Reality Bites!

[sportscurmudgeon]

It is time to look at the 2004 Washington Redskins for what they are. They are a 4-9 football team that fully deserves to be 4-9. This is not a bunch of future Hall of Fame players who have been snakebitten by the football gods and bad referees and dumb coaching this year. This is a football team that loses twice as often as it wins and that is exactly what it should be doing.

Yeah, I know that last night they "fought hard" and were "in a position to win" and they "stood toe to toe with the best team in the NFC". If that makes you feel good, have at it. I watched that game and looked at the paper in the morning and checked on the NFL website and I saw that it was a loss. Not a moral victory; not a close-but-no-cigar loss; it was a loss.

The Skins scored in the first minute of the game. Their next score came with 12 minutes to play in the 4th quarter. If my calculation is correct, that means they went 47 minutes with zero points. And somehow this happened even though folks around here assert that this team has a wide receiver corps that is in the top three in the league and even though Patrick Ramsey played QB and they gave the ball to Clinton Portis 23 times.

To everyone here who wonders why Darnarian McCants doesn't get a lot of playing time, go back to the tape of that game and watch the sumo hold/take-down techique he used on his block with a referee standing about 15 feet from him. That was possibly the single stupidest play in the league this year.

To everyone here who thinks Sean Taylor is great player. On the Eagles TD drive in the 3rd quarter - you know, the one that won the game for them - it was #36 who missed a tackle on Westbrook to give the Eagles a 1st down to keep the drive alive. It was #36 who arrived just a bit late - as he usually does - on the pass to Greg Lewis to put the ball on the Skins' 1-yard line. It was #36 who hit Dorsey Levens at the one-yard-line but failed to use his arms to tackle Levens so that Levens spun in for the winning TD. Oh, and by the way, since Taylor is such an intimidating force, how come Greg Lewis wasn't quaking in his boots by the 3rd quarter when he went over the middle to catch that ball to put it on the 1 yard line?


With two minutes to play, the Skins had the ball in range for a field goal to tie and they had Patrick Ramsey at QB. All the complainers here who say that they have to throw the ball down the field more often need to go and look at that play over and over again. With more than sufficient time to throw, Patrick Ramsey threw into double coverage in the end zone. That was the second stupidest play of the night; that is why they Redskins don't throw deep more often. That is why Patrick Ramsey is a below average QB in the NFL as of this date. It may take the training staff three days to work out that brain cramp!

Still the Redskins got the ball back for one last shot. A sack/fumble and a grounding the ball led to 4th and 26. Last year, the Eagles had a 4th and 26 against the Packers in a playoff game and they were behind at the time. What did they do? They converted the play. What did the Redskins do? They wet the bed.

This team is a long way from contention. It needs upgrading on the sidelines with regard to clock management and with regard to teaching players about the mental aspects of the game. (I didn't even mention Sellers' two penalties that were dumb as toast.) It needs upgrading at QB and WR. The QB upgrade might come from improvement on Ramsey's part, but it has to come from somewhere. The WRs - as they exist now with Coles' no longer a deep threat and not getting lots of separation out of his cuts - is mediocre at best. The OL will get better with Jansen coming back but there are at least two guys there who need to be replaced even if that means - horror of horrors - rookies. The two safeties have to play better either by improvement or replacement. The place kicker better be a whole lot better next year or he should be shown the door.

The first plerson who tries to write this season-long disaster off to injuries need only look at last night's game to see what depth can do to a team that worries about that. The Eagles were down to the point where they were playing Grasmanis at DT and he had been inactive for all but one game all year long. You'd think that super-star Clinton Portis would have run wild against these second and third stringers. Except he only averaged 3.5 yards per carry. How'd that happen?

The Redskins will win next week against SF. They might beat the Cowboys the week after that because the Cowboys are as much a house-of-cards as the Skins are. And they might beat the Vikings in the final game of the year because the Vikes are unraveling and don't like to play outdoors.

We should all root for that NOT TO HAPPEN !! Because if it does, the team will be 7-9 and then the coaches/front office will begin to think that they might be just one or two players away from the conference title game and approach free agency with the idea of "one or two flashy signings". That will doom the team next year too. So, strange though it may seem, I want the Skins to lose that final game of the season by 4 TDs - after they actually do beat the 49ers and the Cowboys - so that the coaches and the front office are not tempted to live through the off-season in a delusion.

As Gomez Addams used to say, "But I'm feeling MUCH better now..."

[irish]

You said it. This is not a very good team and not nearly as talented as most redskin fans believe. I would like to see this team gutted and some of the overpriced-overhyped talent traded.

