Washington Redskins: 5 Things We Learned About the Team This Week

As the Washington Redskins players were running off CenturyLink Field at halftime of Sunday's game between Washington and the Seattle Seahawks, I couldn't help but notice a Seattle fan who was seated near the visiting team's tunnel holding a sign that read, "The once proud 'Skins no more."  

That statement is apropos. Regardless of how good the players may feel after breaking a losing streak that stretched back to Oct. 2, the team is still a long ways away from achieving owner Dan Snyder's penultimate goal: returning the franchise to relevancy in a league that has mostly forgotten about the Redskins' storied past.

A few weeks ago I was reading some old Washington Post articles when I stumbled across a gem of a quote from esteemed journalist and former Washington Post staff writer Richard Justice. In an article published in 1994, Justice wrote, "For the first time in more than a decade, no one thinks the Redskins have a chance to go to the Super Bowl." 

If you live in Washington—scratch that, if you've paid any attention to the National Football League for the past 15 years—it's hard to fathom that the Redskins were once considered perennial Super Bowl contenders. Years of incompetency and sometimes jaw-dropping ineptitude have turned the team into an annual joke.

All the diehard Redskins fans I know tend to make a little bet with themselves at the beginning of the season regarding which week the team will fall apart. It doesn't matter how promising the start of a season may be, all true Redskins fans know a total collapse is always looming right around the corner. 

To change that perception and to achieve Snyder's ultimate goal of winning the franchise's fourth Lombardi Trophy, a lot of things will have to improve in the coming years. For fans in the city on the Potomac, this offseason promises to be another long one fraught with questions. 

Still, the team can give itself a mini-pat on the back for beating a Seahawks team that played hard for 60 minutes on Sunday. Here are five things we learned about the Redskins from their 23-17 Week 12 victory. 

Roy Helu Should Start at Running Back

I don't want to sound like I'm tooting my own horn, but after Sunday's game there should be no doubt Roy Helu should start at running back for the remainder of the season. 

Helu's stats speak for themselves: 23 carries for 108 yards and one touchdown. The rookie running back put an exclamation point on his performance when he hurdled a Seattle defender and exploded for a 28-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter. That play broke an almost three-quarter scoring drought for Washington. 

For the last few seasons, the Redskins have lacked a player with the capacity to make explosive plays. They've lacked a player who scares opposing teams' defensive coordinators. 

Helu is not that player yet, but his fourth-quarter touchdown run showed he has the potential to become that player, to give the Redskins offense a much-needed big-play threat.  

The notion that Helu is just a "change-of-pace back," which is football code for a running back who only plays on third downs, is junk. In the two games he's started and received the bulk of the carries, Helu has shown no sides of wearing down in the fourth quarter. Against the San Francisco 49ers he set a new team record for receptions in a game, and against the Seahawks he averaged 4.7 yards per carry. 

With Tim Hightower out for the remainder of the season with knee injury and Ryan Torain looking like a shadow of the player who rushed for 135 yards against the St. Louis Rams, there should be no question that Helu is the player who should start in the backfield for the Redskins remaining five games. 

But in the weird world of the Shanahans, it's impossible to tell who's going to get the call from week to week. 

Mike Shanahan Never Should Have Benched Rex Grossman

In a lot of ways, Rex Grossman seems completely hapless. 

He threw two more interceptions on Sunday, his 11th and 12th of the year, and fumbled the ball for no apparent reason inside the 20-yard line, costing the team valuable field position in the process. 

But despite all of his flaws and his inability to correct his turnover-prone ways, Grossman gives the Redskins a better chance at winning than John Beck.  

Consider Grossman's 50-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Armstrong, the play that gave Washington the lead for good. That's a pass Beck simply doesn't have the talent to make. Had Beck been in the game on that particular play, he would have thrown the ball to a check-down receiver or scrambled for a few yards, forcing the Redskins to kick a field goal. 

