Archive
What Happened at Fedex Field
It’s not about the Redskins. We know they’re a fair to middling team. It’s about the Eagles. As long as Michael Vick is healthy, they have constructed an offense that cannot be defended, period. It wasn’t as lopsided, but they did the same thing to the Indianapolis Colts the week before.
And they’re going to pick apart the NY Giants next week too. The only caveat there is that the Giants do have a reputation this year of physically injuring many a quarterback and key player this season. But short of that, they’re history too.
What has happened is that you have one of the most gifted athletes in the history of the sport who fixed the one flaw in his game.; his lack of discipline. Under control, and methodically considering each of his 4 or 5 options on every play- with his speed, his arm, his legs and now his brain- he is like a machine. Vick is like some sort of cyborg that is undefeatable and nearly indestructible.
And he has many tools. The fastest wide receivers in football. A set of running backs, either one of which can break off a long run. To protect against 60 and 70 yard bombs that he throws with the flick of a wrist, defensive backs were lining up 50 yards from the line of scrimmage last night. That means you can’t use them if there’s a running play and it leaves 20 and 30 yard patterns out there for the asking. Pitch and catch.
If you have the audacity to catch up with him, he’s almost unsackable. A 5-yard loss turns into a 20 yard gain.
The Eagles could have scored 80 points against the Redskins last night. If they score less than 40 a game the rest of the season, it will be a shock.
There was a moment last night, when the ESPN commentators mentioned that the NFL has a problem on its hands. I think they were referring to the fact that with this offense and this quarterback, the way the very game is played has been changed. This is Babe Ruth hitting 60 homers when the next closest guy was hitting 15.
Poor Skins owner, Daniel Snyder. He thought he had set up the perfect evening for a Redskins resurgence. Sign McNabb to the long-term deal, erase the memories of Detroit and the 2-minute benching, stoke up the crowd and ride the emotion to a key win in the division.
He had no idea his soft, mediocre, little team, with as much heart as it has- and they did fight back bravely if impotently- was about to take on the Green and White speed machine/tank from Philadelphia. As long as this Vick cyborg remains upright, no one else is going to beat them either.
Lucy and the Football- and I’m Charlie Brown
I swear this is my last Monday writing about the Washington Redskins. I thought they were an 8-8 team. They’re not. They’re 6-10, at best. They’re trying harder, but they are essentially losers. It’s in their make-up.
How do you manage to make an opening kick-off go out of bounds? In an indoor stadium. Three different defensive backs fell down on their butts on three different key plays. The punter managed to hurt himself in warm-ups before the game. The starting running back rips off a nice 20+ yard run and then goes down without a hand touching him- like he’s afraid of being hit.
Defense? What Defense? They are now dead last in the NFL in yards given up. Someone sent a comment to the Washington Post alluding to the Redskin’s proclivity to give up huge, morale-crushing big plays when the opposition is facing 3rd and long. He suggested teams should spike the ball on first and second down and just wait for 3rd down on every series.
They lose to possibly the worst team in the NFL, a club that had lost 28 of their last 29 home games. This was tantamount to losing to Detroit last year, snapping the Lion’s 19-game losing streak.
They have a serious head coach and a serious GM now. Both must be wondering what they’ve walked into. The owner has stopped his egotistical meddling. No, this is about the players. They think they’re better than they really are. They’re all hubris and flash and zero substance.
They issue time-worn cliches in their post-game interviews like “we need to put the past behind us and look ahead to the next game.” Precisely the wrong attitude. Put the past front-and-center. Take a real good whiff of it. Look at the pathetic game film over and over. Question how men who make this kind of money can be so thoroughly unprofessional. Look long and hard in the mirror. Don’t put it behind you. Carry the sorry past with you at all times, accept it and vow to change it.
Someone on Facebook warned me about this in the pre-season when the Skins offered glimpses of misplaced hope. He wrote that just like Charlie Brown’s famous Lucy and the football scene, idiots like me would inevitably be teased and consistently let down.
Next week, the Redskins go to Philadelphia to face evisceration by the rejuvenated Michael Vick and the Eagles; Donovan McNabb’s homecoming. Is it possible a team can give up 600 yards? The way Vick is passing and running these days, this is like a match between a, a…I can’t do it. There’s an obvious and bad analogy you can insert [here] that has to do with the heinous actvity that landed Vick in prison for 18 months.
For crying out loud, for the love of God…for the love of dogs…have some self-respect and kick this man from here to Kingdom come.
Garcia Media Life 
Recent Comments