Alive on Arrival
September 20, 2019
by Jay Evans
“Sire! Sire! Come quick! There are torches lit and the village people are at the gate. They are upset over the continuing tariffs on stadium seats, underfunded municipalities, and lack of statues in the club section.” King Dan’us perks from his tactical throne, a sail on the Adriatic.
Dan’us’ home protection system receives a perfect signal thousands of miles in the distance. He raises his eyes to the monitor, held high by his peculiar jester. He slinks back in his Parisian leather armchair and tilts solemnly, “Bruce, did they expect anything different?”
“A ‘team’ with a dream, with plans to make cream?”
The question is valid. In an ideal world, the Redskins would be 2-0, natural gas would be self-sustaining, Jay Gruden would have accepted the Rams job, Trent Williams would have played sixteen games every season, and Jalen Ramsey laughs and doesn’t shout.
But there is no joy in Mudville, Rockville or Ashburn. The Redskins have blown two games which they led, but have yet to strike out.
The Redskins have outscored their opponents in the first 20 minutes (and 3 seconds) of both games 24-0. For the math majors, that is 1/3 of the game. They have shutout both opponents in the first quarter plus and for forty minutes of the season been in situations to control each game.
2019 prognostications were grim – 2-3 and 1-4 were the most forseen records of the Washington Redskins after the first five games. The Redskins have played two games and have lost two games. What got the whole fanbase buggin’ is that the Redskins had moments of brilliance to win either game and were “alive on arrival.”
Had the Redskins been trounced, the fanbase would have been less inclined to torch the castle than the way both losses occurred. The Redskins have been surprising in the early going against superior opponents, but a pair of 51-yard touchdowns have flipped momentum in both games and were the death knells of each match.
With 4:19 left to play in the second quarter of the Eagles game, Desean Jackson crossed the goal line after he slithered behind the defense for a long touchdown. In the following week against the Cowboys, unheralded Devin Smith slipped past the backline of the defense and scored from long distance.
The schedule makers of the NFL did no favors to the Redskins this year and propagated the many preseason predictions. Currently, the chasm between the have’s and the not’s in the NFC East seems to be a distance greater than the length of Eli Manning’s forehead.
Make no mistake about the Giants: they are looking forward to playing the Redskins in two weeks, but the prognostications are to unexpect the unexpected.
There was no chance the Redskins could be up 17 points on the road to the Eagles. No chance they were leading last year’s division winning Cowboys, and no way can they take on former Defensive MVP Khalil Mack and the defending NFC North champion Chicago Bears.
Hope for the Redskins included exiting the first four games of the season at 2-2, and despite the ugly losses that is still possible. The fifth game against the New England Patriots seems impenetrable, but sport is fickle. The difference between a win and a loss is a phantom roughing the passer, or a timeout with one second on an expired clock, just as the Bears experienced.
This brings the Redskins to the daunting matchup against a defense that has surrendered a total of twenty-four points. Following shutouts in the first quarter, Washington has given up more points in the 26 minutes of gameplay that have followed the first quarter in each contest than Chicago has given up all season.
The Redskins have yet to play a sixty-minute game. The Redskins need to play more than a half a game, and the remaining time is needed to minimize the damage and negate long scores, like the big plays, that initiated the comebacks in the first two weeks.
The Eagles and the Cowboys were fortunate in that they got to play the Redskins at the onset of the season with a great amount of uncertainty. Washington has worked with eight new starters on the roster, a new quarterback, and a rebuilt offensive line.
In the Redskins favor, the Bears are coming to the Redskins at precisely the right time. Chicago is off to a tepid start, has the third worst offense in the league, and scored a total of 19 points. The Redskins have been doomed by explosive offenses and now get to face an opponent without the same explosive tendencies as the two NFC East foes.
Chicago has yet to show that force on offense and though the defense has been dominant, as advertised, exceptional defensive play can’t always make up for the inept offense.
On the Redskins sideline, they haven’t won a game in over six years on Monday Night Football and the Redskins coaching staff, under intense scrutiny, has tiptoed long enough that the egg shells have turned into fine sand.
Something has to finally give and if the Redskins can extend their positive play for another ten minutes of gameplay that would equate to more than half the game. If the Redskins had been able to achieve that feat in either the Eagles or the Cowboys games, the outcomes may have ultimately been different.
That might not have happened, but the Redskins could come out of the Monday night game victorious against the Chicago Bears with a 1-2 record and be precisely where they were expected.
In that event, after three games the Redskins would have stolen one game and be staring at week four against a rookie quarterback in his second start, exactly where they were supposed to be. Till then, the Redskins are, in the words of Wu-Tang Clan, “neglected for now, but yo, it gots to be accepted.”