NFL Week Four: Washington Redskins Need Change, But No Hope?

Disappointment. A feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized. The Washington Redskins are definitely disappointed with the way they have played in the first three games this season including losing to the Detroit Lions, a team that had not won since December 23 of 2007.

I’ll get to the Detroit loss in a second, but can we talk about how the Redskins only managed to put up nine points in Week Two against the St. Louis Rams! It was an embarrassing game for the Skins and their hometown fans. 

After the game, the locker room was apparently silent and looked as if the team had just lost. The fans (with reason) let their team know how they felt.

“I understand that they want us to beat the Rams by 40,” said Chris Cooley, who led the Redskins with seven catches for 83 yards. “But we still won, and if we continue to win games, that’s great. The booing was unnecessary.”

Players never like to be booed by their home fans but Washington’s offense accumulated just three field goals, all less than 28 yards. I mean come on...they couldn’t score a touchdown. Just a week before against the New York Giants, the team had to execute a fake field goal run for a touchdown.  That play there showed the real desperation that Coach Jim Zorn is feeling standing on the sidelines watching his offense play.

The offense really should be much better than it is. Clinton Portis is a big time playmaker at the running back position and Jason Campbell has weapons in Santana Moss, Antwaan Randle-El, and Chris Cooley. Yet, the Redskins offense has been disappointingly bad and has destroyed anyone’s fantasy team with a Skin on it (luckily not mine!).

So after the nine-point embarrassment against the Rams, most figured the offense would turn things around against the Detroit Lions. Guess again. The Skins offense struggled to score once more and the run game stunk.

Clinton Portis and the Washington running attack rushed for just 65 yards.  The Skins came out strong, but Coach Zorn elected to go for it on a fourth and goal from the one and Portis was stopped.  The Skins never really recovered after that play.

Which brings us to the next issue. Should Zorn be fired? Skins owner Dan Snyder wants more than anything to win now. The recent signing of Albert Haynesworth to his enormous contract is evidence of that. So it is expected by Snyder and Skins fans for the team to compete to win the NFC East.

But I’m sorry, if you score just nine points against the Rams and lose to the Detroit Lions, you have no chance in hell to compete against the New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles, and Dallas Cowboys.

If Zorn wants to save his job, he has to prevent the team from self-destructing and blaming one another for their problems.

“You either want it or you don’t. A lot of these guys don’t want it,” Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. “They want the other stuff.”

If Skins players continue to say things like that and ‘oh yeah, call their fans “dimwits,”‘ then it is going to be a LONG, disastrous year.

Now, it’s only Week Three. The NFL seems to have wanted the Redskins to be a playoff team by the way their schedule was created. The teams the Skins play in the next three weeks have a combined record of 0-9 (Tampa Bay, Kansas City, and Carolina)!

If the Redskins don’t win all three of these games, I believe Jim Zorn should be fired and will be. Dan Snyder will have to set a flame underneath his team and let them know he is not messing around. I think that the loss of Zorn would also be advantageous to the team because it would eliminate a distraction that will undoubtedly be in Washington the next couple of weeks.

-Tom “Terrific” Anderson