I’ve had enough of the Portis “just how bad is his injury” saga this week!  It’s dominated what we all know and love as DALLAS WEEK! 

So Old Schoolers, you ready to get fired up?  Have you forgotten why you hate Dallas so much? Here’s a chronological walk down memory lane to make you both rejoice and cry. But it’s guaranteed to fire you up!

Our journey begins on New Year’s Eve, 1972.  Nixon wins re-election in a landslide. The Dow Jones closes over 1,000 for the first time in history. Don McLean’s ballad “American Pie” becomes a national anthem.

December 31, 1972 at RFK Stadium.  Redskins face the defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game. Led by Kilmer, Taylor, and an impenetrable defense, the Redskins advance to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history with a resounding 26 to 3 victory.

Bell bottoms ruled. The world had not yet been subjected to Disco. Billie Jean King had recently defeated Bobby Riggs in the “Battle of the Sexes.” And two reporters from the Washington Post had uncovered some pretty heavy stuff.

It’s October 8, 1973. Monday Night Football, RFK.  Cowboys with a 4th and Goal at the four yard line. Time for one more play. It’s do or die.  Morton drops back, hits Walt Garrison inches short of the goal line. Ken Houston grabs Garrison and wrestles him back. In desperation, Garrison fumbles the ball. Refs call the play dead. Redskins Win 14 to 7!  Classic game. Classic play.

Nixon resigns. Ali defeats Forman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Evel Knieval fails to jump the Snake River Canyon on a “motorcycle.”

Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1974, Texas Stadium. The Nation watches the Redskins build a 16 to 3 lead and then knock All Pro QB Roger Staubach out of the game. Untested rookie Clint Longley enters and rallies the Cowboys back with a 50 yard bomb to Drew Pearson with 28 seconds left in the game to edge the Redskins 24 to 23. One of the least appetizing Thanksgivings in Redskins Nation.

Saturday Night Live debuts. Ali defeats Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manilla.” Bill Gates comes up with an idea called “Micro-soft.”

November 2, 1975, RFK. In a game that was a juxtaposition in itself, Kilmer, not Staubach, rushes for a game winning touchdown and Staubach, not Kilmer, gets flagged for a critical Unsportsmanlike penalty for taking a swing at CB Pat Fischer. The Redskins win in Overtime, 30 to 24, on Kilmer’s one yard sneak!

Disco Rules. Gas lines. Energy crisis. Malaise. Test Tube Baby. Son of Sam sentenced.

October 2, 1978. Monday Night Football, RFK. A defensive struggle sees the Redskins take a 9 to 3 lead late in the game. Backed up to their endzone with time running out, QB Joe Theismann is instructed to take the snap and run in the endzone to run out the clock. He does so while holding the ball high above his head in a celebratory salute! Redskins 9, Cowboys 5.

Iran takes Americans hostage. Eleven fans are killed in a stampede at a Who concert. 

December 16, 1979, Texas Stadium. Redskins go to Dallas for a game that would decide the NFC East Champion. In a seesaw battle that Dallas Head Coach Tom Landry once said was the greatest game he’d ever coached, the Cowboys make a late rally with two Staubach touchdown passes to give the Redskins and their fans one of the most heartbreaking, heart wrenching defeats. To make matters worse, earlier in the day, the St. Louis Cardinals laid down and lost by a score of 42 to 6 to the Chicago Bears meaning if the Redskins beat the Cowboys, they would win the East and get home field advantage throughout the playoffs. Lose, and they are out of the playoffs. Redskins lost 35 to 34 as time ran out with Moseley scurrying to get a 59 yard field goal attempt off the ground.

Disco finally loses its grip and is replaced by several One-Hit Wonder Hair Bands. Time names the personal computer the Man of the Year for 1982.

January 22, 1983. NFC Championship Game, RFK. A good, hard fought game turns on a masterful defensive play by Dexter Manley and Daryl Grant. Manley rushes QB Gary Hogeboom and tips his attempted pass in the air. Grant, who was bearing down on the future star of Survivor, cradled the ball and rumbled, stumbled, bumbled into the endzone to seal a trip to the Super Bowl, 31 to 17!  Many Redskins fans consider this game the greatest non Super Bowl (or NFL Championship) victory in Redskins history.

Obviously, there are more games in this series worthy of note, but we’ll try to revisit them during DALLAS WEEK 2!

