Three games into the season and we Redskins fans are wondering if this game matters. There are perhaps three or four teams that have looked worse than the Redskins so far this season and one of them, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, travels to FedEx Field today. Remember that time your girlfriend dumped you and your best friend, as wingman, took you out on the town in search of a quick rebound? Seems a little like this game. Sure, you might find an acceptable and even fun distraction for a night, but you’ll wake up tomorrow morning the same flawed, sad dude you were before.
Of course, this little analogy presupposes that we’ll win today, which I don’t believe we will. A rookie QB, Josh Johnson, takes the helm for Tampa, something that should bode well for Jim Zorn’s men. But he’s a lightning fast runner, and you may recall even Matt Stafford gashed the ‘Skins for a 30 yard gain on a key third down last week. The Bucs are a similarly desperate team, fighting hard under a new, energetic coach but with only three shellackings to show for it. There is not much talent there, but there are some decent (if injury-prone) backs in Cadillac Williams and Derrick Ward, and star receiver Antonio Bryant returns to the lineup from a knee injury. Their defense has been completely dominated by opponents’ run games, which bodes well for the ever-quickly fading Clinton Portis. Then again, who would’ve thought he couldn’t run on Detroit either? Maybe when your buddy takes you out looking for that rebound girl you, a little overserved, run into your ex and end up begging and digging yourself a deeper, sadder hole than you were in before. Bucs 22, Redskins 20.
Look friends, as I wrote last week, this is a deeply flawed team. Unlike most every other team in the league, one look at our skill positions reveals absolutely no young, promising talent behind the Portis-Randle El-Moss-Betts combo. Were you to overhaul this bunch, you’d ideally want to start on the offensive line — but by the time that happens you’ll need a new set of backs to run behind it, too. And while I hold to my belief that Jason Campbell is not the problem, it’s more accurate to say that he’s just not close to the biggest problem.
They may be flawed, but hey, they’re still our deeply flawed team, right? We still have thirteen Sundays to watch and enjoy, and there will be some wins sprinkled in there, big games and great plays, for sure. A complete turnaround looks truly unlikely, even after just three games, but you never know what could happen. At least for now, the pressure’s off. No more delusions of grandeur — we’re more interested in competence and we’ll gladly take whatever wins they can give us. In the meantime, Danny Boy will spend the next few months searching for his new(est) savior. We’ll ride the wave of offseason hype and band-aid free agents yet again, all the while watching Larry Michael talk to us about how we are one of the truly great franchises and next year will return to our former glory. For Dan Snyder’s Redskins, the future is yesterday.