As I've written before, there's a reason no team in the NFL gave Beck a chance to start at quarterback between 2007 and 2011: He isn't very good. 

Grossman will always turn the ball over; it is obvious he cannot correct this inherent flaw in his game. But with him under center, the Redskins offense has looked semi-competent for two straight games, and the team has been competitive.  

Hindsight is always 20-20, but you have to wonder how different the Redskins season may have been if Shanahan had stuck with Grossman instead of acting in a reactive manner and benching him after a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. The three contests Beck started were all winnable, and had the offense looked as good as it has for the past two weeks, the Redskins might have been able to come away with one or two victories. 

That last paragraph is speculative at best, but head coaches are paid to make tough decisions and to see the things the average fan cannot. Mike Shanahan is paid a lot of money and has an enormous ego, but his decision making, especially when it comes to the quarterback position, has been highly questionable since he arrived in Washington.   

The bottom line is that while Grossman is not a franchise quarterback, he should have been the Redskins' starter for the entire 2011 season. 

Trent Williams Has a Lot of Heart and a Little Fight in Him

Anyone who's ever suffered a knee injury can tell you that engaging in athletic activities while that injury is still fresh is not easy.  

Last week Trent Williams suffered a minor MCL injury, and given that the Redskins have no real shot at making the playoffs and that Williams is a big piece of the team's future, it would have been understandable if Williams opted to sit this one out. Protecting one's body is usually at the top of an athlete's list of priorities. 

But Williams decided to play, and while he didn't have his best game, he played admirably all things considered. 

He also engaged in more than his fair share of trash-talking and chest bumping with Seahawks players. His machismo-infused antics started before the opening kickoff and continued throughout the first half. 

This is not the first game in which Williams has engaged in a little extracurricular activity, and one can hope that his penchant for getting in opposing players' faces is just a product of youth.  

Some pundits will claim that sort of behavior constitutes "swagger" and that it can be good for a team. I have yet to see any credible evidence supporting this notion. 

Either way, in his two seasons in Washington Williams has been the exceptional left tackle Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan hoped he would be when they drafted him. 

And if Williams continues to display the heart he did on Sunday by playing on a bum knee, Washington fans can rest easy knowing he is anchoring the left side of their team's offensive line. 

The Redskins Special Teams Are a Mixed Bag

I'm at a loss about what to say about the Redskins special teams.  

Punter Sav Rocca has been a stalwart all season long—he's currently tied for second in the league for number punts put inside the 200yard line.  

But the rest of the Redskins special teams are completely unpredictable. One week they play exceptional and the next week they look like a bunch of Division-III athletes.  

Graham Gano's performances oscillate from record setting to anti-clutch. On Sunday, he had one field and one extra point blocked. 

The Redskins kickoff coverage has been one of the best in the league all season long, but on Sunday they gave up a 51-yard return on the second half kickoff.  

And Brandon Banks may be talented enough to deserve his reputation as a dangerous return man, but the players who are supposed to block for him commit so many silly penalties that his abilities are often nullified as a result of their mistakes.  

Special teams never receive as much attention as their importance to the game warrants. Since the Redskins do not have a top notch offense or defense, their special teams play is even more critical to the team's success.  

The Redskins special teams have shown they can play at a high level and put the team in a position to succeed. You just have to wonder if they will find a measure of consistency by next season. 

Perry Riley Is for Real

London Fletcher has been patrolling the middle of the Redskins defense for five seasons, and when his career is complete, Fletcher deserves to enshrined in the team's Ring of Fame.   

But the question of who will replace the 14-year veteran as the anchor of Jim Haslett's attacking defense has been up in the air.  

The answer to that question may be Perry Riley.  

Riley led the team in tackles against the Seahawks and once again demonstrated he has no problem covering the football field from the inside linebacker position. 

Riley has looked spectacular in all the games in which he has received significant playing time. If the young linebacker from LSU can keep it up, Redskins management need not worry about finding someone else to take Fletcher's place.