Washington Redskins: The Best Team in Football?

Rather than simply dissecting Week Five's NFC East matchup between the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles, I have chosen to respond to a sentiment that seems to be prevalent around the NFL.

That sentiment being that, somehow, someway, the Redskins have not won four in a row based on their quality play, but rather on some form of luck or "happenstance."

I'll start with the simplest point: They are 4-1, including 2-1 in road games, involving three of the four teams that make up what many believe is the best division in football.

The one loss was on opening night, where the Super Bowl Champion New York Giants had the emotion of a ring ceremony and a fiery speech from the retired Michael Strahan on their side to start the game. The Redskins ran into a buzzsaw and couldn't quite recover from it.

I would argue that no team could have done better in the early stages of that game. Their ability to recover was hindered by the fact that it was the first game for a rookie head coach, the first game for the new offense as a whole, and the first game for a young quarterback in his third new offense in his four years in the NFL.

Things are different now after Week Five. And I contend that if that game were played in Week Six, the results would be different, too.

In five weeks of football, the Redskins have not taken over the league's statistical rankings in many categories. Defensively, the Redskins are only ranked 13th in yards allowed, 11th in points allowed, 20th against the pass, and ninth against the run.

But those numbers don't tell the whole story.

The Redskins have faced five of the NFL's top nine offenses during this stretch (based on current rankings, the Eagles were sixth entering Week Five). In each game, the Redskins' defense held the opposition to its lowest yardage total and its lowest point total of the season.

The Redskins defense has only allowed 10 fourth-quarter points all season, doing so while facing five of the top ten scoring offenses in the NFL, including three of the top five.

Four of the five opposing quarterbacks are currently ranked in the top five in yardage in the NFL, and the fifth, Eli Manning, is a respectable 12th. Four of the five are also in the top seven in quarterback rating as of now (following Week Five) and the fifth (Donovan McNabb) is 13th (before facing the Redskins, he was eighth).

Three of the five opposing quarterbacks experienced their worst quarterback rating of the season against the Redskins. The other two, Drew Brees and Tony Romo, had their second-worst ratings, by a very small margin, 68.2-69.8 for Brees and 82.6-90.7 for Romo.

The Redskins' defense has only six sacks on the season. That ranks 26th in the NFL. But consider the quarterbacks they have faced.

• Brees - tied for third in the NFL with four sacks all season, one sack for every 37 attempts
• Romo - tied for third in the NFL with four sacks all season, one sack for every 40.5 attempts
• Eli M - tied for fifth in the NFL with five sacks all season, one sack for every 26.4 attempts
• McNabb - tied for 20th in the NFL with 10 sacks all season, one sack for every 17.5 attempts
• Warner - 28th in the NFL with 12 sacks all season, one sack for every 15.25 attempts

Three of these five QBs are among the very best at getting rid of the ball, and the other two are pretty good as well when one considers the sacks per attempt. As a point of comparison, the worst quarterbacks in sacks per attempt are Ben Roethlisberger and Matt Cassel, with 6.8 and 6.93 sacks per attempt respectively.

The best? Kerry Collins and Jay Cutler, with one sack in 115 attempts and two sacks in 191 attempts.

Is it a surprise that the Redskins weren't able to sack these quarterbacks? No.

The Redskins defense has caused a turnover in four of the five games, the exception being Week Five against the Eagles. Contrarily, the Redskins' offense is the only offense in the NFL with no turnovers all season!. The lone turnover from the team as a whole was a fumble on a punt return.

Quarterback Jason Campbell is the only starting quarterback with no interceptions or fumbles all season!

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