Washington Redskins continue to reduce seating capacity at FedEx Field

The Washington Redskins once claimed to have a waiting list of more than 200,000 people who wanted season tickets to watch games at FedEx Field, which once had a capacity of more than 91,000 seats.

The Redskins were once actually a decent team, too.

But times have changed. According to the Washington Post, the organization has removed thousands of seats from its home stadium in Landover, Md., for the third time in five seasons, dropping the capacity of what was once the largest NFL stadium by some 4,000-6,000 seats.

The Redskins listed their capacity at 85,000 last year and averaged less than 78,000 in attendance.

Currently there are large metal poles in place of the top eight rows of many sections in the stadium’s upper deck, but the Redskins did not tell the Post any details of their plans for the areas or if more seats were going to be removed.

The Redskins have had only one winning season in the last seven years, going 10-6 and making a playoff appearance during quarterback Robert Griffin III’s rookie campaign in 2012. Since then, however, the team has endured two of its worst seasons in franchise history, winning a total of seven games.

In addition to the poor product on the field, the Post said, many fans have been complaining about a poor experience at the stadium, due in part to large and sometimes rowdy crowds and parking jams.

Plus, the home-viewing experience has improved dramatically since FedEx Field opened in 1997 and owner Daniel Snyder started expanding its capacity after buying the team two years later.

All of which seems to have added up to the Redskins wanting -- and needing -- fewer seats at their stadium.

“It’s just more fun to watch at home, without spending eight hours of your day,” said lifelong fan Jen Riskus, whose family has gone from owning six season tickets down to two in recent years. “It used to be that everyone wanted to go with us to the game. Starting two or three years ago, we couldn’t get anyone to go with us. We couldn’t even give them away for free.”

Twitter: @chewkiii