Yet again, the Redskins were faced with a monster game—one with emotion, playoff implications, and against a fierce division rival. Yet again, they blew it—losing yesterday 23-7 without making it remotely interesting.

After fans and players celebrated the life of Sean Taylor and the unveiling of his name and number in the Ring of Fame, the game began. In no time, the Giants proved that execution trumps emotion. After a pumped up Redskins squad went three and out, the Giants came out of the gate quickly, moving the ball with precision and scoring when Amani Toomer beat Fred Smoot deep.

While there were glimpses of “maybe this could be competitive” in the first half, there was never any doubt who was winning the battles at the line. The offense was downright pathetic through most of the first half, but got a breath of life when rookie Devin Thomas ran a reverse 29 yards for a touchdown- making the score 10-7. The defense did a good job stopping the run in the first half–holding Brandon Jacobs to just 14 yards. Sounds good, but when you give up over 200 yards passing in that same half, there is little to celebrate.

In the second half—the Redskins offense picked up where it left off—marching downfield at a pace of two yards at a time. When they weren’t running the ball for one yard, or throwing sad little screens for two yards, the Redskins were giving up one sack after another.

AP Photo/Nick Wass