Hail to the Redskins

Hail to the Redskins, hail victory braves on the......errrr let's pump the brakes a bit before we start to plan a trip to Indianapolis. The Redskins are 3-1 heading into the bye week, but before we start to drink the cool aid and we start calling our travel agents, let us take a look at their year so far and see the good and bad of the first quarter of the season and see where we should be optimistic about the future yet realistic about the present.

The Redskins have an impressive record so far, they are 3-1. Heading into the bye week 11 teams had the same record as the Redskins. Since 2001 the Redskins have started the season 3-1  four times. The first one was in 2003 they started great but finished the season at 5-11. Then in 2005 we finished 10-6. 2007 we finished the year 9-7 and finally in 2008 we finished 8-8. So in four seasons that we started 3-1 we only finished twice with a winning record and we only made the playoffs once since 2001. I know what you’re thinking that we finished good half the times that we made it, but unless you’re a card game those stats are not that great since we only made the playoffs once. Now I will say this that these Redskins that we are watching this year are a different team by far. First there are no distractions, bye bye McNabb and Haynesworth, they are someone else’s problems now. Second Coach Shanny brought in players that wanted to play not players that wanted a pay day, just like the candy bar pay day players were nuts when they came to DC and felt better on the way out then they did on way in. The attitude on the field looks very different then years past. Those two reasons are enough to be optimistic about the future of this team.

Let us take a look at who the Redskins have beaten this year. Game one they beat a banged up Giants team that are missing about 5 out of 11 defensive starters, the one thing we can take away from this game is that Giants offense was in full force and we held them to 14 points. Then we took on a real bad team in the Arizona Cardinals, which we barely won, again the good point was that we won period. Then we took on another banged up team in the Cowboys, a team that we should have beat hands down. The game was a déjà vu game to me. It took me back to the last couple of years where teams served us the game on a platter, yet we would give it right back and say no thank you , you can have back. Finally we traveled to St Louis and beat up on the Rams. Great wins against bad teams, but in order to be the best we have to beat the best. What I love about this team so far this year is that they beat teams that we were supposed to beat. Which in recent years have not been the case, a la the Rams last year and a Lions team that were winless before they came to DC. The Arizona game normally we would have lost, especially after the couple of picks that Rex threw, yet we pulled out a win. The Rams game as well, a game that most people called “A trap game” and we pulled out the victory there.

My only concern so far this year, is at the most obvious position, the QB spot. Rex is a decent player, but he makes too many mistakes. In the Cardinals game he threw bad balls and they were picked off. In the Cowboys game he threw it directly at Sean Lee, not sure if Rex suffers from color blindness that intermittently affects him or what the case was but he threw directly at the guy. In the Rams game the two picks were not his fault, the first pick No hands All Chest catcher Santana Moss let it bounce off his chest and into the hands of the Rams defender. The second pick I am pretty sure that 9 out 10 NFL QB’s would have thrown.  James Laurinaitis made a great play, whenever you see a player’s name that means that they are not looking at the ball, so he threw it. Laurinaitis turned around and snatched it out the air, not a bad throw just a great play. Rex still needs to stop throwing bad balls and make better decisions in order to help us win.

I love my Washington Redskins and I applaud their effort this year, but before we get to crazy let us take the wins simply for what they are…wins. Let us not fool ourselves that we are making a playoff run this year; if we do it will be because the Giants, Eagles and Cowboys are just god awful. The next part of the season we will get to see how real these Redskins are, with games against Buffalo, Jets and Patriots, not to mention our own division games. It will give us a good idea of where we stand. This far into the season I would say that we have a great foundation to work with, building blocks that can make this team a contender in a year or two. So put the corks back into the wine bottles and let them age for a couple more years and pull them out when we see the Redskins make it into the playoffs and beyond that.