You scare me:
FEAR ME
And for my next trick I predict that the United States military will continue to kill folks in Afghanistan, largely to no purpose.
Which is pushing things just a wee bit.
Let’s look at the ‘Skins’ remaining games.
They’re 2-5 now, and their nine games left divide 3-3-3 into should-wins, might-wins, and won’t-wins, IMO.
The should-wins:
Cowboys, at Cards, and Cards.
The might-wins:
Seahawks, Eagles, Bears.
The won’t-wins:
at Broncos, at Eagles, and at Saints.
They may have looked respectable yesterday, but I still don’t see the Redskins beating quality teams on the road yet. So they’ve got to take everything else to get to 8-8, including beating good teams like the Eagles and Bears at home. Those are games that the 'Skins have to be considered underdogs for, right now.
The Redskins could go 8-8, but it isn’t the way to bet. If they beat the Seahawks, I’ll be confident of 6-10, and have good hopes for splitting the remaining two might-wins for 7-9. If they lose to the Seahawks, then 5-11 is a more reasonable expectation.
Well, that Seahawks game is looking pretty winnable at the half.
But I still have faith! If things go well the Redskins could well be in 2nd in the division at the end of today.
So do they still suck?
What’s the word, bird?
It’s suddenly a completely different team. I don’t know what happened, but something is clicking now. I really hope they can keep it up. Though as I’ve said before, they’ve broken my heart so many times in the past I’m afraid to hope too much.
Dear Washington Redskins,
I say this as a loyal fan of many years: I am confused. Is this really a comeback?
and is Sofa King watching?
Is this a comeback . . . well, submitted for evidence:
The 'Skins, some years ago (mid 90s), were 7-1 after 8 games. Many critics pointed out that they hadn’t played anyone of note.
They proceeded to lose 7 of 8 to close the season, marked by a loss to Arizona that basically happened because of a stupid play by a defensive taclke or something that gave Arizona a first down late in the game and enabled them to score (FG? TD? I don’t recall), which basically ended the ‘Skins’ chances of a playoff berth. You’ll notice that my memory of this game is rather shaky.
The 'Skins are 3-5 now. They beat the Giants, they beat Carolina, they beat the Seahawks. CAN they win more than they lose from here on out? It’s possible, I think, if they keep improving. They’ve won one of RT’s “might win” games (Seahawks).
In two weeks’ time they play in Denver. They have a shot at winning that game if they get a few breaks and Denver doesn’t. Then they play at Philly. If they’ve beaten Denver they should be able to beat Philly with a similar effort. They won’t beat Dallas because God likes Dallas. They can beat Arizona. They probably won’t beat Philly again and they sure won’t beat Chicago, who only need two minutes to score twice. N’Awlinz will be tough. Arizona shouldn’t be.
Prediction: 7-9.
Where there’s a will (or Marty, or Norv, or Dan), there’s a way. To suck. But mayve this year they won’t suck as badly as they have in the past.
Indeed, I watched, and I was not disappointed.
In fact, had I not been watching, I would have missed that miraculous Chicago hat-trick which immediately followed the Washington game.
You can consider this fair-weather fan to be back into the fold.
Well, I conceded last week that the SuckWagon was dead, and in Gazoo’s weekly NFL predictions thread, I picked the Redskins to beat the Seahawks. So that pretty much tells you where I am, as far as whether this is a fluke.
It’s not. The Redskins seem to have found themselves, a piece at a time. First the defense (which has actually been pretty good beginning with Game 4 against the Giants), then the special teams a week ago, and now the offense.
There was nothing fluky about last week’s win, or this week’s. The Giants are a pretty good football team. The Redskins beat them convincingly. The Seahawks are a pretty good football team. Ditto. The Seahawks’ defense, especially their run defense, had gotten respect around the league. Davis and Ki-Jana ran right through them. So it’s not like the Redskins have beaten nobodies in this turnaround.
And Tony Banks is starting to look more like an NFL QB all the time. (Who’d’a thunk it?!) But there, iampunha’s word of caution applies: when we see how Banks does against the Eagles’ pass defense, which has only been allowing 166 yards a game (including yesterday), we’ll see how far he’s really come. But even if the Iggles wind up giving him fits, I still like the way he’s coming along.
BTW, I’ll second punha’s 7-9 prediction. When you start 0-5, it takes one hell of a turnaround to get to 8-8. Only my card says they’ll beat Dallas, Arizona twice, and one of the other five games, probably the Eagles at home.
The collapse iampunha refers to, btw, was 1996; they went from 7-1 to 9-7. But that was Norv, and I still haven’t seen any evidence that Norv ever knew what he was doing.
The Redskins are now +4 in turnovers. You gotta like that - positive numbers in giveaways/takeaways tend to go together with teams that are sound on the fundamentals. And teams with talented players, that are sound on the fundamentals, tend to win.
Ugh. Thanks for reminding me of that season. Blech.
I am mostly doubtful that the Skins will make it past Arizona and Dallas; even in their best years, they seem remarkably talented at dropping easy games to those two teams.
Still, a man can dream…
It depends on what you mean by the Redskins’ ‘best years’; other than 1999, the 'Skins haven’t had any such years, IMO, since Gibbs left.
Under Gibbs, the Redskins were 12-12 against the Cowboys, if you include postseason as well as regular season. But Gibbs’ Redskins owned the Cardinals, going 20-4 against them.
The same trend holds, going further back: under Jack Pardee, the Redskins were 5-1 against the Cards, 2-4 against the 'Boys; and under George Allen, 10-4 against the Cardinals, and 7-8 against Dallas (again, including postseason).
Anyhow, aside from the question of how talented the Redskins are, or aren’t, I see Schottenheimer restoring a fundamental soundness to the Redskins’ play that was absent during the Norv years. Fundamentally sound teams of even average quality will beat bad teams. I think that, from here on out, the Redskins will beat all the teams that they don’t have to play over their heads to beat, which certainly includes both the Cards and Cowboys. The real question is, do they have the talent to take on the Eagles, Saints, Bears, and Broncos.
To call a group of games at once is a bit risky, but what the hey, you heard it here first. The Redskins will beat Arizona twice, and beat Dallas at home.
I called a tow truck. They say they can have this vehicle up and running in Detroit by Tuesday.
Works for me, Sterling; the Lions fans can put it to good use!
The scary part is, it isn’t just that the Redskins don’t suck anymore; as of today, there’s no getting around the fact that they’re actually a quality team now.
That was elemental, brutal football out there today. Both the Eagles and the Redskins have absolutely punishing defenses. I loved the way the Redskins usually seemed to be tackling the ballcarrier with three or four defenders at once. And stopping them twice on fourth-and-short at the edge of FG range - hard to say enough about that.
Gotta say, this turnaround is one of the most surprising things I’ve ever seen in sports. And I’m loving every minute of it.
I think you’re right, RT. I haven’t seen a turnaround this dramatic since… jeez, I don’t know when.
I’m very, very happy to see it. Whatever happens from this point forward, Washington has earned my respect this year–and I had absolutely none for them at the outset of the season. Well done, lads.
Ha! Well I’ll be damned… 
I hope Stephen Davis is O.K.
I think I’m going to ask the mods to close this thread, since its original purpose has clearly lapsed. We can always start a new thread to discuss the Redskins’ ups and downs.
Thread closed at request of OP.