Ravens fans celebrate their team’s Super Bowl victory on Sunday at a bar in the Federal Hill neighborhood. (Original photo Getty Images/Patrick Smith)
Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) is cooped up with his colleagues in the John A. Wilson Building at a D.C. Council hearing today, but based on his on-the-record comments this morning, it sounds like he’s wishing he was standing on the corner of Pratt Street and Howard Street in downtown Baltimore.
Yep, turns out Evans is like that frontrunning kid in your fifth-grade class who got his parents to buy him a bunch of Cowboys crap after the 1993 and 1994 Super Bowls because he wanted to latch onto a winner. As the Council was adopting a ceremonial resolution marking Friendship Collegiate Academy’s defeat of Dunbar High School in a football game last December, Evans interjected with some praise for the Ravens’ victory in Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday.
“They’re not the Washington Redskins, but they’re pretty close,” Evans said of his apparent new favorite team.
Evans is also the leading backer of a cockamamie scheme in which D.C. would “trade” the FBI—which is leaving its downtown headquarters—with Prince George’s County for the ‘Skins, who in Evans’ mind would break their lease at FedEx Field in Landover, which is not set to expire until 2027.
“We need to make the Redskins less close to the Ravens by building a new stadium for the ‘Skins in D.C.,” Evans added.
Evans’ spokesman, Mark Bjorge, denies that his boss’ NFL allegiances are shifting. “Evans is a huge ‘Skins fan,” Bjorge tells DCist in an email. “Always has been, always will be. The ‘Skins are our local team, and they belong back here in Washington, D.C.”
But now, the hedging: “That said, if the ‘Skins aren’t going to win the Super Bowl, than I guess it’s okay that the Ravens did. At least someone in the DMV did. And there’s always next year. Go RGIII!”
Whatever. If Evans hurries, he can probably catch the tail end of the Ravens’ victory celebration at M&T Bank Stadium. But does Evans, a rumored mayoral candidate in 2014, know that residents of Baltimore City, and Baltimore, Howard, and Anne Arundel counties don’t get to vote in D.C.?
