El, when the season started, I estimated the Skins would be a mid-pack 8-8 record team based on the coaching, system, and personnel changes and what I watched during pre-season. Expecting any more than that I simply considered to be unrealistic. All the changes are way more than one season can absorb and assimilate. 8-8 mid-pack teams, however, can beat good to very good teams on any given Sunday and lose to mediocre teams any given Sunday.
With he Dallas game, I knew they had Oline weaknesses we had both the players and new defensive setup to exploit-I thought we had a good chance especially with how disorganized the Cowboys looked in the pre-season. It worked.
With Houston, they have a porous pass D-they've given up more passing yards per game than we have. When they beat the Colts, they took advantage of another weak pass and not very solid run D which they beat with the new-found running game plus their passing game-still Manning passed for over 400 yards against them. I figured if McNabb had one of his good games we had a shot at taking them-and we nearly did. And now look what happens-the Cowboys embarrass them.
Both Dallas and Houston will likely make the playoffs-and the Rams? Ah, the Rams. Our first away game (a factor I haven't seen anyone take into consideration) against a weak-but with enough changes-to-raise-questions-about team. And we played poorly-for numerous reasons that will be hashed out, argued over, analyzed, both over and under-estimated and largely forgotten if we win against the Iggles.
But, coming from my "8-8, mid-pack" perspective,
not, a totally unexpected occurrence, very unpleasant and hurtful, but, as I mentioned before, something that happens to average NFL teams. And that's what I pictured the Skins to be this season-average. A far cry from the atrocity of last season, but not yet playoff-calibre. We'll win 6 or 7 more games yet this season, I think-pending further incoming information, of course, and we'll beat a couple teams we shouldn't when we're dogs and lose a couple more we shouldn't when we're favored.
It's been said elsewhere, but I can also see this season driving Redskins fans nuts due to wildly varying levels of play, from storming ferocity to horrid suckiness, sometimes in the same game.
One more thing;
Watch for at least one of the "top-tier" teams to have a "L" laid on them by this Skins team.