Washington Redskins: RGIII Is Great, but It's Time to Temper the Expectations

If there's anything we learned from the Redskins' Week 1 victory over the New Orleans Saints, it's that scoring 40 points in a game vaults a team from also-ran to playoff contender.

Can you imagine the expectations had the Redskins pulled out a win against St. Louis? It would be playoff this and playoff that. All anyone would talk about is how good the Redskins are and how they're going to make the playoffs in 2012.

I hate to rag on my fellow Redskins fans (as great as they are), but we as a group tend to really overreact to certain things.

When Clinton Portis breaks out for a 64-yard touchdown run on the first play of the season, it means that Joe Gibbs is God and the Redskins are the greatest thing since sliced bread. (As a reminder, the Burgundy and Gold went 6-10 that season.)

When Antwaan Randle-El and Brandon Lloyd join Santana Moss as Mark Brunell's go-to guys, the Redskins become legitimate Super Bowl contenders with no threats in sight.

And when the Redskins defeat the Saints by demolishing them on the road, suddenly, it's time to crown them NFC East champs.

Now, Robert Griffin III has looked superb; there's no denying that. But his performance alone isn't grounds for claiming the Redskins are back in business. Not by a long shot. 

In the preseason, the general consensus was that the Redskins would be an improved squad with realistic hopes of hitting 8-8 or 9-7, perhaps finishing just outside of the playoffs. 

But after Washington's performance in Week 1, it seems like fans everywhere have forgotten about reality. This is not a playoff team. It is close to being a playoff team, but there are too many holes in too many places.

The Redskins are lucky; they have the most important cog in that prospective playoff machine in RGIII. The linebacker corps is superb, and the wide receivers are solid.

But the defense as a whole is a mess, and the offensive line still needs a lot of work. The running game, while improved, still needs to prove its value on a week-by-week basis. And good teams don't allow punts to be blocked in consecutive weeks.

The NFL's format lends itself to this kind of overreaction. When the games only come once a week, it's easy to be blinded by what is actually reality and what is simply a good performance on any given weekend. Redskins fans have fallen victim to this phenomenon. 

All we need to do is step back and realize that this team isn't very good. It is improving; there's no doubt about that, and it could luck its way into a playoff spot (here's to hoping). But even after that dominant Week 1 showing, and a Week 2 loss that wasn't as bad as people think, it's still time to temper the expectations.

To be honest, there really weren't that many to begin with.