Washington Redskins: 5 Reasons We Haven't Seen the Best of This Team

I enjoy watching a good public train wreck. Whether it’s a failed sham of a marriage, the death of an ill-advised political campaign or a group of athletes masquerading as a professional football team, the experience of watching people who are more “successful” fail is often cathartic and instructive.  

The 2011 Washington Redskins are on their way to becoming such a train wreck. They have a quarterback situation that is one more lousy John Beck performance away from devolving into a full-blown controversy, questions of nepotism in the coaching staff and more injuries than an already mediocre team can be expected to overcome. 

Yet I’m not finding any enjoyment in watching their season fall apart. 

The reason for this is simple: Such calamity is par for the course for a franchise that has truly lost its way.  

Fans are frustrated, the media is seething, yada yada yada. I’ve heard it all before.  

It’s the same narrative year after year with a revolving set of characters. Mike Shanahan may end up becoming the latest victim to Redskinsitis, a disease that has hobbled coaches as esteemed as Marty Schottenheimer and as unknown as Jim Zorn.  

If the Redskins don’t flip the script in the next few years they will be in jeopardy of becoming worse than godawful; they will be at risk of becoming boring.  

There is no way we have seen the best this team has to offer, and we may not have seen the worse. But here are five reasons why we have not seen the Redskins’ best. 

Injuries

Blaming a team's woes on injuries is the NFL's version of crying over spilled milk, but any objective fan can recognize that the plethora of injuries suffered by Redskins players is a significant factor in the team's recent decline.

When the Redskins lost Santana Moss, Chris Cooley and Tim Hightower to injury they lost three of their best skill-position players. But the unit that has been most affected by injuries is the offensive line which lost Kory Lichtensteiger for the year with an injured knee and has been playing without left tackle Trent Williams.

Against the Buffalo Bills, the patched together offensive line gave up nine sacks against a defense that prior to that game had only garnered four sacks. And the running game, a staple of every Mike Shanahan offense, has disappeared. 

There's no easy way to overcome injuries, but if Williams can get healthy soon we may see a better effort from the Redskins offense. 

Rex Grossman

In five starts, Rex Grossman turned the ball over 11 times and amassed a quarterback rating of 66.5, four points lower than his career rating. 

Had Grossman been more careful with the ball, the Redskins may have beaten both the Cowboys and the Eagles.

I believe that Grossman should get another shot as the starting quarterback, but I am far from a Grossman apologist. He has been awful this season and needs to learn that taking care of the football is his primary job.

Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins wrote a fantastic column about Grossman's inability to recognize his shortcomings. His subpar play is a big reason we have not seen the best out of the Redskins.  

John Beck

As bad as Grossman has played, John Beck hasn't been much better. 

His quarterback rating (69.9) is higher than Grossman's, but under Beck the Redskins were shut out by Buffalo. Yes, I know he was sacked nine times in that game and got little support from his teammates, but any intelligent fan intrinsically knows that Beck is not a legitimate NFL quarterback. 

Put it this way: If I set the over/under on years Beck has left in the NFL at two-and-a-half, you'd have to take the under. Even at two, that looks like a bet worth taking.

Beck's ceiling is so much lower than Grossman's that at some point the Shanahans will have to bench Beck and once again roll the dice with Rex. It's more entertaining to watch Grossman throw for 300 yards with two interceptions than to watch Beck play conservatively but miss wide open receivers. 

The Receiving Corps

One of the reasons the Redskins quarterbacks have played so poorly is that they don't have any great receivers to throw to. 

I'm a big fan of Santana Moss, but it is obvious that he has lost half-a-step in recent years and is no longer capable of making the explosive plays that defined his early years in Washington. 

Jabar Gaffney has been underwhelming and has dropped some key passes over the past few games. Anthony Armstrong, Terrence Austin, Niles Paul and the aging Donte' Stallworth are okay second and third receivers but none of them strikes fear in the hearts of opposing defensive coordinators. 

Fred Davis is by far the team's best receiving option, but as good as Davis is, he has yet to reach the level of the game's elite tight ends like Jimmy Graham and Jermichael Finley. After Washington's loss to the Eagles, Davis admirably blamed himself for two of Grossman's interceptions. Most people dismissed this as Davis being a good teammate, but I tend to agree with him. In both instances, Grossman put the ball in a spot where Davis had a chance to make a play on it, and both times he failed while the defensive backs did not. If Davis wants to be an elite NFL tight end, he'll have to demonstrate a better ability to go get the ball.

From Desmond Howard to Michael Westbrook to Devin Thomas, the Redskins have failed to draft or sign good wide receivers. This class continues that trend. 

Coaching

Jim Haslett has done a fantastic job as the Redskins defensive coordinator. He's taken a unit that finished 31st in total defense last year and turned them into an aggressive force that bends but rarely breaks. Hats off to him and the players he coaches.

Mike and Kyle Shanahan have not matched Haslett's effort. 

Mike did the team no favors in the preseason by waiting to name a starting quarterback, and he made a mistake by switching to Beck so early in the season. Here's a hint Mike: Neither guy is headed for Canton so just make up your mind and stick with that guy. 

His son Kyle has not inspired anyone with his play calling. Even when the Redskins were healthy and winning they were not exactly scoring points in bunches. Kyle is working with a limited amount of talent, but he could show some more ingenuity with his game plans. 

If Mike and Kyle don't improve their acts, the Redskins will continue to struggle.