Sam Huff is retiring from the team’s broadcasts

The Washington Redskins have a vocal and passionate fanbase, which has had plenty to talk about in the past 30 years. Between Super Bowls, rivalries, free-agent and draft busts, the what-ifs, could-have-beens and headlines made by their team, 'Skins fans have no shortage of fodder.

Even though sports have a way of dividing everyone's allegiances, Redskins fans will find an ear and talk it off.

Of course, with the ability to talk to just about anyone about anything Redskins related, there are some common themes, almost catchphrases, that fans have a way of bringing up more often than they may care to admit.

Sam Huff, an NFL Hall of Famer who spent 38 years as a Redskins radio analyst, is retiring from the team’s broadcasts.

Huff, 78, cut back his work as a color analyst last season, working only home games and the Redskins’ road games against the Giants and Cowboys.

This season, he will step aside entirely from game coverage, but will be heard on the pregame show before some home games, said Chuck Sapienza, vice president of programming for Red Zebra Broadcasting,the Redskins’ flagship station in Washington.

“He’s had a very long run,” said Sapienza, who described Huff’s decision to retire as Huff’s own. “People don’t understand the strain and rigor of a long broadcast season. He’s ready. He’s tired.”

Huff has been part of the Redskins since joining them as a player in 1964 after starting his career with New York Giants. He won’t be replaced as the second analyst on games, leaving a two-man booth. Larry Michael will continue as the team’s play-by-play man and Sonny Jurgensen will remain as a single analyst. Rick “Doc” Walker, a former Redskin, will continue as a sideline analyst.

“I’ve enjoyed every game that I played, coached and provided color commentary over the last 50 years with the Washington Redskins. I look forward to joining Larry, Sonny and Doc on the pre-game show a few times this season,” Huff said in a statement released by ESPN980.

Huff’s retirement leaves Jurgensen as the sole remaining member of a broadcast team that stretches back generations and spans the team’s glory years of the 1980s and 1990s. Jurgensen, Huff and Frank Herzog — “Sonny, Sam and Frank” — formed an on-air trio that was almost as beloved as the Super Bowl-winning teams they broadcast.

Herzog was forced out as the team’s play-by-play announcer after 25 years before the 2004 season to make way for Michael.

Red Zebra, which is owned by Redskins owner Dan Snyder, has used former Redskins such as Brian Mitchell as halftime commentators. Sapienza said that practice will continue, but details are still being finalized.

“We’ve talked to a lot of former players about being part of the broadcast,” he said, declining to discuss reports that Chris Cooley, a popular former player, was in line to join the broadcasts.

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