A moment of silence for Sellers’ fertility…

Ouch. That hurt. It’s only one loss, but 6-3 is miles away from 5-4, especially with the Cowboys coming up, in Dallas, no less. The only bright side to the Eagles game is that my friend Moose Johnson was the color guy, so I get to make fun of him some more. Moose is an Idiot: The Sequel. Immediately after Moose states with authority that the Redskins offense is going to ‘pound it, pound it, pound it’, they go play action, and proceed to throw the ball more than I’ve seen them do in a long time. Impeccable. It has been talked about this week, but it’s not so much the volume of penalties the Redskins are committing, it’s the timing. I feel confident in saying that if just those critical penalties are eliminated, the score swings at least 14 point in the Redskins favor. I’m a genius. I’ve been calling for it all year, and finally they ran it: fake the WR screen and go deep. Of course, it fell incomplete, but hey, genius is a theoretical thing, you wouldn’t understand. Lo’ knows football. So now Lo’renzo Alexander has played on the defensive line, offensive line, tight end, and now fullback. The next step is to have him return punts, then, in the offseason, he’ll sign with the Royals, and be the next guy to go 40-40. Shut up, already. I said it last week: turnovers are important, but third downs are more important. The turnovers were equal, but the Eagles converted a better percentage of third downs than the ‘skins (plus a 4th down conversion), and more importantly, converted at critical points. That stat changes for the better, we start beating teams without me having to chew my fingernails off every week. ‘…and thanks to our producer Hugh Heffner…’ I noticed that there were more cheerleader shots this week than in the past. And the shots were better in quality as well. Not just a shot where the girl is shaking her pom poms (the ones in her hands), covering up her, um… ‘talent’. But shots of them moving and…well, moving. I’ll leave it at that. Not that I’m complaining. Although there were several ‘humph’s from my wife’s side of the couch. No Moss. Again, mentioned on the board already (I really need to get my act together and get this blog done on Monday), but I think they should sit Santana until he’s really ready. He’s proven that he’s ineffective when hurt, so let’s sit him and try to muscle through the next few games without him. With any luck (ha!), we’ll get him back when we’re fighting for a playoff spot in the last few games. The pregame pep talk no one heard… between Carlos Rogers and Randall Godfrey: CR: Hey Randy, I hear you’re filling in for Marcus again this week. RG: Yup. CR: Well, for good luck, I want to give you my lucky gloves I wore every game before I got hurt. