One of the things we love about the NFL is how consistently entertaining the games can be while at the same time not making a whole lot of sense. After fifteen weeks, here’s the stuff that seems understandable: San Diego and Baltimore are probably the two best teams in the league, Houston really should have drafted either Vince Young or Reggie Bush, the Cardinals should really think about ending their 25-year experiment of not having a competent offensive line, and, of course, Mike Vanderjagt is a punk. That’s what is knowable. Then there’s all the rest of it, like when the Saints, a week after horsewhipping Dallas in front of their own fans, come home with the chance to put themselves into the playoffs and fill their faithful with some much needed post-Katrina cheer, only to succumb to the Redskins.
Washington played perhaps their best game of football since the win over the Texans, and it was the first game in weeks where quality offensive play wasn’t undone by silly coaching decisions. Al Saunders seemed resigned to the fact that the offense functions best when on the rushing attack, and found a way to feed Ladell Betts enough balls to once again propel him over a hundred yards rushing. Betts’ running nourished the sort of play-faking that got Washington their touchdown–a really nice bit of the ol’ pitch and catch from Campbell to Moss, who locked up the ball in double coverage and managed to get his feet down and in bounds.
Saunders called only one of his wackadoo, “My Back Pages” style plays–a reverse to Randle El, and, for the record, it worked, thanks to some excellent seal blocking on the right side of the field. And even though Campbell had many misfires downfield, especially in the second and third quarters, he passed well enough for a 7.3 yards-per-pass average, his best mark thus far this season. (Now: can we please pull the quick WR-slant from the playbook? Isn’t that play in there for Brunell?)
The significant accomplishments for Washington yesterday, however, were all on the defensive side of the ball, where they finally looked, collectively, like the Gregg Williams units of the previous two seasons. They short-circuited New Orleans’ potent offense all game long, holding Reggie Bush and Deuce McAllister to 62 yards. Carlos Rogers hauled in an interception, Andre Carter had his best game, and when the game boiled down to how well Washington could cover the endzone, no one got juked or burned.
Of course, if your tendency is to think “could a’, should a’, would a'”, then the win carried a tinge of disappointment as you saw Washington finally deploy all those winning elements thirteen weeks or so too late. Next week, Washington will travel to Saint Louis to play the still-in-the-hunt Rams. It will be an excellent chance to see if this past Sunday’s game was a step in the right direction or a fluke of happenstance.
