What a year! 2004 has brought us the return of the Pixies, Mission of Burma, and Joe Gibbs. As the boy in Animal House said when the half-naked woman flew through his window, "Thank you God!" After an eleven year absence from football, the Hall-of-Fame coach who led the Washington Redskins to three Super Bowl victories in twelve seasons returns to the sidelines today for the team's regular season opener. And while the game may have changed while he was gone, and we might all suffer the consequences of our overinflated expectations, the beginning of the new Gibbs era gives Redskins fans something they haven't had in a long time: Hope.

Tony Peltier