While the Redskins have already played two home games in the preseason, it won't feel like a real homecoming for veterans Greg Toler and Vernon Davis until the regular season kicks off on Monday night.
Both new additions to the team this year were born in Washington, D.C., and went to high school in the area – Toler attended Hyattsville (Md.) while Davis attended Dunbar (D.C.) – meaning that family and friends will be making up the heftiest portions of players' requested ticket sections.
Check out images of tight end Vernon Davis during his first few months with the Washington Redskins.
Toler has 24 family members coming – including his mother, brother and uncle – while Davis has 22, and both admitted that as the season progresses, they will have to limit the amount of requests for each game.
"These first two games I told them I'd get them out of the way early," Toler said. "As the season goes on it's going to cut down to 8 or 10."
"This first game's going to be a lot but after this I'm going to have to tone it down," Davis said.
For Toler, who spent eight years between the Cardinals and the Colts, returning home has been meaningful, and not just to him. Over the summer he visited his former high school and spoke to the school's football players, teaching them things he didn't know at their age and relaying information about college to their parents.
Toler has found those trips valuable "just to show them that you can be anything you want to be and to go back and they see he really made it and comes back and went to the same summer camps that they go to. That's special as well."
Eventually, Toler will make sure several of the football team's captains receive tickets to a home game this season, but said the coaches there make sure their players come to school to watch film on Sundays from their games the previous night.
"He's getting them ready for college already," Toler said of Hyattsville's head coach.
As for Davis, the tight end is just ready to get on the field in front of a hometown crowd again.
"It's going to be great being back home playing at FedExField for the first time in the regular season," Davis said. "I look forward to it. I'm excited to get out there."
