Well, the mid-point of the season has come and gone, now it's time to get ready for the playoff push and the fate of the season is on the line. The days of being patient with the rookies and waiting to see how the team develops are over. The importance of every win and loss are magnified to the extreme and the pressure is now on for them to not make any errors and lose a very winnable game (see St. Louis Rams game) as they have done in the past. This season has gone very well so far, with big wins over the Cowboys and Eagles back-to-back on the road and a steady "medium" approach to every game has made them fare well so far. The first 9 games have shown that they have an identity, a run-first team that can beat you deep if you creep up, and also a record to back that up. Now, after the bye week, all of that doesn't mean a thing, November and December separate the winners from the losers in this league.
Many things are happening this week that will go a long way to determine what the outlook is going to be for this team and their whether their future will include the playoffs or not. Before we look ahead, let's take a look at things that have occurred in the past week that might be fodder for talk around town this week.
First, let's start off with the burgundy-on-burgundy uniforms on Monday night last week...what was that? When the hell did they come up with this idea of looking like a poor-man's Division III college team. Please make it go away! They should never do that again, wear the traditional white on burgundy or at least white on white, it won't make they play better or worse but at least they won't look like they belong in the WAC division of college football.
The signing of DeAngelo Hall. Many people have diverse opinions about this guy, whether he will ruin the locker room with his selfish and annoying antics, a sort of Pacman-lite type of cancer that will spread across the locker room and spoil the chemistry that this team has, especially on defense. The chances of this happening are very slim as they have very strong personalities on this team that will put his ass in check and not let him become an negative influence. Another reason it won't happen is that they didn't pay much to get him; I can't believe that I'm saying this about the Redskins, normally they would have signed him to a 6-yr deal with a huge signing bonus...thank god they didn't do that, if he becomes a problem they can cut him and not worry about the cap implications that come with that. If he pans out to be an decent nickel corner it will have been well worth it, if not, cut him and move on.
The second half schedule is looking mixed right now. There are definitely some very difficult games coming up with home games against Dallas, NY, and Philly and road games at the Ravens. The other games do not look to be that hard as the Seahawks, Bengals, and 49ers seem to be amongst the worst teams in the league and should not present much of a challenge to them. That doesn't mean that they will win all 3 because, as we saw in the Rams game, they tend to play up or down to their competition. The NY Giants game looks to be the biggest game of the year except for of course, Dallas. Not that the Cowboys are scaring anyone but they are the thorn in our side, the pain in the ass team, no matter what their situation is they always play us well and can beat us at any time. If they manage to go 2-1 in their home division games and 3-1 in their road games they would be 11-5 and a lock to make the playoffs...the key word here is IF.
We will see what the future holds for this team but one thing is for certain this week, it's Dallas week, nothing else matters right now. If they can't beat Dallas and put the final nail on their coffin, then the season might be destined for failure. Tomorrow we will have another installment of this blog as this week the Dallas game is huge. Until then, as coach Zorn likes to say, here's to a successful 3rd and 4th quarter of the season!
Keywords: Washington Redskins
