Latest nominee for the Random Football Game Giveaways Hall of Fame: Coffee Grinders!
If you attended the Redskins/Packers game, and were wondering who all those oddballs walking around the stadium with boxed coffee grinders were, here’s your answer: They belonged to the Touchdown Club.
Members of the Touchdown Club and their guests were handed coffee grinders as they entered the tented complex outside FedExField.
Yes, coffee grinders.
The Touchdown Club was one of the value-added, mega-costly gimmicky packages Dan Snyder devised in 2005, back when people still believed there was actually a waiting list for tickets to Washington Redskins games and were willing to pay huge coin to jump to the front of that list. It cost $7,500 to join the club back then, plus the cost of tickets.
For that fee, members and guests have access to an open bar and buffet before the game and at halftime, and there’s always the promise that cheerleaders and ex-Redskins will be mingling about. The weirdest feature of the package comes with the party favors that are handed out, which vary from week to week. Previous gifts have included Redskins yearbooks, Redskins key chains and Redskins koozies.
Once more with feeling: Yesterday’s present was a coffee grinder.
A Redskins coffee grinder, did you ask? Oh, no. A generic, white coffee grinder in a box.
Specifically, I believe that it was the Proctor Silex Fresh Grind™ Coffee Grinder Model E160BY, now selling for $9.99 through the company’s web page.
I can’t, however, be absolutely certain that the Redskins were giving away the Proctor Silex Fresh Grind™ Coffee Grinder Model E160BY. I did have a pass to the Touchdown Club for yesterday’s game, but was told they were out of coffee grinders. The gate attendant said I’d have to see “the sales manager” to get mine. I opted to get back to watching the game.
But still. For what I promise is really the last time: The Redskins gave away coffee grinders!
I mean, how ridiculous!
And, of course, today I want one more than anything in the world.