Per Redskins Insider:

Per The Official Site: We were due, I guess. Randy Thomas started just three games this season which played out as though it were designed to test the Redskins. We lost Derrick Dockery to free agency. Jon Jansen was placed on IR earlier in the season. We had to bring in newcomer Pete Kendall to shore up a line that wasn't getting fixed by Todd Wade or whomever else we put around him, be that Jason Fabini or Stephon Heyer or whoever. Mike Pucillo? Even he has seen time (11 games) with a start due to an injury to Casey Rabach, which could have been predicted. This comes after a miraculously healthy 2006 when we went, I believe, 14 of 16 weeks with the same 5 guys starting and finishing games.

I believe all the cliches about the importance of the offensive line and lament the way our season has gone as a result. It is worth noting that we've lost (and won, though) some close games due to costly turnovers, a few crucial ones by Jason Campbell losing the football caused in part by an absence of reliable blockers against monstrous blitzers. No consistently meaningful run game has managed to bail us out or, more importantly, aided us in closing out 2nd halves with clock-killing 1st downs accomplished exclusively on the ground.

Now I'm not exculpating Coach Gibbs of his apparent developed inability to adjust at the half and carry leads to victory in his second stint in the league, but here's something to consider. Maybe the reason this decade's team has looked so different from the one of yesteryear In Re: 2nd Half Leads has less to do with what Coach Gibbs forgot about football teams and more to do with what he lost from his three-time Super Bowl winning football team from wayback. It would be a lot easier to carry a lead if your running backs were charging to victory behind the most famous and perhaps greatest offensive line in the history of the sport than if they're attempting the same behind a beaten and battered, Frankenstein patchwork line that is the 2007 unit. Our modern day hogs appear less like their famous predecessors and more like the victims in an Upton Sinclair novel, maybe something like: "There was a line of hogs with squeals and lifeblood ebbing away..." Sounds about right.

Regardless, he still really screwed up on that double time out against Buffalo. Very frustrating.

Tough break to Randy Thomas and well wishes to him on recovery for the 2008 season. Todd Collins is encouraged to evolve an extra set of eyes out of the back of his helmet immediately because only God knows where that pass rush will be coming from, and the Todd ain't fast enough to introduce himself as late as it arrives. Nothing has gone right this year and, yet, we're still clinging to the possibility of a postseason. I'm thankful for that much.