The Redskins are winning.
How? No one really knows. The offense scores in bunches. The offense implodes in the red zone. The defense is a sieve. The defense is opportunistic. The play calling is daring. The play calling is predictable. Special teams is infallible. Special teams nearly costs us a win.
Rooting for this team is like calling an escort service in Bangkok – squinting your eyes as you wait for the reveal, all you can do is hope for the best.
But who’s complaining?
After a pair of flailing, frustrating losses to open the season, 3-2 feels pretty glorious to me.
Watching the Skins reel off 3 straight improbable wins, I’m happy and perplexed at the same time. I don’t know what the hell to think? Our Redskins are so ugly, they're beautiful.
The 2016 campaign started with a thud with our stumbling, bumbling heroes looking Mike Shanahanesque in their regression. Not since 2013 had a season been anticipated with so much optimism and hope. But 2 games in, it felt just like that awful letdown season, seemingly over before it started.
In retrospect, the losses to the Steelers and Dallas should be nothing to hang our heads over. Both teams are 4-1, and have won playing solid, physical, mistake-free football. It was the way we lost those games that immediately sent fans over the edge, many predicting a season in full-blown freefall. The trademarks of our horrific start were erratic and unsure quarterback play, ineffective play calling, a lack of any semblance of and commitment to a run game, and a porous defense gashed for nearly 250 rushing and 592 passing yards in a 2 game stretch.
Washington D.C. was Mudville, and the mighty Casey was most assuredly striking out.
Fire Gruden.
Fire Barry.
Trade Cousins.
Get RG3 back.
Redskins fans were in all out panic mode.
But then it happened - the Miracle at MetLife - an improbable, inexplicable win against the undefeated New York Giants on their home turf, a win so shocking to the system that the Giants haven’t won a game since. And then Redskins fans remembered…
This same group of moderately talented, mostly no-name misfits won 6 of 8 down the stretch in 2015 after starting the season 2-4. They won an NFC East title when no one, not coaches, pundits, or fans really gave them a chance. Pronounced dead in 2015 more than a few times, they ignored all the negativity, hand wringing, and cynical mockery around them, and they won their division. They did so lead by a coach on the hot seat, a brand new defensive coordinator, without their former superstar QB, and with a defense decimated by injuries. They somehow, some way, got better as the season went on. And oh what a ride it was.
But how quickly we forgot.
I don’t know how we’re winning right now. The irony? A cynical fan might argue we're now winning games...with erratic and unsure quarterback play, ineffective play calling, a lack of any semblance of and commitment to a run game, and a porous defense
Be it smoke and mirrors, blind luck, super human effort, the sacrifice of small animals, or some combination of the above – it really doesn't matter. There’s one thing I know with certainty, it’s going to be an uphill battle this year. With an upstart Dallas team that’s finally figured out if you run the ball and don’t throw 3 INTs/game, you might win some games, and a Philadelphia team that looks to have found it’s QB of the future, the Redskins are in for a fight in 2016. But there are a few other things I know.We are resurrected.
The season is not over.
Our players believe, even if we as fans sometimes can’t muster as much.
There is no give up in this team.
And we are winning. By Hook or by Crook…this team and its bewildered bewitched fan base go on.
Bring on the Philadelphia Eagles!
