[sportscurmudgeon]

The Bleeping Rams beat the Skins by 2 TDs and dominated the second half of the game and the way that all of this will be turned around is to re-sign Brandon Banks? It took me at least 10 seconds to be able to get my jaw back up off the floor after that...

Folks, the reason everyone seems to be so outraged today is that the expecations for this team were unrealisticly high to begin with.

Mike Shanahan is a good football coach - - but he does not have a magic wand.

Jim Haslett is a defensive coordinator who has had some good defenses and some bad defenses - - depending on the talent he had to coach on those defenses. This year, he has middling talent; it is not the worst in the league by a longshot; it surely is not near the best either.

Remember when Bill Clinton ran for Pres in 1992? His advisors kept reminding everyone in the campaign, "It's the economy, stupid."

Let me remind: "It's the talent, stupid."

The Redskins are not "talent-rich". Nonwetheless, they have more talent than the Rams and they should beat teams like the Rams on the basis of superior talent; so there is something else going on there. My personal hypothesis - - which I cannot prove - - is that the veteran Redskins players have lived in a pampered environment long enough to believe that all they have to do is show up against an "inferior" opponent and the "inferior" opponent will quiver in fear. Sadly, that usually does not happen...

This team will be in the upper echelons only after they purge the players who play inferior teams by mailing it in and replacing them with solid draftees and free agent signings of football players - - not guys with stats who want to be paid. The Redskins have signed a ton of the latter and rarely do they ever work out here in the pampered envrioment that leads them to believe they really are as great as they think they are.