[gortiz]

Things aren't looking good, no there not, but Jesums Criminey, your making this thing look alot worse then it is, which leads me to believe that your letting your emotions get way to invovled. Yesterday was a heart-breaker, I was at the game I dropped 250 bones in tix and beer, and I was crushed, but damn man...if we won, you never right that email, and we would still be only 5-8.

In this day in age of football, HOW IN THE WORLD CAN YOU PAINT SUCH A GRIM PICTURE OF THE REDSKINS??

1998 Rams 4-12
1999 Rams 13-3 super bowl champs

1999 Ravens 8-8
2000 Ravens 12-4 super bowl champs

2000 Pats 5-11
2001 Pats 11-5 super bowl champs (didn't win there division)

2001 Bucs 9-7
2002 Bucs 12-4 super bowl champs

We are not great, we are not even good, but dude, we got a freaking awesome Defense, a QB who is young but marginally promising, a TE who is amazing, a great RB, a real good WR, and oh yeah, Jon Jansen, Lavar and Matt Bowen aren't bad....Am I optimistic? yes, but am I unrealistic?....no

[Shane]

Progress can be measured in more ways than your won and loss record. I don't think that the coaching staff has any illusions. This team is making real progress. If you are pulling against the Redskins, you are no longer a Redskins fan, so I hope you don't do that.

However, we have to make the decisions about who is going to play and who is going to stay based on performance and fair competition at every position. No way in my view should we give "Nervous Pat" a free ticket to ride, for example.

Players play best when they know that getting the job is based on who plays best, not on who gets paid best, or who is most popular or who is there when you get tired of uncertainty at a position.

It takes time to restore a franchise that had been so off course for so long. By the time Joe Gibbs found the Redskins again, we were without a compass and lost in the south seas. It takes awhile to get the ship back to Super Bowl winning waters.

[illdefined]

we are better than this season's record, that kind of thing DOES exist and matters in a span of seasons not just one.

to think rookie Taylor and born-again rookie Ramsey won't improve is myopic. and having losses that are consistently CLOSE means you are CLOSE to contention. no2 defense in the league is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, and almost by itself makes you a contender.

can't see how you deny the offense's VAST improvement since Brunell was benched, and have no idea why you insist it won't stop improving. think you're just trying to live up to your name SC.

[cpayne5]

Do you think we're on the right track, or just spiraling into oblivion like years past?

I think we're on the right track. Yes, we lost, but we played the 'premier' team in the NFC (some would argue all of football) very closely and have showed signs of improvement over the past few weeks.

You often write a very skewed outlook on the Skins that is in some ways on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to others on this board. I think that you are right on on some of your stuff, but also believe you try to go out of your way just to tick off other people with some of your statements. It just seems like that no matter what happens in the game, you would come on here and start blasting away at something.

[BleedBurgundy]

You're a mean one, mister curmudgeon. You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eal, mister curmudgeon.

Merry Christmas You Grinchy Bastard.

[illdefined]

he's just tryin to shake things up

[Redskins_P]

SC just keeps it real, thats all. It might sound mean, but it's gotta lot of truth behind it.

[illdefined]

Originally Posted by Redskins_P

SC just keeps it real, thats all. It might sound mean, but it's gotta lot of truth behind it.

yeah we should dump Taylor, Portis, Ramsey, and Coles next year as SC suggests and rebuild again. by sideline replacements SC, are you including Gibbs?

oh and lets all cross our fingers and hope to lose some of our last games. good thinking.

[Redskins_P]

Originally Posted by illdefined

yeah we should dump Taylor, Portis, Ramsey, and Coles next year as SC suggests and rebuild again. by sideline replacements SC, are you including Gibbs?

Ill, I don't think he was saying that we should dump all those guys. Maybe I misunderstood him, but I think he's was just trying to get us to take of our burgundy colored glasses.

I might not agree with some of what he said, but I can agree that we still have players making stupid mistakes (Mccants, and Sellers) and that nobody expected that from a Joe Gibbs football team.

[illdefined]

Originally Posted by Redskins_P

Ill, I don't think he was saying that we should dump all those guys. Maybe I misunderstood him, but I think he's was just trying to get us to take of our burgundy colored glasses.

I might not agree with some of what he said, but I can agree that we still have players making stupid mistakes (Mccants, and Sellers) and that nobody expected that from a Joe Gibbs football team.

those guys are more than cuttable, and we've seen Gibbs cut guys without breaking a sweat already this season.

