Redskins-Cowboys: WWJD

The old NFL saw that says every NFL game counts the same in the standings is true, but it’s also true that not every game counts the same in determining the arc of a season.

One could make the case, for instance, that the only measurable impact of the Washington Redskins game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday night will be determining whether they head into the 2008 season's stretch run at 6-4 or 7-3. But that would be tunnel vision.

The Redskins aren’t going to play just another game this weekend. They aren’t going to play just another division game. They’re not even going to play just another division game against their fiercest rival. Way I see it, they’re going to play the 2008 season’s defining game.

Overstating the case? You decide.

The Redskins recovered quickly from their season-opening clunker against the NY Giants, sprinting to a 4-1 start. They earned solid consecutive road wins over two favored division opponents along the way, and in doing so, reset the expectations bar for head coach Jim Zorn’s debut season.

Back in August, the idea of a start like that would have slapped a goofy grin on even the dourest Redskins fan's mug. After Washington dispatched Philadelphia on the road to go 4-1, with three “beatable opponents” in a row upcoming on their schedule, any lid there might have been on 2008 expectations blew off.

With the winless St. Louis Rams coming to town, all was right in the Redskins universe, and while fans didn’t do it openly (much), I suspect more than a few found themselves entertaining January dreams.

However...

A slow return to earth began that next week, with the self-immolation home loss to the Rams in which the Redskins quite literally let a game they dominated slip through their fingers. Then came two, shall we say, less-than-artful wins over Cleveland and Detroit. The Redskins won behind solid defense and just enough offense, but neither was the kind of game likely to end up in your permanent DVD library.

And then, at 6-2 and facing their first Big Stage game since the opener, they slipped on a black and yellow banana peel on Monday Night Football. The thud you heard was Redskins Nation’s 2008 expectation level...re-adjusting. Remember the feeling right after the Philadelphia game, as surprise turned to elation turned to brimming, exuberant confidence? I won’t say it’s gone...but it can see gone from here.

The Redskins had an opportunity on the national stage last Monday night to announce their arrival to themselves and to the world. To prove they were a contender this season, despite all the odds arrayed against it. Instead, agonizingly, they wilted under the bright lights and pressure of the big stage. They could not summon that one last ounce of energy, or that one last bit of focus, that inevitably spell the difference in big games.

Defensively they were stellar...until they weren’t, when it mattered most. They dropped another potential game-changing interception; one that had touchdown and a 13-3 second quarter lead written all over it.

And, in an ironic twist of fate, they knocked Steelers starting QB Ben Roethlisberger out of the game, only to see his backup, DC’s own Byron Leftwich, come out firing with a “nothing to lose, let it fly” mentality...and couldn’t stop him.

Offensively, the Redskins were bested mentally and physically all night. We’ll never know how much of that was attributable to their own poor play, or how much was Pittsburgh simply playing lights out, but the result were the same. Washington was unable to sustain drives, nor make the “big play”—the kind of play that instantly changes the complexion of a game.

And so they lost. Convincingly. And suddenly the 6-3 record, given the heightened expectations just a month ago, looks a whole lot better in print than it feels in the gut.

Which brings us to Dallas. At home. Once again under the bright national lights.

My instinct is telling me that how they come out of this one will set the tone for the rest of the season.

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