I must have missed yesterday's game...

[Bushead]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

After reading all the comments here blaming Suisham and/or Zorn and/or the playcalling and/or the football gods for yesterday's loss to the Cowboys, I think I watched a different game.

In the game I saw, the sputtering Redskins offense had a 6-0 lead in the game with about 5 or 6 minutes left to play. The reason the Redskins lost the game is stunningly similar to the reason the Redskins have lost several games in the last two years:

In the 4th quarter when the team MUST HAVE a defensive stand (three-and-out or a turnover to get the ball back) what the team gets is a drive by the opposition resulting in a score.

Yardage allowed stats are for losers. What matters is making the defensive stop when the team absolutely, positively has to have one. And the Skins' defense the last couple of years simply has NOT done that.

I do not keep notes on play-by-play as I watch the games, but in the final drive when the game was on the line, I believe the only negative play for the Cowboys was a false start penalty. I don't recall the Cowboys facing a 3rd down situation; if they did, it was certainly not 3rd-and-long. When it mattered, the defense came up small.

Granted, if either or both of the missed field goals is good, the Skins win. But the Redskins still had the game in hand or - to use a tennis term - on their racket with 5 or 6 minutes left in the game.

That was the game that came through on my cable system...

I have to completely and utterly disagree with you. I cannot believe anyone can even REMOTELY have this kind of opinion. The only reason the defense is in a position to make a stop is because the defense is the only good thing on this team.

I tell you that a team is going to only score 6 points this weekend. Would you expect them to win or lose? To even further the point, if I told you that the opposing team was only going to score 7 points for any match up you want, would you think that team would win or lose? In the first example, the team isn't going to win, and the second is they would. I'm not saying the Redskins team only lets people score 7 points in every game, what I'm saying is the defense is doing a spectacular job in not allowing offenses to put multiple touchdowns on the board. They held an offense for 58 minutes that can be highly explosive. AND AFTER ALL THIS, IT'S JUST SEVEN POINTS.

I know the defense has let us down on a few times this year (thinking of Carolina and Jake here) but I can think when they practically won the Bucs game. It confuses the hell out of me to make that point at the defense. 7 points is NOTHING to every offense in the NFL except the bottom 3 teams, which the redskins are.

If you can blame the defense this year for being the cause of the problems when they make turnovers and only get field goals, when they sack and get good field position for a 3 and out, and when they have to always play more time than the offense, then so be it. But, I would like to say that is not possible.

Our offense can't score 2 touchdowns a game consistently, and with that kind of output, you just aren't going to win games. To say that the defense should expect never break down for even one touchdown a game in today's NFL is ridiculous.