SC isn't pinning our record on those guys though. he's laying the blame squarely on the guys i mentioned. he claims they make us no better than our record, so why would we want those guys next year?

[MTK]

Well, there's always two sides to each story and surprisingly SC decides to take the glass is half empty look at that game.

I'd rather look at last night's game in the context of the entire season.

If we had played the Eagles in the first half of the season the Skins would have been blown out of the water. Just look at the improvement from the first Skins-Eagles game a few weeks ago. In my eyes the team is making progress and the only thing they need is more time in this system.

SC, first you point out the 'Skins inability to score. Well, couldn't you take the same take of the Eagles? Here's a team that dropped 40+ on a playoff contending Packers team a week ago, and they got taken to the wire against a 4-8 team? What can be said of them? The Eagles don't have a joke of a defense, even though they are banged up (much like our own D) as long as they have Johnson calling the shots on the sideline they always field a tough defense.

I'll agree with you on McCants, boneheaded play.

Nobody is saying Taylor is a great player yet... but he's well on his way. Does he make 100% of his plays 100% of the time? No, but show me someone who does. Consider for a moment the impact he's having as a rookie. The bone crunching hits, the INT he caused, the WR's thinking twice over the middle. Do you think Pinkston perhaps thought it was Sean Taylor closing in on him on that embarrassing play where he alligator-bodied the ball? I think it's a strong possibility.

As for Ramsey outside of that horrible decision, I thought he played pretty well. I would put him in the 'average QB' category right now, not 'below average'. Since he took over as starter his TD to INT ratio is 4-3 and he's hitting on 65% of his throws. Plenty of room for improvement I agree but a world of difference over the Ramsey we saw this preseason and in a brief appearance against the Giants.

I don't see where you're coming from on Coles, he had a nice game with 12 catches for 100 yards, despite getting knocked around like a pinball. The guy plays with heart, I don't know how anybody can't love a guy like Coles after last night. Why no mention/love for Cooley? (Oh that's right, because he played well maybe ) 5 catches for 75 yards and was just a finger tip away from a TD catch. Give the kid some love SC, I know you've got some love somewhere in that crusted heart of yours! LOL

I'm assuming you want to replace Raymer and Dockery on the OL. Raymer I agree with, Dockery can still be developed in my opinion.

For your argument as to why didn't Portis run wild on a depleted Eagles line, I ask you why haven't teams exposed our own injury depleted defense all year?? Answer that and you have your answer as to why the Eagles were shutting down Portis. Sometimes coaching and schemes do matter more than talent.

As for rooting for us to lose these last 3 games I have to disagree. I guess you're saying we need to blow the team up next year? I don't think we need major changes at all. Haven't we done the roster makeover thing year after year with no positive results? Why not try the opposite approach, keep our core group of guys intact and make some minor tweaks here and there, and count on guys improving with time and experience in the system? Seems to work pretty well for other teams like, well, Philadelphia.

[sportscurmudgeon]

First of all, I did not say I was rooting for the Skins to lose their last 3 games. I said they would win against SF and that I wanted them to beat the Cowboys. Then if both of those games are wins, I want them to lose BIG to the Vikings so that they don't go into the off-season thinking they are only a player or two away from a championship. They are not! Hence the title of this thread - - Reality Bites !!

Go check out my picks for the NFL this week and you'll see that I took the Skins with 9.5 points in the game. I collected on the game; I did not lose anything. So I'm not complaining about this from a personal loss standpoint; I'm fed up with poor play on the field by a lot of guys who are not performing like competent NFL players.

Oh, and I'm not overly thrilled with some of the coaching calls either...



gortiz:

The reason I paint such a bleak picture is that the Skins have also been terrible over that peroiod of time that you chronicled in your note. And I don't see them on the list of miraculous turn-arounds yet. The reason it hasn't happened is that the team always thinks that a flashy free-agent signing and a big press conference and a lot of TV time and pics in the papers in March is what the team needs. Well, that has not worked for the last 5 years and it ain't gonna work this year either. And if they get full of themselves with three straight wins at the end of the year and begin fantasizing that they coulda/shoulda beat the Eagles in week 13...



illdefined:

You are what you are. And the Redskins are 4-9 after being 5-11 last year. That means they lose twice as many times as they win.

The offense has improved since Ramsey took over in terms of statistics but in terms of wins and losses, the improvement is less than spectacular. Look, I remember when Sonny Jurgensen was putting up monster numbers every year for the Redskins and they just kept losing and losing and losing. It was fun watching Sonny fling the ball all over the lot, but in the end it did not amount to a pinch of pigeon poop come "playoff time".

