[53Fan]

Originally Posted by jdlea

That's actually a pretty fair comparison between the Skins and Steelers. The Steeleres, however, have a much better playmaking defense. I know you referenced that earlier in your post, I just didn't want to copy the whole thing. The difference between the Skins D and the Ravens/Steelers was that the Skins got stops, but they didn't make plays. Very few sacks, not many turnovers and no touchdowns. The #4 ranking is totally based on yards, but they were nowhere near the caliber of the Steelers or Ravens D last year.

To get back to the offense and your comparison. The Steelers had many of the same issues. Big Ben holds the ball forever and can sometimes escape defenders, but often, he creates sacks by holding the ball. They're O Line is also much maligned, much like the Skins and they were able to go all the way. The difference, as I see it? They have guys who are reliable at receiver.

Santonio Holmes or Hines Ward would be the #1 wide out on this team and I would say that Nate Washington would have been the #2. They had playmakers at wide out, the Skins have Santana and he never stays healthy. The wide receiver corps for the Skins has been very inconsistent for a long time. Even when Santana's healthy, he still drops a lot of balls.

I'm not trying to put all of the blame on the receivers, but one of the last games I was able to watch was the Bengals game. On the first/second drive alone there were 2 consecutive passes that would have gone for first downs and at least 3 others that game where the ball was dropped. There were a lot of drops last season, the whole offense was inconsistent, not just Jason. After the O Line got banged up, Clinton was slumping, Jason was missing some guys and receivers were dropping balls. To say that it was totally Jason holding the team back is just ignorant, there was little about the offense that was good at the end of the season last year.

I'd say that sums it up pretty well. That and a lack of a scoring/turnover abled defense usually won't get you but so far.