Never A Stress Free Sunday

Are the Redskins trying to kill me of a heart attack from watching them?  Sure seems like it.   In McNabb’s return Philly, the Skins jumped out to a 17-7 lead, looked dominate in the first half and all signs were pointing toward a blowout of the Eagles, but nope this is the Redskins they always have to win the hard way.  The Skins scored 0 points in the 2^nd half and almost lost the game.  But regardless the Skins held of the Eagles final drive and got the win 17-12 and have a share of first place in the division.  Here’s the grades.

Offense C+:  The offense finally looked like a Mike Shanahan offense as the Skins rushed for 169 yards and Ryan Torain lead all Skins rushers with 18 carries for 70 yards and a touchdown.  Torain split time with Clinton Portis until Portis pulled his groin in the 2^nd half.  Now granted the Eagles are ranked 23^rd in rushing defense, but this should build the running games confidence.  In the first half the offense looked great and almost unstoppable.  But then the same problem that lost us the Houston game, where the hell was the offense in the 2^nd half?  0 points after easily scoring 17 points in the 1^st half? You have got be kidding me if the offense does that in the next 2 weeks, vs GB and Indy, we are going to get run out of the building.  This team needs to be able to play 60 minutes if they are going to be a contender for the playoffs.

Defense B: Defense came out hard hitting and only gave up 12 points, great improvements were made from last week’s shit show.  Michael Vick coming early might had something to do with that and it’s going to be interesting, if Vick is starting, to see how this game will go at Fed Ex in November.  But the D basically played the bend but don’t break style of defense today and that’s just fine, yes they did give 352 yards of total offense, but only 12 points.  The only problem, same thing that happened during the Cowgirls and Texans game, the 2 min defense is still awful and I today this fell on Jim Haslett.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the point of a 34 defense is to BLITZ!!! Sure didn’t happened Kolb lead the Eagles on their scoring drive in the 4^th qtr.  Haslett was basically just calling cover 3 and cover 4 that whole drive.  Vick left the game in the 1^st qtr why the hell are you afraid to blitz Kevin Kolb.  Out secondary is our weakest part of the D, why would put the game on the secondary’s shoulders makes no sense at all.  Hopefully we blitz more next week cause that should be the reason they made the switch to the 34.

Game ball, Philly fans for not booing McNabb:  So Philly fans do have some class, they actually cheered the man they booed for 11 years and rightfully so.  I’m pretty sure that if McNabb was not the QB of the Eagles the Eagles would’ve not gone to 5 NFC championship games and 1 Super Bowl appearance. 

Serious Game ball, Donovan McNabb:  Now McNabb didn’t have the best stat line of his career, 8 of 19 125 yards 1 TD 1 INT, but he won coming back to Philly and made a key scramble on 3^rd and 4 with 3 minutes left to keep the ball and run more time off the clock. It’s things like that that make McNabb a great QB.