We didn’t come into this week eight matchup with the undefeated New England Patriots without some degree of hope. It’s been suggested that someone has to beat New England this year. And we seem to recall that Tom Brady had not yet beaten us in his career. And Gibbs was out, doing his expectations management act, downplaying our chances, which he always does. And we were asked to compare this matchup to Michigan and App State – and we all know how that turned out (fewer of us probably know how later, App State lost to the Wofford Terriers…the Terriers!).

So, you know, the game starts. We win the toss. Nice. We get out there, it’s tough going. But we hit a couple plays, convert some third downs…honestly, it didn’t feel so bad. Just two NFL teams going at it on a Sunday in October. Unfortunately, the Redskins were very quickly undone by the vagaries of the National Football League rulebook, which clearly state that eventually, Tom Brady gets to touch the ball.

And that’s when everything went wrong.