended so laughably.

Weather permitting, today marks the start of the 2011 Washington Nationals baseball season. After finishing with a 69-93 record last year — which actually represented ten-game improvement over 2009 — the club showed signs in the offseason of wanting to spend money and make honest-to-goodness roster improvements. The Nats landed a top-tier free agent in Jayson Werth, brought in Adam LaRoche to fill the gap left at first base by Adam Dunn’s departure, and solidified the bullpen with the veteran arms of Todd Coffey and Chad Gaudin. The new faces, combined with some youngsters entering their first full season of major league duty like Michael Morse and Jordan Zimmermann, and it appears as if the Lerners, general manager Mike Rizzo and manager Jim Riggleman have pieced together a team with a new attitude.

It’s just a shame that I don’t think they’ll be very good.

Losing Adam Dunn to the White Sox left the Nationals with a hole to fill at first base, and no clear answer as to how to do so. One theory was to move Mike Morse out of the crowded outfield rotation and see how he performed — and after devoting a sizable chunk of payroll to Jayson Werth, a personnel shuffle didn’t seem too far-fetched. Instead, the Nationals did the unthinkable and went and got another free agent, signing veteran first baseman Adam LaRoche to a reasonable two-year contract. If you’re not excited yet, I’ve designed a three-step plan for any Nationals fan to get pumped about our new first baseman.

Rex Grossman overthrowing a wide-open Terence Austin on fourth down closed out a disappointing 2010 season for the Redskins. I didn’t expect a winning season, but the poor play calling, dancing linemen and incessant Haynesworth/McNabb pouting made the losing that much more painful. From pain comes laughter, though, so let’s take a look back at the best moments in the Redskins’ (latest) Year Of Failure, sorted in descending order by the level of psychotic tears laughter each moment produced.

Who had Week 15 in their “How Soon Will Donovan McNabb Get Benched” pool? If you did, it’s time to collect your winnings.

I wish I could muster more outrage at Graham Gano. Statistically, he’s the worst kicker in the NFL, having made less than 70 percent of his field goals — so expecting him to fail isn’t an unreasonable position. But when Graham and his six-day beard lined up for the potential game-tying extra point yesterday, it wasn’t that I knew it was going to fail — it’s that I was prepared for it to fail.

Less than ten minutes into yesterday’s embarrassing loss to the Giants, the Redskins had allowed two rushing touchdowns and 118 yards of offense. The cameras then cut to a shot of Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett, looking bewildered by what has transpired, half-heartedly uttering an expletive that rhymes with cluck.