Another Burgandy and Gold (And Blue) Monday

Each of the Redskins losses during their current 6 game losing streak have been agonizing in their own way, and yesterday’s 27-24 home loss to Dallas followed along that same path. Their 20-13 home loss to the Eagles was the long-awaited Rex Grossman-meltdown game. Take back his 4 interceptions, and who knows what the outcome would have looked like. Their 33-20 loss at Carolina was a reminder of how bare their cupboard truly is. The Panthers, who are no good yet in their own right, at least were able to show off their shiny new toy in Cam Newton. In that game, the Redskins happened to turn to a 30 year old journeyman who had never won an NFL start (and still hasn’t). The 23-0 sha-lacking handed to them by the Bills in Toronto showed a complete lack of effort and preparation by what is supposedly a professional sports team (they allowed John Beck to get sacked a franchise record number of times against a team that hadn’t been able to touch an opposing QB all season long until that point). The ugly 19-11 loss to San Fran at FedEx Field wasn’t even as close as the score indicated. The 49ers were superior enough to play sloppily and unevenly, and yet it still appeared that they were just toying with the Skins for most of the game. Last week’s 20-9 loss at Miami served notice that the season was, for all intents and purposes, over. The Dolphins had only gotten their 1st win of the year a week before. If Washington could find a win anywhere on their schedule for the rest of the season, certainly it would be in Miami, but afterwards it was tough to envision another winnable game for them in 2011.

Sunday’s OT loss to the Cowboys was a different animal all together. The Redskins were an almost unheard of 7.5 point home dog to a divisional opponent (and hated rival). Washington made enough bumbling plays to assure everyone that they were in fact the same old Redskins: a Fred Davis fumble, an ill-advised Rex Grossman interception, letting an All-Pro yet not exactly “fleet of foot” tight end score on like a 60 yard pass play, allowing the Cowboys to pick up a 3rd and 15 in overtime, etc. And yet at the same time they actually displayed some fight and enough play-making ability at other times that they probably should’ve won the game. A win would have done some good for this franchise. It would have ended a 5 game losing streak, avenged another last second loss to said hated divisional rival from earlier this year, and put the Skins at 4-6, which as bad as they had been for 5 weeks would have only put them at 2 games out of 1st place in the mediocre NFC East with 3 divisional games still left to play against the Eagles and Giants…still, while that would have put them mathematically still in the playoff hunt, I think only the most widely delusional Redskins fans would mistake that for an actual shot at making the postseason, but as fans all we ask for is the illusion of hope sometimes. When Graham Gano’s 52 yard overtime field goal attempt sailed just a smidge wide, and then the Cowboys kicker narrowly made his attempt only a few minutes later even that glimpse of hope was extinguished yesterday as well.

Ahhh...the illusion of hope.

What kind of drives me crazy about this season is how people have generally lost sight of the fact that this was supposed to be a rebuilding year in the 1st place…such is the curse of having a surprising 3-1 start I guess. And the Shanahan regime has been far from perfect, but I think it’s fair to say that most of this team’s problems stem from poor decisions made by previous eras of Redskins decision-makers. I guess it is less fun to talk about the sins of the last 10-15 years than to bash the current head-honchos though. For years, Washington was constantly in win-now mode as they signed every high-priced free agent they could find and gave away early round draft picks like they were free samples at the supermarket. This personnel acquiring style generally doesn’t work in any sport, but especially not in pro football. What it did was allow the Redskins to at the very least be mediocre every year, usually hovering in the 6-10, 7-9, or 8-8 record range. Every once in a while they would actually have a year where they were good enough to be 9-7 or 10-6 and make the playoffs, but this was more fool’s gold than anything else, further convincing the Redskins brass that they were only a player or 2 away from being a true Super Bowl contender, and thus continuing the personnel cycle described above.

What’s happening this year is what knowledgeable Redskins fans have feared for quite some time. Eventually, someone at Redskins Park would come to their senses and realize that the real-life fantasy football league strategy they had been employing wasn’t working, and they would finally decide to burn the whole thing down and start from scratch. The side effects of that previous strategy include a lack of young talent, a lack of depth, and an abundance of overpriced and rapidly aging players. Cleaning house is absolutely what needed to be done to fix the franchise for the long term, but having a truly ugly season or 2 is kind of the cost of doing business. Shanahan’s biggest mistake thus far was the 1st big decision he made since signing on with Washington, and looking back it might be one the franchise doesn’t recover from before Shanahan’s time in DC is up: Donovan McNabb.

