After watching for more of last night's game than actually warranted watching, I was curious to see if the Redskins defense is not just horrible, but actually historically bad, as it has seemed to be.  Maybe it isn't fair to pile this on after such a particularly catastrophic loss- but I'm not feeling particularly fair today.  Everyone gets caught with their pants down from time to time, but not everyone keeps their starters on the field only to punt three times when they are losing by five scores.  Nobody's going to make excuses for you when you do that.

Piling on

In Jim Haslett's misguided attempt to modernize our defense, which was above average last year with nearly the exact same personnel, he has actually created a defense that allows more yards per play than any modern Redskins team (see the plot).  One of the biggest problems with statistics in football is that there are generally too many variables to control for to make a solid quantitative argument.  In light of that, I'm happy to note that in this case we are in a unique position to unequivocally condemn Jim Haslett.  This defense went from being stingy, albeit boring, to being the most porous in the capital's history, and Mr. Haslett is the only major difference.  Is there any coach who deserves to be fired more?

It gets worse.  

The record for yards allowed in a season is 6,793, set by the 1981 Colts, who also allowed the most points, 1st downs, and several other marks for a season.  The 2010 Redskins are on pace to allow 6,645 yards this season (with most of their easier match-ups already behind them), within striking distance of the biggest pushovers of all time.