And by the way, even with St. Patrick of Ramsey at QB, the Redskins have still only gotten over 18 points once...

Here is the priority order for starting QBs:

1. Win games 2. Score lots of points 3. Accumulate gaudy stats.

Remember, Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer won Super Bowls in the last five years. They had great defenses around them; Ramsey has one this year that is holding opponents to low scores. The difference? Ramsey - and Brunell as his predecessor - don't score enough to win even with the opponents being held in check. If you don't think that is "reality" go look at the standings one more time...


cpayne5:

Do I think this team is spiralling into oblivion? I hope not. But I am afraid of what they will do if they win the last three games of the year - which are all winnable.


Matty:

The problem is that lots of people here are saying that Taylor is a great player. You read the posts here; you know I'm right about that. He's an intimidator; he makes great plays; he's going to lay out Donovan McNabb; no one will dare go over the middle on the Skins because they will fear him. Sounds good but it is fantasy. Taylor is a head-hunter who makes highlight reel hits. And he gives up lots of big plays and the ones he gave up last night lost the game for the Redskins.

BTW for everyone who is cackling about the Todd Pinkston "alligator-body play"; that was Clark who "scared him"; if you look very carefully at the tape, you will see that it was Sean Taylor who was beaten on the play by about 5-7 yards and who would have wound up chasing Pinkston into the end zone had not Clark "saved the day".

And Matty, you surely remember the postings here where someone went to look up Ramsey's stats in his first 16 or 18 starts and compared them to same games by Favre and Peyton Manning and John Elway. Lo and behold, Ramsey's stats there were declared to be better than all of them. Now what is the implication of that kind of research and analysis. I infer that the person meant to say that Patrick Ramsey is in the same category as those QBs. He might be some day in the distant future, but as of today, he is not as good as Carson Palmer, Ben Roethlisberger, Byron Leftwich, Michael Vick, Chad Pennington, Jake Delhomme, Brian Griese, Aaron Brooks, Joey Harrington, David Carr, or Drew Brees just to name some of the YOUNG QBs in the league at the moment. The jury is out if he is better than either Rex Grossman or Kyle Boller. Please note, I am not comparing him to Favre and McNabb and Culpepper and McNair who have been around so much longer than him; I've also left Brady off the list even though he too is a young QB just because that would be just too embarrassing a comparison to make; I am only comparing him to young QBs. And he is "below average" on that list.

Ramsey has been starting on-and-off for two and a half years now. What is his record in games that he started? I'm asking only because I'm too lazy to go and look it up. I'll bet a sizeable amount of money that he has not won 10 games yet and I would not be at all surprised to find out that he wins one game for every two he loses. Since that is what the team does, that means that his presence at QB is not any better for the team than whomever else he has replaced. And for everyone spring-loaded to quote stats to me here, I'm talking about winning games not completing two out of three passes that are within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage.

Coles can't run anymore; that is the problem. He still plays hard and hustles and gives 100%. I love that. That does not make me fail to see that whatever injury he has to his ankle/foot/toe makes him a whole lot slower now than he was at the beginning of last year. Watch the game tapes and forget how much you admire his tenacity and his guts; just watch him try to outrun CBs or watch him try to accelerate away from them after a cut. He can't do that today; he did it all the time at the beginning of last year. He's hurt and he is the still the best receiver by a wide margin on this team and that tells you why the passing offense for the Skins is miserable.

I'll give Dockery a chance in training camp but I really want them to bring in a solid young OL to push Dockery. He has improved, but he still makes some really boneheaded plays and sometimes gets beaten like a drum. There isn't any gas left in the tank for Raymer. If Samuels does not renegotiate, he has to be cut because he is not worth $11M against the cap next year - period end of message.

I want the overpaid dumbass players cut; I want the younger ones to look at that situation and realize that this country club they call a football team might just cut their dumb asses too if they don't figure out how to play this game intelligently; I want the scouting staff to find draft picks that will all make the team next year AND have at least four of them contribute to the team in something other than punt return blocking duty. And I want the practice squad to have players there who can actually come to the team and plug a hole if necessary. That's the scouting dept's job so why not ask them to earn their money too.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Wow, I thought I was the site's official pessimist.

I think you're definately taking the "glass is half empty" approach. We're not far from contention as you claim.

We deserve to be 4-9 because that is what we are. That doesn't mean we're far from contention by any means. Until our loss yesterday, we still had a shot at the playoffs. Had we won (which we didn't), we'd have a damn good shot at the playoffs (if undeservedly so).