I don’t think many people thought McNabb coming to DC was a bad idea at the time. Hindsight tells us differently, but even though some wondered why Philly would trade McNabb within the division I think most people thought McNabb was a good fit with the Shanahan offense, and at the very least he would be a serviceable stopgap QB for a couple seasons. I don’t remember anyone saying he would be a huge bust that wouldn’t even make it through a full season in Washington before being relegated to wearing a headset and a baseball cap. McNabb was only 1 player, but it may have set the franchise back several seasons. 1st, it meant Washington had wasted another year without finding their franchise quarterback. Outside of Sam Bradford, the crop of QB draftees was pretty weak that particular year, but perhaps Shanahan could have signed a less expensive stopgap that season (or just rolled with Rex Grossman as a stopgap a year earlier). Also, the draft picks they gave up to get McNabb (a 2nd round pick and either a 3rd or 4th round pick) could have helped further along the rebuilding process as well. 2nd round picks should be immediate contributors and NFL starters in my book. I would consider a 3rd/4th round pick as a guy that might need a little more seasoning, but who could be a starter after a year or 2 as well. That’s 2 potential starters right there. Like I said before, hindsight is always 20/20, but knowing what we know now wouldn’t you have rather suffered through Grossman as your starter last year, used that 2nd round pick on another offensive lineman, a corner, or maybe a rush-linebacker (like they got with Kerrigan this year)? Then, depending on what you got the year before you could have either used your 1st round pick this year on Kerrigan (who looks like he is a stud…so if you think I want a do-over on him, think again) and taken Andy Dalton in the 2nd round, or used your 1st rounder on someone from this year’s talented crop of rookie QBs like Blaine Gabbert or Christian Ponder. I don’t remember the exact order of the draft, but it’s not like they couldn’t have gotten 1 of them by moving up or down in the draft or something. Either way, the team would have been a season or 2 ahead of where they are now in the rebuilding process.

This guy would sure look good in burgandy and gold.

Unfortunately, Shanahan tried to kill 2 birds with 1 stone. He tried to start the rebuilding process while at the same time still trying to stay good enough to “win now” by rolling the dice with McNabb…unfortunately, sometimes the dice come up snake eyes, and you walk away with nothing. McNabb proved this year that it was more than just him and the Shanahans not seeing eye-to-eye last year, as he was every bit of a bust in Vikings purple as he was in burgundy and gold the year before. That’s little solace for fans of a team that have seen this script play out far too many times over the last 2 decades though, and it may end up serving as the legacy of the Mike Shanahan Redskins era in the end. All we (as fans) ask for is the illusion of hope at this point…something we probably won’t feel again until next year.

Hoodie Time

Christmas’ and birthdays kind of take on a new meaning the older you get. It’s cliché to say, but at a certain point the pleasure you get from giving really does outweigh that of the getting. It’s gotten to the point where I almost don’t care if I get a single present on those days…well, “almost.” I mean, what kind of sad pathetic loser would I be if I didn’t get 1 Christmas present, right? Anyway, as you get older you seem to go through different phases in terms of the gifts that you get from people. I think this is partially because as we get older we all get increasingly harder to shop for, which lumps everyone’s gift-giving ideas into 1 or 2 distinct areas. When you’re 5, you are so easy to shop for. Toys, video games, and anything with a Ninja Turtle on it are all gold, but those days can’t last forever.

Bam!

For example, there was one Christmas when I was 11 or 12 where I got like 4 duffel bags from various people. It’s a smart present for a kid who was playing on a million sports teams and needed something to haul around all his junk back and forth to different practices and games, but 4 from 1 Christmas? For the record, I think my parents forgot to coordinate on that particular gift that year (thus both getting me one), and I think I got 1 each from an aunt and I think maybe my Grandma as well. Once I hit puberty, aftershave seemed to be the gift de jour from my aunts, uncles, and more distant relatives that I only saw a couple times a year. As a 14 year old, I had enough aftershave products on top of the dresser in my room that you would have thought you just walked into a Macy’s or something.

At some point, hooded sweatshirts became the go-to gift idea for me. This was perfectly fine because I love hoodies. During high school and college, I can hardly ever remember wearing actual “jackets,” as when the weather turned cool enough I would just start whipping through my hoodie rotation. When I was working my way through college for the Rec Sports Department, I think I had a different UMBC hoodie for every day of the week. This “gift phase” started when I was about 15 or 16, and it ended…well, actually it’s still going in some ways. For example, I probably haven’t gotten a hoodie from my parents since I was a teenager, but I can think of occasions where my siblings, Krissy’s parents, and her brothers have all bought me hoodies over the last few years. (Even Krissy has bought me a few despite knowing I have a closet full of them. This is as much because she loves shopping for athletic apparel as anything else.) And why wouldn’t they? They are affordable (even the relatively expensive ones), sensible (they know I go to the gym and play sports), and it’s just about all anyone sees me where when I’m not at work.

If they're good enough for the president of the motherf****** USA, they're good enough for me.

This has become a double-edged sword…take a look at our appartment’s coat closet and it is lined wall to wall with hooded sweatshirts. Including fleeces and zipper-downs, by my count as of yesterday I owned 17 hoodie-like things. Krissy’s side of the closet has at least that many as well. The problem is that we all eventually have to become grownups, and you only get to wear a hoodie so many days of the week when that happens. It was time to do a little bit of spring cleaning on that closet…but where do you begin?

To start, I decided that it would be stupid to get rid of my favorites, which included a hand-me-down black UMBC hoodie that Pat left in his office after he stopped working there (I ended up getting his job and, consequently, the sweatshirt), a grey Nike zipper-down, and a blue Old Navy fleece. I also couldn’t bring myself to get rid of an older white Adidas hoodie that Krissy had gotten me as a gift (even though there is some kind of stain on the sleeve that no amount of bleach can get out). Similarly, I decided against things I had gotten as recent gifts, like a couple of Under Armor hoodies, a Caldwell College hoodie, a blue and red Nike zipper-down, and a black Jordan hoodie. These are the sweatshirts that I had gotten most recently, but for the most part hadn’t even gotten a chance to wear much yet…thus the reason for this hoodie purge in the 1st place. I also didn’t allow myself to get rid of an old gray Under Armor UMBC hoodie. This was partially because it is Under Armor, partially because it is about as comfortable as any article of clothing I own, and partially for sentimental value…the hoodie was a gift from my old UMBC boss, and it kind of reminds me of a simpler time when what I didn’t make in money I made up for in free clothes, shaving cream, and other swag.