Hail,

Go50Gut

This should be a great hard-hitting football game.  Both teams need this game bad, and they are very similar teams.  The Redskins will try to run the football with Clinton Portis, and then take shots deep to Santana Moss just like last season when they played.  The Cowboys have a very good defense against both the run and pass so Brunell will have to be efficient and not make any bad throws.

The Cowboys will need to keep Redskins out of their backfield on passing downs.  Drew Bledsoe tends to panic and make bad throws.  If he gets time, Bledsoe should have his way with the Skins CBs who had a little trouble with the Jaguars no-name receivers.  Terrell Owens and Terry Glenn will stretch the field and make it a little easier for Julius Jones to run.

This should be a great game that could go either way.

The game was shall we say, lackluster. No bad play until the 2nd half and no great play all game long. Portis, umm, I think 39 yds says it all. In the 2nd half we all hoped to see some impressive coordinator adjustments, some out of nowhere sizzling pass plays from that renowned book, and at least decent defensive performance. Instead we got, a so so Qb performance and the same ol plays going for incompletions. Lack of variety. His opponent flat pulled away from him in the 2nd half and that made the difference. Reasons? He had more time. He had more plays. He seemed to try a bit harder. Then there was the difference in clock management.

Then top it off with penalties from taylor, and archuletta, and both turned drives about to die into scoring drives. Thx guys. Awesome discipline and way to keep your head in the game out there. Archuleta’s wasn’t bad, except for the timing, couldn’t he have done that in the 1st quarter instead? S. Taylor’s was inexcusable. Professional big hitters win games with big hits, they don’t lose them trying to show off. Sad part is with some discipline he might change. But snyder’s current philosophy does not allow for discipline of players, only fans apparently.

Then it comes down to the wire, and we put it all on Hall, and he shows us why we don’t call him Mark Mosely yet. I mean, why should he be expected to perform better than everyone else? He made a 3 point difference. Archulatte and Taylor made a 10 point difference. Add back in his other field goals, and he way outperformed both of them. Honestly tho, it shows how far we have fallen, when we go to blaming the kicker for not tying it in the last seconds, from the days of ruling the field with an iron fist. It was close. But the vikings are not the hottest team. We have now a few days left til dallas. Let’s see if these coordinators can find a way to win, and make adjustments like the vikings obviously did, and be smart enuf to anticipate adjustments and counter. Let’s see if we can turn the time diff our qb has vs their’s into a positive one for our team sometime THIS YEAR. If we can, and our coordintaros can deliver as promised, and someone knocks knucklhead taylor over the head, we can win. The pieces are all there, but only the guys on the field can put it together. So maybe they should tell us, what’s the prob and what are you going to do about it? Are we ever going to get their qb like they get to ours? Any adjustments this seasons? In any game? Any more plays cuz it looked a little bland?

Why were they able to march downfield on us in the 2nd half, after a little scouting and halftime adjustments?

Prioleau injured himself on the opening kickoff of the game, and it’s believed to be pretty serious.  Coach Gibbs said it was a “pretty bad ACL injury”.  Prioleau was a good back-up defensive back and special teams player that will be missed by the Skins.

And it’s probably not who you think!  Here’s the breakdown of blame for the Redskins 19 – 16 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in Game One:

Offense:  The offensive line continued its preseason malaise and struggled to consistently make room for the backs and to provide Brunell a pocket in which to set up. They didn’t give up any sacks, which is good, but Brunell had, I believe, 5 throw aways.  Brunell wasn’t real sharp, but you can’t pin the blame entirely on him.  Portis had some nice carries, but he only got 10.  Antwaan Randle-El was by far the bright spot on offense as he and Santana Moss made some plays. Playing Waldo was Brandon Lloyd, who was stoned by Fred Smoot all game long.

Defense:  No pressure what-so-ever from the front four which conspired to make the defensive backs look bad. Actually, Archuleta and Rogers looked bad all by themselves.  If it weren’t for two drops, the Vikes would have won in a blowout.  No one on defense could stop the Vikings on third down. That was the killer. Linebackers can’t take any blame here. They were good.

Special Teams:  Up and Down. Missed FG to tie the game in the waning minutes is, well, pretty lousy.  Sure, Hall made three previous kicks, all from 27 yards and less, but the first two I bet would have missed from 37. Frost, the punter and kickoff “specialist” continues to defy logic. And by that I mean it’s illogical that he has a job in the National Football League.  One punt was downed inside the two yard line, but one kickoff was handled at the 18. Just can’t have that inconsistency.

