Predicting who will win and by what score is fun for some, but a total waste of time for most. Not much of what these Cowpuke lovers said made any sense; they all seemed to contradict each other. However, if they think that our team is one they will easily win against then they are in for a suprise.
Impressions linger aroung longer than facts, and the impression of our team I see from fans of other teams over and over again is:
1. Lousy, old, or no talent.
2. Cruddy O and D lines.
3. Too much owner interference.
4. Poor coaching.
5. Inept execution.
In summary, as one of the Cowpuke lovers said: "As good as RG3 is, they're still the Redskins."
I remember when free agency opened up last year and a lineman, I don't remember exactly who, came to visit the Redskins first and then went to the next team and got a bigger paycheck than he was going to get and his agent was saying that was because "everyone knew" the Redskins overpay for people and they used that to their advantage. It wasn't until towards the end of free agency last year that teams realized they didn't have to offer more money to someone just because they visited our team first - that is an example of a lingering impression.
I remember when free agency opened up this year and we went out and got 2 wide receivers right off the bat. There was Rich Isen on NFL network standing with some other moron commenting about it with finally Isen saying: "Well, it looks like the Redskins are back to their free wheeling spending ways." What became apparent a little later was that the price we paid was what anyone else would have had to pay for them.
Also, we were able to go out into free agency and get people even though we were hit with an $18M cap penalty. When that penalty came down I read a lot of comments from other team's fans on how we wouldn't be able to get anybody and would have to dump half of our roster to stay within the salary cap. What these ignorant people didn't know is that we had been exercising sound salary cap management for over 2 years and we were able to work around it, albiet without being able to get as much talent as we would like to have - another example of a lingering impression.
We may not be a great team, we may not be a very good team, but I think we are a good team. Most important of all, I think we are finally an "NFL team" in every sense of the word. For many long years it was like items 1-5 above, now we have had 3 straight years of competent leadership, smart (mostly) personnel decisions, salary cap management, draft pick utilization, and ownership put back in its place - the owner's box above the 50 yard line.
Yet, we still have those comments out there:"...they're still the Redskins."
Nothing shuts people up like winning.
Let's go guys.
Down to Dallas and knock their butts off.
I would love to see them choke on turkey saying "These are not the same Redskins!!!!"