There were a couple of others mixed in there as well, but that didn’t leave a lot of options for what I could get rid of. 2 were pretty easy choices: a nondescript blue fleece and an equally nondescript blue hoodie that I think I had gotten as gifts from my Grandma and Krissy’s Grandma, respectively. After that it got tougher…a gray Quiksilver sweatshirt that I wore the heck out of during high school and college, a darker gray Old Navy fleece that I also wore a ton in college (mostly because it did a good job of covering up my neck-acne…sigh), and a size XL gray Adidas UMBC hoodie that I only wore a couple times ever because it was ginormous on me (it was another work gift though and a really nice sweatshirt…if only I had been given a “shmedium”).

So, there you have it: originally 17 sweatshirts cut down to 12. That’s still a lot of hoodie and hoodie-like articles of clothing, but I reduced my sweatshirt count by about 30%, which freed up some much needed closet space. It also consequently will allow me to have less of an aneurism when I need to pick out a sweatshirt to wear since I have fewer things to choose from in the 1st place. And yet this all has the smell of futility to it…odds are that people will continue to buy my hoodies, and those unused hangers will have new sweatshirts on them in no time. I guess there are worse things to complain about though. Here’s to never growing up!

Just When You Think Things Are Going Well...

As much as I have written about sprained ankles and knees, pulled hamstrings, and things like that, I’m convinced that the worst possible sports injury on this level is any type of lower back injury. When you hurt your back, the pain and limitations are not just restricted to that area. It's just as difficult to bend over and pick something up as it is to get your legs to move where you want them to go or to reach up to grab something from a shelf. If there is any truth in back pain being hereditary, I probably have the bad back gene. I have heard all the stories of my Dad and his brothers comparing notes on their bad backs over the years, and every once in a while my brother and I have suffered back spasms as well. Of course, this might have more to do with the fact that we all have participated in athletics and some degree of manual labor of the years than genetics, but either way it is a common trait that we all share.

One of the great things about being a kid is that all kids are basically rubber band men. Your body seems fully elastic, and can contort in ways that don’t even seem humanly possible as an adult. Rolled ankles and twisted knees have no effect. You can play all day long, come back the next day without any muscle soreness or stiffness, and do it all over again. I remember suffering my 1st “back spasm” when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was on a travel basketball team, and we had a weekend tournament where games were taking place at multiple sites across a particular county. That weekend was the 1st time that I had to come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t an “invincible” kid anymore. I was in fact human. We had been scheduled to play 3 games that day: 1 in the morning, 1 around noon, and the last 1 later in the afternoon. During the 2nd game, I must have done something to tweak my lower back, but being the impervious to pain kid that I was I couldn’t pinpoint an exact instance when it happened. Nevertheless, riding in the car on the way to game 3 of the day caused my back to tighten up, and so I had suffered my 1st sports-related back injury.

The worst back injury I ever had happened during my freshman year in high school. During a basketball game against DeMatha, I stupidly stood in to take a charge in the 4th quarter when we were already down by 20 points. I got the call, but as I hit the floor I immediately felt my back tighten up. That game was only about midway through the season, but the injury lingered for another 2 months or so until the season was finished. There were many days I would miss practice to give my back an extra day of rest in order to be ready on game days, my teammates and coaches nicknamed me “Charles Barkley” (and not for the way I played), and for the rest of the year I wore 1 of those back braces/supports that you usually only see middle-aged dads and guys moving furniture for a living wear.

The uniform of the 45 year old man.

Since then, I have suffered slight back spasms every once in a while, but nothing as severe as that high school injury, but this weekend I felt a slight pull in my lower back after catching a pass near the goal line, and trying (unsuccessfully) to tight-rope walk my way into the end zone. I had some tightness in my back the rest of that day, but it didn’t prevent me from playing basketball the next morning (albeit not going full-bore). Fast forward to this morning when I felt a shooting pain in my lower back as I was sitting at my desk at work...once again, sitting seems to be the worst thing you can possible do if you are having back spasms. The pain was so sharp, that I actually started to sweat, and as I’m writing this I have to position myself in a way that looks like a Louisville slugger has been shoved up my keister. So anyway, count me out from the gym for at least a day or 2 as I hope to avoid any further setbacks. Back pain…such a pain in the ass.

Danger!

Roll Tide

I have become less and less of a college football fan over the years. Part of this is because I’m a grownup now, and I don’t really have the luxury of spending all of Saturday AND Sunday plopped on the couch from 12pm-11pm. Part of it is that I didn’t go to 1 of those big state schools with a powerhouse football program. I know a lot of people that went to schools like Florida, Ohio St., or Penn St., and the traditions of college football like homecoming weekend and tailgating are as engrained in their lives as Christmas trees or Thanksgiving turkeys. I went to a school with no football program at all, so I don’t have nor will probably ever have that kind of connection to the sport. Similarly, I grew up in Maryland, an area that was Redskins territory and Redskins territory only at the time. No college football program in the area was really big enough to compete for the population’s attention. If I had grown up or had family from an area where college football is a birthright, it may have been a different story.

