First, I was a bit angered about the lack of any punch against the Cowboys and being the loser of one of the worst games this year. Neither team showed anything on offense and were almost as pitiful at everything but defense. Now that I got that off my chest we can move on.
Well, yesterday's game is just another example of how this team likes to play down to it's opponent and how little things can make a game go from an easy win to a nail-bitter. The Redskins played like a 2-8 team in the first half of yesterday's game. Campbell was OK at best and the offense seemed to almost get on and off the field on 3-and-out plays at every turn. Portis started the game off going against 8 and 9-men in the box to stop him and dare the Redskins to be able to protect long enough to be able to throw the ball down the field for over 10 yards. Everytime Campbell steps back in the pocket it seems that he is going to get killed on every play. Jansen and Thomas did play much better yesterday than against the Cowboys and Rabach did the same (he royally sucked against the Cowboys!) but they still got too much pressure on every snap of the first 2 quarters of the game against a very lackluster pass rush. After settling down a bit in the second half, Samuels (who is obviously playing on 1 leg) still was not keeping his man far enough away from the pass rush but did seem to get a bit stronger in the 3rd and 4th quarters.
I was about to faint when I saw Malcolm Kelly in the game and going up for a fade pattern in the corner of the end zone, not a good-looking play but it finally showed that they can go deep and try to throw it up there to get a touchdown or a call, play that occurred on the pass to Moss in the corner where he was held and pushed and it got the Redskins down to the 14-yard-line and eventually a Betts touchdown. That was such a welcome sight to this offense, they need to go deep to back off the defense and give Portis a bit more room to run. I think we can finally realize that Devin Thomas isn't going to do anything this year because he seems to not understand his patterns and his responsibilities so now we have to hang out hats on Kelly being an OK receiver. This is the best thing that could happen to Campbell because he needs a big target that can go deep and, more importantly, go up and get a jump ball.
The Defense was solid all day. They didn't get much of a pass rush and seemed to be a bit lackadaisical at times but did seem to shut them down when they needed to. They actually caught the ball when it was thrown right at him, especially Springs who made a great adjustment to the game-clinching interception (Betts almost cost the team the game...more on him later!). There is not much to say about them other than...OK.
Portis was a beast as always. He told the team, give me the ball at the 3-yard-line and get out of my way. he proceeded to pound the ball at the other team and it showed that Zorn wanted to tell his former boss that he was going to just hand off the ball to Portis and finish the game. They almost pulled it off if it wasn't for Betts not knowing the situation of the game and putting 2 hands on the ball before getting hit. He was being wrapped up for a 1-yard gain before he was stripped, the game was almost over, all he needed to do was to hold onto the ball with both hands and tumble forward, they still had another down to advance the ball and with less than 2 minutes left in the game and Seattle not having timeouts, no need to try to make a big play. This is what makes me feel angry about the game yesterday. The coach told his team to just man-up and go out there and put the game away. It also would have been easier if Sellers would have caught the ball that Campbell tossed to him and scored the touchdown that would have put them up by 7 instead of 3 and would have prompted Zorn to go to the run just to run down the clock and give it back to them on the 20-yard-line with less than 40 seconds left and no timeouts...game over!
The best thing about yesterday's game was that they won, this week, the Giants come to town (post later this week) and we will truly see if this team has enough heart to put this team in the driver's seat to the playoffs. The task is great but with a few good bounces and so toughness, this team could pull off the victory and keep the naysayers away for at least one more week.
Here's hoping that this is the path they choose and not the fear that they play like yesterday and miss out on the playoffs, time will only tell.
Keywords: Washington Redskins
