Skins Brace for Monday Nighter in Philly
By no means am I strictly an NFL guy. When the lights dim after the Super Bowl each year, I seamlessly move with the seasons into the maelstrom of college hoops and then the long, drawn-out, slow-motion marketing fantasia that is the NBA. Over a lifetime, I’ve soured on baseball but stayed constant to soccer, the sport I participated in myself as a child, with engrossingly mediocre results.
But then, the NFL comes around again and I’m reminded of how spit-polish perfect a sporting product it's become. The season, parceled out in 16 sumptuous helpings, strikes the right note from the outset. Right there, in Week One, stakes are actually decently high—yet a stumble doesn’t mean the end of the world, as it does in the college game (Ouch: Michigan, Virginia Tech, UCLA). In just two weeks of Sundays, Saints fans are worried, Texans fans are thrilled with the Matt Schaub Era, everyone’s nice and mad at the Patriots, and everyone’s thoughts and prayers are with Buffalo Bill player Kevin Everett (good news: movement has returned to small degrees to his arms and toes—keep him in your thoughts).
Fun fact: Until the Dallas Cowboys did it the year Emmitt Smith staged his season-opening contract holdout, no NFL team had ever won the Super Bowl after losing the first game of their season. So, the stakes, as they say, are high.
And the opportunities are rich. Tonight, the Redskins return to Monday Night Football and to Philadelphia with the chance to put two games worth of distance between themselves and the Eagles. It’s a significant opportunity so early in the season. Conventional wisdom at the outset of the season seemed to favor the Eagles as likely division champs; if the Skins can grab a win on the road, get some space, and claim a critical tiebreaker this early, conventional wisdom will have to get rewritten.
But it won’t be easy. The last time Washington wandered onto Lincoln Financial Field, we got our asses handed to us 27-3 and the Savior was named as a starter soon after. The Eagles come in motivated as well, having bumbled their way to a season-opening loss to the Packers. And while the two key ingredients of last week’s win—a relentless pounding on the ground and a poised QB in the pocket—will form the backbone of any winning strategy tonight, the Skins have got to recognize that Philly is a considerable step up from the LOLphins. Winning will require better execution then we offered last week.
Oh, and, word to the wise, people of Philadelphia: do not mess with Clinton Portis’ mom. That is all. Game time is 8:30 p.m., on ESPN.