Enter into the conversation my gym buddy, Scott. Scott’s family is from Alabama, where you basically have to decide whether you are an Auburn or Alabama fan by the time you get baptized. That being said, Scott would tell you that he bleeds crimson. Every once in a while, I like to rile Scott up by talking about a very sore subject for him: Boise St. Most fans of SEC teams share the same superiority complex that Scott has. They have good reason to feel superior too. While I’m too lazy to look up the actual stats now, I know for a fact that the SEC has won more national titles than any other conference since the BCS’s inception, and throughout any given year the top 10 ranked teams in the country from week to week could be littered with 4 or 5 SEC teams. SEC teams pass the eye test too, as the quality of the athletes and the speed of the games doesn’t even compare to that of other conferences as a whole.

This is where fans of SEC teams like Alabama, Florida, and LSU (and other big time non-SEC football schools for that matter too like Ohio St., Oklahoma, and Texas) get in trouble in my opinion though. No one would argue that Boise St.’s conference (the Mountain West I believe) is as good as the SEC, the Big 12, or the Big 10. No one would argue that even though Boise has had a pretty good recent string of success that their history, pedigree, and resources can’t match up with a school like Alabama. Alabama is likely to have a top 5 recruiting class every year until the end of time…the kids that Boise recruits aren’t slouches, but they are not on Alabama’s level in that way.

Because of this, even seeing a team like Boise creep up into the top 5 of the rankings is enough to cause Scott’s blood to boil. They have no business being ranked that high. They wouldn’t even go through an SEC regular season above 0.500. These are the types of things Scott will say arguing against Boise. These kinds of things aren’t even really worth arguing…heck, most of the really good SEC schools don’t even make it through their respective seasons unscathed. You can use a 1-loss Florida team and a 2-loss LSU team that each won the national championship in different seasons a few years back.

If you bring up points in favor of Boise St., Scott will shoot down all of them. If you say that they can only play who they are scheduled to play, he would say that they need to try to schedule some better teams. If you say that they have tried to and point to playing at Georgia and what basically amounted to a road game against Virginia Tech the year before, he would say that’s not enough. If you say that they won both those games (the game against SEC opponent Georgia handily), he will say both those teams didn’t happen to be “that” good anyway at the time. If you say that they try to schedule those kinds of games all the time, but don’t get any takers because most big time schools don’t want to suffer the possible embarrassment of losing to Boise St., Scott would say they need to switch to a different conference. If you bring up the fact that a school of similar stature, Utah, smacked Alabama in a bowl game a few years ago, and Boise beat another traditional football powerhouse, Oklahoma, a few years ago in a bowl game as well, these points are scoffed at and poopoo-ed as flukes.

These arguments are all just in fun, as for all I know Scott is right, and Boise St. would lose by 4 touchdowns if they played Alabama or LSU. That’s all well and good, and besides I should know by now that trying to convince a fan of a team from a power football conference that Boise St. or TCU belongs in the same conversation as them is like trying to convince a fanatical religious nut that evolution really exists. Still, what really got me riled up is when Scott tried to argue that the general public would rather see a LSU-Alabama rematch in the BCS title game this year than have to watch the winner of that game face Boise St. (hypothetically assuming that things would workout so that would be the matchup). This is the typical elitist attitude that fans of teams like Bama and LSU have…the fact is that Alabama and LSU (just to pick out 2 teams) are not as important to the rest of the sports viewing world as they are to fans and alumni of those schools. And besides that, Boise St. vs. [insert powerhouse football team] would draw in much more attention than Bama-LSU, round 2. 1st, the loser of that game won’t even make it to their conference title game, and therefore should be eliminated from contention right there. 2nd, people get tired of seeing the same thing, especially after the 2 week lead-in to the 1st game between those 2 teams, and the constant blubbering about it being jammed down our throats by ESPN and every other sports news organization. 3rd (and most importantly), Boise-Bama or Boise-LSU would essentially be the plot of every great sports movie of the last 50 years playing out in real life. I’m sorry, but “Hoosiers” wasn’t about 1 great basketball team beating another…it was the classic underdog story. Guys like Scott and I are fans of the game. We are going to watch no matter who plays...but non-football fans aren’t going to watch LSU-Alabama, the sequel. Doesn’t anyone remember the Butler-Duke NCAA title game from a couple years ago? It only got the highest TV rating of any NCAA game since 1997. The “little team that could” vs. the “unstoppable juggernaut team”…now, there’s a story. By the way, did I mention the LSU-Alabama game was a disappointing 9-6 snoozefest? I’m all for great defense, but I don’t think it exactly lived up to the hype, and I don’t think the masses will be clamoring to see it again.

