Most of you Dan Snyder-bashers have never lived in D.C. You’ve never greeted Billy Kilmer at Dulles after he’s whupped Dallas. You’ve never watched George Allen eat victory cake at Duke Zeibert’s. You’ve never bought Sonny a Pabst Blue Ribbon at the Dancing Crab. You’ve never felt RFK Stadium shake under your boots. You’ve never seen John Riggins bow at midfield. You’ve never had Dexter Manley order you to cheer. You’ve never watched Darrell Green give 30-yard head starts to Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson and Emmitt Smith -- and catch them all. You’ve never been thanked by Joe Gibbs for going hoarse.

Dan Snyder has lived and breathed all of this, and Dan Snyder wants to relive his youth, and so that’s why Dan Snyder has just presented his fourth Washington Redskins head coach in 13 months. You may call him self-absorbed and obnoxious, but I call him sentimental. He is a native Washingtonian, and so am I, and what you don’t understand is this: we want our Redskins back.

You say he’s George Steinbrenner, but I say he’s Edward Bennett Williams. EBW went out, in 1969, and got Lombardi. He got the biggest name money could buy. He went and got what Washington is all about: power. Unfortunately, Lombardi died before he could finish the job, so EBW went out and got George Allen. He gave Allen an unlimited budget, and, as he would say later, Allen exceeded it.

Allen excelled with players named McDole and Talbert and Hanburger, and in a modest Rockville, Md., home, a young boy named Dan Snyder fell in love with a football team. He fell deeper when Jack Kent Cooke took over from EBW and brought in Bobby Beathard, who brought in Joe Gibbs, who brought home three Lombardi Trophies.

From 1971 to 1992 -- during the time Dan Snyder went from second grade to entrepreneur -- the Washington Redskins had exactly two non-winning seasons (a 6-10 in 1980 and a 7-9 in ’88). That’s a 21-year run that rivals anyone’s. Snyder got spoiled, I got spoiled, and if that’s why he and I are on the same page, so be it.

Once and for all, he wants to fix this, and if he had to fire three coaches in the process, fine.

And let’s also be real about this; he only screwed one of those three coaches.

He didn’t screw Norv Turner; don’t give me that. He inherited Turner, who was no leader of men, who had a sub-.500 record and who was planning to quit even if the team won the Super Bowl. Halfway into the 2000 season, Turner was telling Redskins employees, "Only seven more weeks, and we’re out of here," and the team’s play reflected it. Turner never commanded a room, and Snyder was right to run him out with three games to go. Obviously the owner was wrong to make Turner sit hours at the stadium after his last loss, waiting to be axed, but Turner had been ripping Snyder behind his back all season. It goes both ways.

As for Turner’s interim replacement, Terry Robiskie, he was never going to get the full-time gig, and he has no right to complain. No, the only coach who has a beef is Marty Schottenheimer, and that’s only because Schottenheimer was supposed to be Snyder’s first signature hire.

Snyder had been portrayed as such an interfering owner, he had no choice but to give Schottenheimer total control, and the problem is, Schottenheimer had no idea how to channel all of his new power, much less pick a roster. He basically gave the Eagles the division championship this season by letting them have James Thrash via free agency -- because Thrash became Donovan McNabb’s go-to guy. Marty cut Larry Centers, just to show who was boss, and he undermined veterans Darrell Green and Bruce Smith. He also had the arrogance to think he could straighten out Jeff George. There’s talk going around that keeping George was Marty’s concession to Snyder (because Snyder brought George in the year before), but that’s bull. Snyder never wanted Centers to be cut, but said nothing. And he would’ve said nothing if George got a pink slip, too. Marty was just being Marty. Marty was just flashing his ego.

That being said, Schottenheimer got the team $14 million under the cap, and got them out of an 0-5 hole, going 8-3 in his final 11 games. One thing Marty proved is that he can coach -- even though he was 0-3 in games that could’ve put the team over .500 -- and Snyder realized that. Snyder would’ve kept him for another season if one thing hadn’t happened ...

If the big fish hadn’t quit at Florida.

What Dan Snyder did is what about 22 owners in the NFL should’ve done. Dan Snyder did what EBW would’ve done, what Jack Kent Cooke would’ve done.

He saw Steve Spurrier come available, and he swept Spurrier off his feet.

Steve Spurrier is the coach NFL people have been whispering about for several years, and almost every owner is lying if he says he doesn’t wish he had him. Spurrier is Snyder’s Lombardi, Snyder’s George Allen, and I bet you won’t get a coaching change out of Snyder for a long while.

Now that doesn’t mean the man isn’t still learning, because he is. The way Snyder disposes of people is crude at best, and the way he has treated employees in the past is revolting. Power is one hell of a drug, and Snyder has abused it at times. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be humbled, and that doesn’t mean he can’t fix the franchise.

I understand you despise him outside of D.C., and that even some people in D.C. are still unsure about him. I even hear a Snyder lookalike was booed at a Wizards home game. But the people booing must be the transient D.C. people who don’t understand that Snyder used to cry as a boy when the Redskins lost.

They don’t understand that he opened a case of Dom Perignon the night Spurrier told him he was coming.

They don’t understand that he’s not going to botch the salary cap again -- like he did when he handed Deion $8 million -- because he’s getting low on funds, anyway.

They don’t understand that he wants to make it a Redskins town again, that he doesn’t appreciate that his rival Ted Leonsis has made it a Michael Jordan town.

They don’t understand how good a fit this is with Spurrier. The coach doesn’t crave his power, like Schottenheimer did, and doesn’t want to run the draft like Schottenheimer did. Spurrier told the owner he only wants input on who they’re going to get to play quarterback and receiver. That’s it; Snyder and the new general manager can do the rest.

They don’t understand that Snyder has a finger on the pulse of the team, that veterans Green and Smith phone the owner all the time, that he knows what’s going on in the locker room.

They don’t understand that he has asked Spurrier to do one important thing for him next season, that he has asked him to do something no Redskins coach has done for him yet -- beat Dallas.

It’s exactly how Dan Snyder felt in the second grade, and nothing’s changed. Not a thing.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tom.friend@espnmag.com.