The more, the merrier! 
Just one stat: in five games, Carolina has scored 86 points. The Redskins have scored 32.
We’ve got a major differential in levels of futility, here. 
I spent the entire first quarter last night hoping for a 0-0 tie.
Then, up until the last moment, was hoping for a 3-0 loss; after all, that’s an amusingly embarassing score to lose by.
Then I thought we might win. I had mixed feelings about winning, after so many losses. It seemed…alien.
Then we lost. I think I cheered.
0-16 all the way!
This Wash Post Michael Wilbon article makes you guys look kind.
A Monday night game to forget
Cowboys-Redskins contest one of the worst ever
“IRVING, Texas, Oct. 16 — Was that pitiful or what? We, and by that I mean anybody who watched that absurdly pathetic game between the Redskins and Cowboys, should be fined, or made to perform 100 hours of community service for wasting time…”
" Let me tell you about one of the dumbest decisions you’ll ever see made by a man receiving a paycheck to coach football."
etc etc
I think the Suckwagon™ might be onto something. In fact, I think that Washington has a tradition of sucking. The problem is that the sterling career of Joe Gibbs statistically takes away from the otherwise breathtakingly shitty reputation of Washington.
Here are some stats from this page. All stats are through the year 2000.
Games played: 919
Wins: 469
Losses: 423
Ties: 27
%: .525
Not great, but not terrible, either. Note also that the winning percentage does not account for ties.
But what happens when we remove the anomaly of Joe Gibbs (140-65-0), whose 12-year career comprises over a quarter of all of Washington’s wins in its 68-year existence?
Games played without Joe: 714
Wins: 329
Losses: 358
Ties: 27
%: .478
Yep. Sliding over to the “suck” side. Note also that Joe never tied.
And how about championships? Washington sports five, total. But three of those were under Joe, leaving just two championships in fifty-six non-Joe years. Furthermore, two of the total number of championships (5) occurred in years disrupted by strikes, and a third happened in 1942, during World War II when rosters were disrupted by war service.
Championship appearances, total? Washington has gone for the gold eleven times, and lost six, which averages out to about once every six years or so–not bad. However, of those championship appearances, two were strike years, three were during World War II, and one was as the Boston Redskins, not Washington.
In fact, in the 36 years between World War II and Joe’s first Super Bowl, Washington appeared once in a championship–and lost in 1972. If you disinclude Joe’s championship appearances and look at the 43 seasons between World War II and now, we again have one championship appearance.
To sum up, I submit that Washington has simply reverted back to its tradition of shittiness–a tradition interrupted by a truly great coach and disrupted seasons.
------------------------------------------------------------So, uh,
Does this mean we’re not gonna win the Super Bowl?
The Redskins went from being a bad football team to a good one at a very clear point in time: when Edward Bennett Williams persuaded Vince Lombardi to come out of retirement to coach the Washington Redskins in 1969.
The Redskins were 7-5-2 that season (their first over-.500 season in 14 years), and more important, Vince laid the foundation that George Allen was able to build on later.
Lombardi died just before the 1970 season began, and they kinda sleepwalked their way to 6-8 that year. But when EBW convinced George Allen to take over in 1971 (bringing with him a bunch of aging but talented Rams, most notably Jack Pardee and Diron Talbert, known as the Over-the-Hill-Gang), things got better in a hurry. The Redskins were 9-4-1 in 1971 and made the playoffs; in 1972, they won the NFC Championship with an 11-3 regular-season record and a 26-3 win over Dallas in the NFC Championship game - followed by their loss to the 17-0-0 Dolphins in the Super Bowl. (No need to apologize for losing to the only perfect team in NFL history.)
Altogether, the Redskins were 67-30-1 under Allen, and went to the playoffs five times in seven years.