The problem with the whole “Boise doesn’t belong” attitude dismisses the whole premise of sports in general. It’s about competing, and champions aren’t determined on paper or in preseason rankings. Sure, if sports was a beauty pageant, the Alabama’s, Oklahoma’s, and LSU’s of the world would win every year…but sports doesn’t work that way. It has to be proven on the field or on the court. And I concede that guys who think like Scott could be right…if Alabama and Boise played 10 times, the Tide might win 9 of those games. In sports where champions are determined by playing a series of games, that would definitely hurt Boise’s chances. But that’s the thing about this situation…they only need to win once. And that might make elitist college football fans angry, but that is in fact what sports are all about.

Misery Loves Misery...Or Something Like That

Let’s start with real life football…the Redskins, only 6 games into their schedule, are for all intents and purposes done this year. After losing on the road to the Panthers, they fell to 3-3. Maybe even more important than that was the manner that they lost…and their ever-growing body-count. I still stand by my previous statements that I like the moves they made this offseason, and I think the roster is improved even if it won’t necessarily show in terms of wins and losses this year. Having said that, if everything broke right for them this year (as it did for the most part through the 1st 4 games of the year) they could perhaps surprise people and make a push for 1 of the last playoff spots in the NFC…a big “if” though. Along with the obvious questions at quarterback, the roster still lacks depth along the offensive line and proven offensive playmakers that defenses have to account for week in and week out. Part of getting breaks is making your own breaks though. Through the 1st 4 games, Washington ran the ball fairly well, forced turnovers on D, avoided injuries for the most part, and made enough big plays at key moments to overcome mediocre quarterback play and give themselves a 3-1 record. The last 2 games showed just how little room for error this team actually has. Interceptions doomed the Skins last week against Philly. Mounting injuries during both of the last 2 games seem to be handicapping this team for the long haul though. Stud left tackle Trent Williams will probably be out at least a couple more weeks with a sprained ankle. Starting left guard Kory Lichtensteiger and running back Tim Hightower have been lost for the season with torn ACL’s. Chris Cooley was also put on Injured Reserve today. Santana Moss is out basically indefinitely with a broken hand. So, who exactly on the Redskins offense strikes fear in the heart of opposing defenses? Is there anyone there that defensive coordinators will look at and say, “Hey, we need to account for that guy at all times?” Fred Davis has promise, but isn’t consistent. Roy Helu and Ryan Torain both seem capable, but it’s hard to expect a lot out of them behind a makeshift offensive line. Jabar Gaffney? No. The quarterbacks? Oh wait…they are stopgaps for next year anyway. Yep, that pretty much should do it.

…

I have had both bad and unlucky fantasy teams in the past. I think even the best fantasy players have years where a star running back gets hurt or something…but I can’t think of a year that I have felt more scorned than this year. Last year was an embarrassment of riches for me. My team was good enough to have 2 out of my top 3 or 4 draft picks get hurt or just plain underperform, and my team was still head and shoulders above the others in our league. This year, I have had no such luck. This week, I sweated out my potential waiver wire pickups, as my 2 best players (Vick and Fred Jackson) were on bye weeks. I actually was able to claim someone who I thought might save my week, DeMarco Murray. Little did I know he would rush for the all-time single game rushing record in Cowboys history. Still, I was forced to sweat out the Monday Night Football Game between the Ravens and Jags. I went into the game down 12 with only Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff left to play (the team I was playing had no one left at that point). 12 points is a lot for a kicker, but given that the Ravens were favored to blow out the Jags it was still within the realm of possibilities. Of course, Baltimore played a stinker of a game, playing pitifully on offense, and managing only 7 points for the whole game…in case you didn’t do the math already, that would give me 1 (count ‘em, 1) point for Cundiff’s output. Making me even angrier in hindsight, the loss basically hinged on the matchup of our kickers and defenses, where he outscored me a combined 27-4 (or something like that). Now, if you look below at the snapshot of our league standings through 7 weeks, you should notice a few things…

The season is slowly slipping away.

1st, you will notice that I am 2-5, on a 2 game losing streak, and in 9th place in a 12 team league. You will also notice that in terms of total points scored, only 3 teams have more. But in terms of total points scored against my team, no one has a bigger number than me…so, week in and week out more points are scored against my team than any team in the league. I have had to scramble to pick up guys in light of bye weeks (Finley and Starks…sad that I am even relying on James Starks as a key player in my lineup anyway) and injuries (Hightower) again this week, so I could really use a week where the team I play just completely chokes and has like 60 total points…but that doesn’t seem to be the way things are going for my fantasy team this year.

Everyone Loves A Quarterback Controversy

As a Redskin fan, I am no stranger to quarterback switches and controversies. The Skins have had something ridiculous like 22 QB’s in 19 seasons. With that being said, “Rex vs. Becks” is nothing out of the ordinary for us, but still it’s enough to get my heart rate up a little bit going into this week’s game against Carolina, as Beck is a career journeyman who we know very little about. So, to have a quarterback controversy in my own house is a little much for me right now.

