And for a moment he succeeds. I am a huge fan of Wilbon and have no problem admitting it. He gets his point across without the usual sports-writing hyperbole or hysteria. While many were wondering about how a pre season 0-4 Redskins team would ever win a game, Wilbon was pointing out the obvious: the preseason doesn't matter. And he was largely correct. The 2-3 team, even the one that was decimated by the Giants yesterday, is infinitely better than the 0-4 one that never showed up this August.
While many in Redskins nation, perhaps myself included, resort to hysterical defeatism, Wilbon is around to keep things in perspective.
From his latest column at the Post:
To echo that point, we just lost a road game against the last team to take the NFC East. Last year, a 4-2 Washington Redskins team cruised into Giants Stadium with high hopes; and expeditiously had their asses handed to them in a 36-0 slap down. We had 87 yards passing and a criminally bad 2.2 yards per attempt. But life went on and those Redskins would eventually finish 10-6 and enter the post season, with an eventual win over the Giants at home.
Is this team destined for 10-6? Doesn't necessarily look that way. But at 2-3 the season is hardly over and, though we've looked awful against our division rivals (on the road) we've looked pretty damn sharp against the AFC.
The point is, if you play in the NFC East, you cannot afford to drop a division game at home. "This is the toughest division in football," Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. "It's a very scary division; God knows who's going to win it."
Admittedly what concerns me is not that we lost to the Giants, but rather the manner in which we did so, I'm still confident that this is a winning football team. Our offense has been inconsistent but proven itself capable, especially against a tough Jacksonville defense.
Remember also, this is a football team that has yet to play a game with Shawn Springs whose impact should not be understated. This is a team who has been forced, by injury, to adapt its game plan to the talent on the field with disastrous results. But it doesn't stop with the absence of Springs -- we also lost Pierson Prioleau in the first play of the regular season. I wonder if Eli Manning would have been as effective on 3rd and long if Prioleau and Springs were in the secondary (as opposed to Curry Burns, Mike Rumph, and Kenny Wright). Carlos Rogers proved himself a capable last year, but has underperformed to date. Surely his play will improve, especially once he lines up against 2nd WRs.
So I'll take the homer-route and put on my burgundy colored glasses for now, because that's all I know how to do. We played horribly against the Giants, but when all is said and done we lost a tough one to a good team on the road. We've suffered worse and endured. We can do it again.
Now we look forward to returning home against the Titans and recovering that now expired "Vaunted Redskins Offense" and perhaps breathing some life into a defense that has yet to show up.
But if the worst thing that happens to the Redskins this season is losing to the Giants on the road, then we should be just fine.