Coaching:  If anyone wants to make the argument that Joe Gibbs can no longer game coach, all you need to do is look at the last two and a half minutes of the game (right now millions of Redskins fans are doing their Fred Sanford imitation by holding their heart looking toward the sky in anticipation of a heart attack at the mere notion someone could question Joe Gibbs).  With three timeouts remaining, the Vikings in FG range, and the clock under 2:30, the Redskins called time out (it was second down and very short).  First mistake. If you keep your timeouts, you will save clock when you get the ball back after the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout (in some circles, this is still refered to as the 2 Minute Warning).

Second mistake then was in not taking the other two time outs before the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout! If you take the first one, you HAVE to take the next two. By simply using all three time outs before the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout, the Redskins would have saved about 10 seconds.  That would have been enough time to throw one more ball in the middle of the field. Instead, Gibbs allowed the clock to wind down and the chances of success dwindled with each tick of the clock.

Of all the mistakes, the time management issue at the end of the game was the biggest blunder. You simply cannot make those mistakes with the game on the line. 

Blame Hall if you want, but the person deserving of most of the blame is Hall of Fame Coach Joe Gibbs.

Of course, if we beat Dallas Sunday Night, all will be forgiven and forgotten.

Hail,

Go50Gut

 

Coach Gibbs needs to open that playbook back up, so that Brunell can use all the weapons he has.  Mark Brunell completed 17 of 28 passes (60.7%) for 163 yards.  RB Clinton Portis played and carried the ball 10 times for 39 yards and a TD, he also caught 2 passes for 11 yards.  Ledell Betts carried the ball 8 times for 22 yards (2.8 ypc) and caught 3 passes for 31 yards (10.3 avg).  WR Santana Moss caught 3 passes for 69 yards (23.0 avg) and ran the ball 3 times for 28 yards (9.3 ypc).  Antwaan Randle El caught 5 passes for 34 yards (6.8 avg).

The defense played great for the Skins.  Linebacker Lemar Marshall was all over the field and had 13 tackles.  S Adam Archuleta came as advertised making 9 tackles.  The run defense held the Vikings to 86 yards on the ground and only 2.5 yards per carry.  The Vikings completed 53.3% of their passes for 223 yards in the air.

Boy, did that preseason stint solve problems or cause them?  I thought the preseason was for sorting out all of the issues so the team is ready to roll come Opening Day.  But the Redskins appear nothing close to ready.

It’s been well noted on this blog, as well as everywhere else you can navigate with a mouse or remote control, that the Redskins offense was putrid during the preseason.  And the defense really wasn’t much better.  Were they really playing vanilla, or do they really stink?

And then there’s Clinton Portis, or “Injury Man,” his appropriately self-coined moniker for his usual Thursday Character Day. The Redskins are keeping it close to the vest, but the more Portis practices (which hasn’t been much), the more he sounds like a man who is looking past the first week and looking toward Week Two, aka Dallas Week in DC.

Even if the preseason was an aberration, can the Redskins offense be effective without their stud running back?  Unfortunately, we might not know until Dallas Week.

Hail,

Go50Gut

This game is a battle of old QB’s and good defenses.  When the Vikings have the ball, they are gonna try to feed it to RB Chester Taylor.  Taylor could have problems running the ball against the vastly under-rated linebacking corps of the Washington Redskins.  One area that the Vikings are sure to try to exploit is the weakness the Skins have at the CB position.  Starter Shawn Springs is out for the Skins and his replacement is Kenny Wright who’s old and slow.  The other corner is young Carlos Rogers. 

When the Redskins have the ball, they will probably also try to establish the run.  The Skins will have success running the ball outside of the tackles, but inside running will be tough against the Williams boys (Kevin and Pat) at tackle.  The Skins will then run play action and try to get the ball deep to Santana Moss, Randle El and Brandon Lloyd.  TE Chris Cooley is another nice weapon in the Skins arsenal.

Look for the Skins to win a low scoring football game.

Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs has a career record of 140-76 (64.8% wins) and is 17-6 in the post-season.  Gibbs has won 5 division titles and 3 Super Bowl Championships.

Mark Brunell has a career record of 75-66 (53.2% wins) as a starter in his career.  Brunell is 5-5 in the playoffs as a starter.  Brunell’s career Qb rating is 84.1.

Todd Collins career record as a starter is 7-10 (41.2% wins) and he sports a career QB rating of 70.4.