How did this happen? Well, we brought on this guy, Segu, to quarterback our coed touch football team this fall. Segu is my friend Mac’s boy from way back…the problem is that through 2 games Segu, to put it nicely, hasn’t played well. And actually, we basically pulled him in favor of my wife, Krissy, about midway through the 2nd half of that 2nd game. Now, you have to understand that putting Krissy in at quarterback is not some novelty act. I don’t think we have played against another team in 3 or 4 years that has had a full-time girl QB, but Krissy is (and I know I’m biased, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating) a great athlete. She is a former D-1 catcher (so she has a hose…I’m a good athlete, and she’s throws a football at least as far as me, and definitely prettier than me). She lettered in 3 sports in high school, including tennis (which she picked up just because she was bored during the spring basically). She was a point guard on the basketball team, and if you watch her play basketball (or any sport for that matter) she doesn’t play like a girl…she plays like a guy. I’m not denigrating female athletes, but a lot of girls who are even good basketball players don’t look like fluid athletes. They seem more rigid as the run, cut, and jump. A lot of them shoot a set shot from their waist. They do that weird move on layups and post moves where they take like a weird extra step because they can’t really jump (anyone who has watched girls’ basketball knows what I’m talking about). That’s not Krissy…she runs, jumps, and generally moves like a guy (a short guy, but a guy). So, she’s not being subbed-in as some kind of circus sideshow…she’s in the game because she can play…and she played really well.

In that 1st game, Krissy brought us back from 2 touchdowns down in the 2nd half. Our offense, which had looked stale and stagnant up until that point, looked crisp. She was decisive with where to go with the ball, spread the ball around, mixed in short, deep, and mid-range throws, and the offense moved. Really, the ball barely touched the ground. Unfortunately, we had a chance to tie or go ahead (depending on if we went for 1 or 2) on basically the last play of the game, and we failed to convert. The next week, Krissy played QB from the outset, and played really well again. This time though, we played against a much better team. Our offense probably played well enough for us to win, but our defense just couldn’t come up with enough stops. Last week, Krissy and I weren’t able to make the game, and Segu stepped back in at QB. From what I gathered, the other team wasn’t on par with the teams we played earlier in the year, but a win is still a win, and Segu played well also. So naturally, Mac posed the question to me about this week’s game: who are we starting at quarterback?

Since he asked the question, I already knew his vote was in for Segu. You have to admire his loyalty, and Segu seemed to have improved his play in last week’s win from earlier in the year. I also admit I feel bad for the kid. 1st, it’s awkward because we specifically brought him aboard to play quarterback for us…only he hasn’t played well (aside from 1 game against an inferior opponent). It’s doubly awkward because no dude who is a good athlete (which he is) and has even a little bit of pride wants to lose his role on a team to a girl…no matter how good that girl is. Mac also made the point that Segu is just getting used to playing with us, and he does have the advantage of being more mobile and having a stronger arm than Krissy. Having a girl play quarterback also eliminates “gender plays” (gender plays are plays where a girl must either throw or catch a forward pass…almost all of the teams choose to complete these plays by having a guy QB, which means only the girls on the field can go out for or defend a pass if they are on D…if you use a girl QB in those situations, everyone can go out for a pass like a normal play though), which normally can be big play opportunities because the field becomes much more opened up and less congested. So, it’s a weird situation, but the problem is that if the decision was based simply on merit, who to pick would be no contest: Krissy is the clear choice. So, I posed a question back to Mac: who has performed better to this point at point in the season?

I could tell this was a question/point that he wanted to sidestep, which is understandable because Segu’s his boy and he’s naturally going to look out for him, but he answered (probably somewhat begrudgingly) that Krissy had in fact played better to this point. The problem is that there is a counter to most of the arguments in favor of playing Segu at QB. Segu is still new and getting used to how the rest of us play, but with 3 losses already we can’t afford a huge learning curve at this point. 1 more loss and we probably will already be eliminated from the playoffs. He is more mobile than Krissy, but Krissy has mitigated that for the most part because she has become really good at not holding onto the ball. She finds who’s open and gets rid of the ball quickly and accurately. Her arm isn’t as strong, but it’s strong enough, and she seems to throw deep with more regularity and success than Segu or Phil (Phil had played quarterback for us prior to this year). That might partially be because other teams may sleep on her arm, but she also is more willing to throw up a jump ball if she sees 1 of our better guy receivers in 1-on-1 coverage, and unlike in years past where our girls were the strength of our team our athletic guys are probably our strength this year. She has done a great job of allowing us to go up and make plays on the ball while at the same time not forcing throws into coverage. The gender play issue is something that I didn’t like at 1st either, but I actually think this works out better for us this year because of the issue I just said. Overall, our girls are not our team’s strength this year. They are solid, but not spectacular. Having a full-time girl quarterback allows us to just go to whoever is open on every play. We don’t have to be bogged-down with worrying about completing passes to guys or girls. And gender plays are normally big play opportunities, but because our girls are not strong overall this year and Segu wasn’t very accurate, our gender plays mostly resulted in incomplete passes anyway…they were basically a waste. Plus, having a girl QB means we can have 5 guys go out on pass routes on every play. With a guy QB, only 4 can get out in routes because only 5 guys can be on the field at a time. This just places more stress on the defense…it’s basically the equivalent of getting 2 wide receivers, a fullback, and a tight end out in pass routes vs. having 4 speedy wide receivers go out on pass routes. This has basically replaced the old gender plays as our new source of big plays.

