Joe Gibbs is not the first coach to get riled up about the “tuck rule” – that hair-splitting, pantomime-based judgment call that differentiates between a quarterback fumble and an incomplete pass – but he’s the latest in a long line of people that needs to get over it. Sure, it’s frustrating, and yes, it took a potentially game-tying safety away from the Washington defense, but it’s just a single play. It’s pretty to think that the outcome of a game can boil down to one solitary snap of the ball, and the two points lost in the early going set against the two points needed at the end seems to suggest a symmetry, but the Redskins didn’t lose in mucky, rain-swept Denver because of the tuck rule.

In fact, if the game had a single turning-point, it came with 6:39 to play in the third quarter, on a play where Tatum Bell – fully aware the Redskins had dialed up the scheme needed to stop the called play – attempted to run safe and ended up slipping through the defense for a 55 yard touchdown that changed a tightly fought contest into a two-score deficit. The Redskins defense played awfully well, but their two letdowns were costly – Bell got a first quarter score in similar circumstances. But even these scoring drives for Denver weren’t the isolated flukes that handed down defeat to the Skins. Three quarters of various miscues kept Washington down, from a blocked field goal to a costly fumble to points removed from the scoreboard due to false starts. A week after Washington played a near-sterling contest, the drive-killing penalties were back to the tune of ten for 67 yards.