After a Week 3 performance in Houston that answered few questions, the Washington Redskins' offense earned vindication last night in a 36-30 nail biting overtime win. That Santana Moss guy? Yea he's pretty good. 138 yards and 3 touchdowns good. On four catches? Are you kidding me?
The offense looked downright impressive for the first time of the season (Houston Texans don't count) as the Jaguars are no slouches on defense. Even including last night's meltdown, the Jags are still a top 15 defense -- 8th against the run. And we torched them for 152 yards on the ground and 329 in the air.
Let's keep this in perspective. The fifth best offense in the nation could only muster 272 total yards against this same Jacksonville D. After repeat near 500 yard games against Houston and the Jags respectively, your Washington Redskins are now the third best offense in the NFL. That's exciting.
Despite the defense looking very soft on a few big plays (we forgot how to tackle) there were some positives. The Redskins allowed just 33 (2.2 yards per carry) yards rushing, including a dismal 16 yard game for Fred Taylor. They'd have had even fewer, if Leftwich hadn't been flushed from the pocket more often. Which brings us to another positive from the game -- our front four actually got some push, and Gregg Williams called an aggressive blitzing game that led to 4 sacks, three from lineman. Did Andre Carter really get a sack? He sure did.
I'm not in the mood to dwell on the negatives, though there were a few. All that matters now is the Redskins survived and won in overtime against one of the better teams in the AFC. We embarrassed an otherwise stalwart defense for 481 total yards. I'm irresolute towards anointing the Al Saunders 'era'... though we're getting damn close. The play calling didn't seem drastically different than it had in previous weeks: we were committed to the run throughout the game, and the passes were mostly short (although it seemed like we were throwing to the middle of the field more, or was that just me?). The difference was execution, though so much of the panegyry should go towards He-Who-Can-Do-No-Wrong otherwise known as Santana Moss. The Endzone whimpers whenever he gets the ball as he is a persistant threat to its vestal innocence. Am I taking a good preformance on a football field too seriously? You're damn right I am. Santana Moss, Hail To You.
For now luxuriate in the glory that is .500 football with no place else to go but up. I'm looking eagerly towards next week's division matchup in the Meadowlands against the pantywaist NYG defense. If we play as we did last night it should turn into an entertaining bloodbath at the Football Giants' expense.
Hail to the Redskins.