Because of that, our style of play is somewhat revolutionary I think. If your guys are really strong, but your girls are weak (except for 1 girl who can throw), why not play her at QB? That way you eliminate gender plays and get more guys out in pass routes every single play. I feel like it is a good strategy, but to employ it you have to have that 1 girl who can not only throw but read defenses and make good decisions with the ball. Krissy is pretty much the only girl I know of capable of that at this level. Even then, I wonder if we will ever see any other teams use this idea. Most guys are too macho to relinquish that kind of position to a girl, no matter how deserving. That’s 1 thing that is pretty cool about the group of people we have on our team though: we seem to be able to put egos aside and just do what puts us in the best position to win, and while Mac probably wishes he could stay loyal to Segu, I think both understand that this is the right choice right now.

Grossman Seals His Own Fate

I purposely haven’t logged onto the Washington Post website to read any Redskins stories yet this morning because I know I’m only going to be echoing in this blog what all the Post columnists have already written: surprise, surprise…Rex Grossman imploded. Through the 1st quarter of the season, Sexy Rexy had caused the overly-optimistic type of Redskin fan to think this was a new and improved Grossman. Long gone were the days where Rex would complete almost as many passes to the other team than to the guys with the same colored jerseys as him. He had matured, and he knew the Shanahans’ offensive system backwards and forwards…but I think most Redskin fans who were watching the 1st 4 games closely were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure, Grossman is capable of good days, like his opening game against the Giants. Even despite 2 interceptions in week 2 against Arizona, Rex also made enough good throws, including a money 4th down touchdown throw to Santana Moss, to put Washington in position to win (although you could argue that he was heavily aided by a stalwart defensive effort and a heavy dose of Hightower and Helu on the ground). For all intents and purposes, we saw Good Rex those 1st 2 weeks, but in weeks 3 and 4 we got more of a glimpse of the Bad Rex we have mentioned before. Rex’s numbers in the week 3 game against Dallas don’t look terrible at 1st glance, especially considering he was playing in a hostile environment against a solid D: 22 for 37, 250 yards, a pick, and a touchdown throw…if you actually watched the game, he was largely ineffective though. Washington’s D played well for the most part, limiting the Cowboys to only field goals and setting the offense up in great field position off of a turnover on at least 1 occasion, and yet Grossman wasn’t able to muster any consistent productions aside from 1 long drive in the 3rd quarter. The game-ender was on a sack-fumble of Grossman, which is the other type of play that has become his signature move over the years. Still, I think I wrote in a post following that game that I was willing to give Grossman a pass for the reasons stated above. Plus, while he wasn’t great in that game, he wasn’t terrible either, and I laid the majority of the blame on the Redskins’ playcalling rather than on Rex himself. The week 4 game against St. Louis was the 1st time this year that we truly saw Bad Rex rear his ugly head with 2 2nd half picks. He finished that game with a quarterback rating below 50, and only the ineptitude of the Rams and the Redskins’ defensive pressure on St. Louis QB Sam Bradford allowed Washington to escape with a win.

Still, as the Skins headed into their bye week at 3-1 and the deepest they gone into any season alone atop the NFC East in about 10 years it was hard to feel too terrible about Grossman’s limitations. You have to understand, long-suffering Redskin fans were not expecting to go 12-4 this year. We have been whining for years about ridiculous offseason moves that perpetuated a constant “win now” mentality, while in reality all of Washington’s high-priced acquisitions over the years did nothing but make the team old, expensive, and incohesive…not to mention that fact that the constant giving away of high draft picks for veteran players sapped the organization of any depth at all (or ignored some positions, such as the offensive line, all together). So, while we weren’t necessarily hoping that the Skins would suck bad enough to go 1-15 this year, I think most true fans understand that this organization is in the midst of a rebuilding process and would be willing to sit through another 6-10 season (like last year) as long as it appeared the team was building towards something. As a fan, I don’t want a team to be built for one year of success…I want something long-standing (see New England, Philadelphia, Baltimore, etc.). Prior to the season I think I even wrote that the Redskins could be much improved this year and finish with same or even a worse record than last season, and I also would have been fine with that. But realistically, I was thinking this team could probably go 7-9 or 8-8. I understood that the Skins might have had the worst looking quarterback situation in the entire league when training camp opened up. Curiously, John Beck, a relative unknown, seemed like he won the favor of the coaching staff in the preseason, but almost equally as strange, Grossman was named the opening day starter for the regular season. (In fairness, they both acquitted themselves just about equally during their preseason opportunities.) However, I think most knowledgeable Redskin fans felt the same way about the QB situation that I did…neither guy is good, but that’s ok for now because they are probably (aside from a miraculous transformation of either one) just 1 year stopgaps anyway. I think most Redskin fans understood this and realized from the get-go that regardless of who was named the starter at the beginning of the year, most likely both Beck and Grossman would take turns passing the starting duties back and forth to each other. I personally think Grossman and Back will trade 1st string status, either because of performance or injury, 2 or 3 more times before the year’s end…and you know what, that’s fine for now too.