Then they were 24-24 under Jack Pardee from 1978-80, which wasn’t bad, considering that (a) when Pardee took over in 1978, Allen had bequeathed him an aging team denuded of draft picks (Pardee still managed 8-8 and 10-6 in '78 and '79, respectively), and (b) his workhorse RB, John Riggins, decided to take the year off in 1980 when he felt he wasn’t getting paid enough. (This was before free agency hit football, kids.) They were a playoff-caliber team in 1979, but were eliminated by the combination of a screwy tiebreak system, Roger Staubach, and the Dallas refs who wouldn’t let Theismann call timeout with 2 seconds left in the season. (Of all the amazing games in the Redskins-Cowboys rivalry over the years, that one was possibly the most remarkable.)
And then you get to the Joe Gibbs era. But the Redskins had already known a decade of success before Gibbs got here.
Okay, I’ll give you George Allen, too, but I think we may be defining “suckiness” in different ways. I’ve seen Washington almost be good my entire life. Somewhere along the way I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter that Theismann was unconscious on the field, or that Mosely missed four field goals, or that a half dozen games in a single season were lost by a total of ten points, or whatever. They either win or they don’t, and if they don’t, they suck in my book.
But you are right, RT. If they were at least contenders, I’d be interested in watching them play. And they have definitely had their chances. Right now, I don’t even want to watch the evening news segments about 'em.
As a Cowboys fan, I was able until Monday to empathasize with all you Redskins fans. It’s been a great rivalry these teams have shared over the years and we too know what it’s like to have some asswipe purchase and embarrass your team. There’s a special place in NFL hell for Jones and Snyder.
But gosh ddddamn.
Gosh ddddammmmitt LaVar.
Gosh ddddammit LaVar you stupid fricking moron!
We’re all for playing your heart out and intimidating the opponent with hard hits but you, you SOB, are TRYING to seriously injure the other players to get them out of the game.
I saw your bullshit hit last year as Troy was coasting out of bounds that permanently ended his career.
I saw you try and rip Emmitt’s head off Monday and royally piss a pretty level-headed guy off.
I saw you bend Thomas back at an unnatural angle, causing him too to have to leave the game injured.
Nice f*cking half gainer onto the pile for your 1st personal foul of the game. What’s this, following it up with another 15 yarder?
That’s a rule change I’d like to see… 2 personal fouls and your ass gets glued to the bench. It’s a great, violent, skillful game but trying to intentionally injure people ruins the sport for everybody.
If the Cowboys had a linebacker that had ended the career of Brad Johnson last year and knocked a couple of backs out with bullshit hits, wouldn’t you feel the same way?
We’ve seen this mentality before - when McMahon got bodyslammed by the Green Bay player. He was never the same after that. It sucked then and it sucks now. If we can get Arrington back in the human race maybe I’ll start cheering for the Skins again, but certainly not before then.
I can bring a new note of panic to the ‘suckiness’ argument.
On WTEM (the local all sports radio station) last night I heard a caller make an impassioned plea for the return of Casserly and Turner.
How far down do you have to sink to be wishing for Norv Turner to come back as your coach?
How long are we gonna sing this song, folks?
How long?
We’ve got Casserly here in Houston now.
Would you attribute some of Washington’s suckiness to his arrival or departure?
Both, actually.
Casserly was a real step down from Bobby Beathard.
But since Casserly got canned, we really haven’t had a true GM, and that’s a very big step down from Casserly.
Once this season’s over, I’m assuming Marty will be out the door right away. But the second thing The Danny needs to do is get us a friggin’ GM.
JC - I’m not wanting Norv back. Not in a million years. There’s people out there who are far more deserving of a chance to run a team. Art Shell. Marvin Lewis. And I’m sure someone who’s more familiar with the ranks of assistant coaches than I am could put together a list of another half-dozen viable candidates pretty quick.
But Norv’s had his chance. And he’s fully proven that, as a head coach, he licks donkey ass. 7 years, 49-59-1.
SK - I don’t think our standards are all that different. I’m just saying that, from Lombardi to Gibbs, you have a continuous stretch of time when they were almost always really good, and their moments of being merely mortal were brief. If you go back to the single Vince Lombardi season, and the 6-8 season after he died, then forget about almosts and might’ve beens; that’s 26 seasons, from Lombardi through Gibbs, during which they finished under .500 3 times, at .500 twice, and had winning records the other 21 years. They were 228-127-3 over the period, if I’ve added things up right, for a .641 winning %. Went to the postseason 13 times, including 5 Super Bowls, winning 3.
