Results tagged “prediction”

On offense, the Redskins have -- or had -- a small handful of players that other teams might be interested in, at least before this debacle of a season unfolded. They are -- or were -- as follows: Chris Samuels, Chris Cooley, Randy Thomas, Santana Moss, and perhaps Clinton Portis. Of those five, only Moss will play today, cementing an already depleted and inept d'oh!-ffense as a complete non-threat. And, oh yeah, the league's third-best scoring defense in the Denver Broncos comes to town today, feeling a little desperate as they try to break a two-game slide. Denver 26, Washington 10.

This time last year, the Washington Redskins were fresh off an election-eve home beatdown by the Super Bowl champs–elect, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in a game noted for the stunning prevalence of Steelers fans at FedEx Field. A little past the halfway mark of the season, that game officially kicked off the team's late-season demise, where they'd go 2-6 and labor to put up points in virtually every game. The offensive line looked slow, tired, and hurting, and so did Clinton Portis -- whom we all hoped only looked like that because he was behind that slow, tired, and hurting o-line. The defense, for the most part, manfully willed the team into games before the offensive ineptitude just became too great a burden to bear.

I don't know about you, but I enjoyed a Sunday devoid of heartbreak, frustration, incomprehension, incompetence, and the ungodly combination of the four. It was a restful day, one which got my week off to a nice start. Of course, that will all change tonight -- when the Redskins new play-calling system proves to be the glorious failure we all knew it would be in a 24-9 loss to the visiting Eagles -- but at least we're one day closer to the following weekend after it does.

In a week when virtually every major writer in the area has taken their crack at the 'Skins (for me, the best was Tracee Hamilton's), the frustration and boos seemed to have reached a tipping point with the fans, too. A raft of, shall we say, revolutionary organizations are calling for a) a "blackout" at Sunday's game, b) true fans to not buy beer in the stadium, and, the biggie, c) owner Dan Snyder to relinquish complete control and to quit worrying about who his employees are and how they perform and go back to simply worrying about turning a profit. Call it the least Marxist revolution imaginable, but it would still constitute some kind of shocking upheaval for this team. At any rate, everyone's heard the gripes about management and coaching and Sherman Lewis' "fresh set of eyes", but there's still football to be played. Played badly, perhaps, but played nonetheless.

No one knows what to make of this team. If I sound more confounded, week to week, it’s because I am, and I imagine I’m not alone. I think we all know that if they’re going to win, they’re going to win ugly. The Redskins will labor over every win they get this year, because the chance for potentially easy ones just passed with successive games against the Rams, Lions, and Bucs. The great stat of the year so far is that the Skins have yet to face a team with a win in 2009 (counting the Giants who came into Week 1 at 0-0, natch). The Carolina Panthers are similarly winless, but ultimately more talented than any of our last three opponents, and certainly more talented than our boys. I have to take Carolina over the ‘Skins, 24-13.

We may have all warmed up Thursday night with an overtime win by Danny Boy's favorite cash cow, The Pittsburgh Steelers, but our local professional football club kicks off today against the hated New York Giants. Jim Zorn's bunch travels to the Meadowlands today -- not just a place, but a state of mind -- for the late 4:15 kickoff against the reigning division champs.

After a multi-week hiatus, DCist Predicts has returned; only to make the bold call that the Redskins will lose to Baltimore on Sunday night and find themselves sitting at 7-6, fading behind the pack of playoff hopefuls.

I could write a whole post about the possible political implications of tomorrow night's Monday Night Football game between our Washington Redskins and the battleground-state Pittsburgh Steelers. There's the history of a Redskins win in their final pre-election game signaling an impending incumbent party victory; there's the halftime interviews with both teams by Chris Berman (incisive and penetrating, to be sure); and there's the simple fact that I've had to cut salt out of my diet for the past few weeks in preparation for the hypertension-fest that will be Monday and Tuesday night.

The Washington Redskins travel to Detroit's Ford Field on Sunday (1 p.m.) to take on the winless, hapless Lions. The Lions already officially tanked (what's left of) the 2008 season - not when they dealt stud wide receiver Roy Williams to Dallas for draft picks - but when they took the field this fall with Jon Kitna as their starting quarterback.

Last week I said the Skins would struggle early, but ultimately assert their dominance and beat the then-winless St. Louis Rams in their return to FedEx Field. I was wrong.

ESPN's stable of talking heads would probably call this a "trap" game. The 4-1 Washington Redskins, fresh off season-defining road wins against heavily favored division rivals, come back to the expanses of Landover, Maryland to take on the winless St. Louis Rams, a team many see as one of football's worst.