Fast forward back to this Sunday, when the full transformation back to Bad Rex had been completed. I must confess that I missed the 1st pick, but from what I can gather it was a throw into traffic down by Philly’s goal line as Washington was driving for the opening score of the game. The 2nd pickle was a woefully underthrown ball off of a flea-flicker to a streaking Jabar Gaffney, who had gotten a good 2 steps behind the deepest defender in the Eagles’ secondary. If thrown out in front of Gaffney, it would have been a touchdown. The 3rd pick was basically a game-killer. After an interception of Michael Vick set the Skins’ offense up in Eagle territory, Grossman forced a ball into double coverage that was easily intercepted by a Philly defensive back. A touchdown drive would have pulled the Redskins to within 7 with plenty of time still left in the 2nd half. The defense had seemed to regain some of its footing after a rocky start, and the Vick interception caused a shift of momentum in the Skins favor. That 3rd pick gave the momentum right back to the Eagles. If the 3rd pick was the game-killer, the 4th pick was the Grossman-killer, as he basically just threw a pass up for grabs down the left sideline. It was bad enough that it all but forced Mike Shanahan’s hand…cameras panned to the sideline immediately showing Beck getting loose. Rex’s numbers for the game: 9 for 22 for 143 yards, no TD’s, and 4 (count ‘em, 4) interceptions…transformation complete. While I had argued before that Grossman hadn’t played that bad through the 1st 4 games (2 of his interceptions were tipped/dropped by his own receivers), his overall numbers for the season speak for themselves: only completing 55% of his passes, a rating of 66.5, 6 TD’s, 9 INT’s, and 2 lost fumbles…so basically, he averaged about 1 touchdown and 2 turnovers per game through the 1st 5 weeks, which on a team with room for little error is not going to fly.

Umm, Rex...this isn't considered "open."

Amazingly, after a Beck-led touchdown drive the Skins were only down 20-13. If their defense could force a 3-and-out, the Redskin offense would have one last gasp at forcing the game into overtime at least. However, Washington’s D, which had been gashed by the run all day long, allowed Philly to pick up a couple 1st downs and subsequently run out the clock. How it was still even a game at that point is beyond me. Between the turnovers and their inability to run the ball, Washington barely had the ball at all in the 1st half, and the Eagles seemed to be running up and down the field at will. Despite their early season struggles, they displayed a lot of the offensive firepower that allowed them to put up 59 against the Skins in the same building last season. (For the record, while Washington’s defense is leaps and bounds better than last year, they still match up poorly with Philly’s offense…actually, Philly’s team speed makes them a tough matchup against most D’s, but the Skins simply don’t possess the speed at cornerback or inside linebacker to combat Vick, McCoy, Jackson, and Maclin.) And yet, after falling behind 20-0 their bend-but-don’t-break defense was able to keep them in the game the entire 2nd half. On Philly’s last drive, they just didn’t seem to have enough gas left in the tank to make 1 last stop though, and the beginning of the “John Beck era” was just too little, too late…

Other news and notes from yesterday in the NFL…

- Sad news coming out of Oakland, where it’s being reported Jason Campbell is out for the season with a broken collarbone. Campbell was having a breakout year in his 2nd season in Oakland, leading the Raiders to a 4-2 record. We had flipped to the Red Zone channel during a break in the Redskin game yesterday, and when the Raiders came on I even mentioned to Krissy that I wish Shanahan would have held on to him after coming aboard. Hindsight’s always 20-20, but looking back would you rather have Campbell for the last couple years or some combination of McNabb, Grossman, and Beck? Yea, I thought so. Still, the circus atmosphere surrounding the Redskins and their constant changes in coaching probably ruined him from being a good player here, and he needed a change of scenery. I was rooting for him to have a strong bounce-back year, but such is the nature of a violent sport like football I guess.

- Quite a funny dust-up between Niners coach Jim Harbaugh and Lions coach Jim Schwartz after San Fran’s win yesterday. I know Harbaugh is a fiery guy who has a history of ruffling opposing coaches’ feathers, but he is a little over the top for me. Still, I couldn’t help but laugh at the way he untucked his shirt like he was in a “girls gone wild” video, chest bumped one of his offensive lineman, and then oddly shook Schwartz’ hand at midfield. Schwartz clearly took exception, but he looked like such a wheenie chasing after Harbaugh as he headed to the locker room. From here on out, I’m going to start referring to Schwartz as “Jeff Van Gundy-Lite.” I love Van Gundy as an announcer, but the image of him hanging onto Alonzo Mourning’s leg during a Knicks-Heat brawl will forever be burned into my brain. Emotion and passion aside, I couldn’t help but think Harbaugh’s “over-exuberance” might have been somewhat staged and aimed directly at Schwartz, who in Detroit’s recent resurgence has been known to fist pump, chest bump, scream at officials, and generally behave like a maniac on the sidelines himself. It’s not hard to imagine Schwartz doing the same exact thing if the roles had been reversed. I will withhold judgment until I hear my boy Mac’s thoughts on the subject though, as he’s a diehard Lion fan.

I think I just sharted.

- On a day when the Redskins gagged and the Giants won to pull ahead of the Skins all alone in 1st place in the NFC East, I could at least take solace in the fact that the Cowboys continue to find ways to lose games. On the road against the mighty Patriots, Dallas somehow (mostly through the play of their own stingy D) carried a lead deep into the 4th quarter; however, the offense wasn’t able to score or run off enough clock to prevent Tom Brady and company from driving for a late game-winning touchdown…the Skins may stink, but another Cowboy collapse let me sleep a little bit easier last night.