During this time, they had a continuous winning tradition, which kinda took me by surprise in the early going, because I’m old enough to remember the Otto Graham years (1966-68, fwiw). They sucked before Lombardi, and they’ve sucked since Gibbs left. But for an entire generation in between, they were a great team.
Oh yeah - how they were, outside of those 26 years: 241-296-24, .451.
I’m betting that Charlie Casserly’s team outperforms the Redskins over the next 5 years.
At least the Danny admitted that he made a mistake firing Casserly instead of Turner.
Lieu, you’re right, LaVar Arrington needs to learn some self-control.
Bring on the Panthers!!
Any final score predictions?
Time to rev up the SuckWagon for another crucial matchup! After all, the Panthers are bad enough that you never know - they could find a way to be worse than the 'Skins.
So it’ll be a tough one - but I have faith in my team to maintain its perfect record. 
17-14 in OT!
I think I’m happy, even if it does ruin 0-16.
What the hell happened? Three quarters, I was cruising along in the Suckmobile, and then all of a sudden they got good in the 4th. Man! I’m not gonna get my hopes up, though. They’ve broken my heart too many times for me to be too optimistic. We’ve seen this before: they play brilliantly in one game and then come back the next week and stink up the joint.
It was nice to see Darrell Green playing, though.
I got miffed at the 'Boys last week when they beat the Redskins. It ruined their perfect :rolleyes: record.
Robin
It would have been nice to have lost to a “brilliant” team, or even a marginally competent one, but this was like losing to the Sisters of Charity team. Even with the Panthers giving up four (4) interceptions, it took the Redskins overtime and two shots at a chip-shot field goal for them to win. Panthers fans may have to start wearing paper bags after this.
And naturally, it happened when I was out of town and couldn’t see the game. (Down here in the Tampa area, the local 1pm game was, of course, the Bucs.)
Who’d’ve thunk the Redskins would actually score 2 TDs in the last 11 minutes of a game?! That matched their total for the previous 23 quarters!
One thing’s worth pointing out, though: the Redskins’ defense has actually been pretty good, three games running - even if two of those games were against bad teams. Giving up 16 points to the Giants (the offense gave up the other 7 on an interception for a TD by Sehorn), 9 to the Cowboys, and 14 to the Panthers - this suggests that the 'Skins have actually gained some traction defensively.
This will be tested when they play another good team - which will be next weekend when they host the Giants.
Their offense is still remarkably bad, though, despite their role in today’s comeback: the fact remains that the offense was shut out for three and a half quarters.
But hey, they won. Kind of amazing, that.
Perhaps I should clarify: I didn’t mean that I thought the 'Skins were brilliant today, although they were actually pretty good in the fourth quarter. What I mean is their performance in the post-Gibbs years. They will be great one week and horrible the next. That’s why being a Redskins fan is such sweet torture.
Being deprived of a television as I am, I had to check out the play by play on ESPN.com to see what was going on around the league.
Waited until the game was almost over before I even bothered to check in on the 'Skins. Boy was I surprised.
Seems someone finally took their head out of their ass and started running SD.
Was funny looking at the play by play though. Always went something like:
SD runs up the middle for 3 yards.
SD runs to the right for 4 yards.
Banks throw is incomplete.
Punt return of …
They’re calling plays like the Giants of the 80’s used to have my hardcore Giants fan father fuming about, namely: Run, Run, Pass, Punt; repeat.
Ah well. There goes the perfect season. At this rate they might actually win another game this season. All it takes is a few interceptions, a few lucky 87 yard passes, and Conway having every chance in the world, plus one, to make a chip shot.
Well, back to Madden 2001 where in my fictitious world, the 'Skins are the 2nd ever team to go undefeated. And the 3rd…