• It's time to quit scoffing at the idea of Washington making a deep playoff run, and dare we even say it, reaching the Super Bowl? If the Redskins win next week at home against Dallas to clinch its first NFC East title since 1999 (wrap your mind around that one), they will enter January with an NFC-high seven-game winning streak and the kind of confidence that can be contagious in the playoffs.
They'd be far hotter in terms of a potential Super Bowl run than the 9-7 Giants appeared to be upon winning the NFC East in 2011, even with Eli Manning at quarterback rather than rookie Robert Griffin III. And while the notion of Washington winning at Atlanta, Green Bay or San Francisco in the postseason might sound implausible, is it really that much more of a reach than New York winning at 15-1 Green Bay or 14-3 San Francisco in last year's playoffs?
The Redskins have been playing with house money for weeks now, ever since their head coach Mike Shanahan shrewdly decided to take the pressure off his team by all but conceding the season and looking toward 2013 (I suppose he could have been that brilliant, but I doubt it). If there's a bigger karma team in this year's postseason -- or almost in it at this point -- I don't know who it would be outside of Washington.
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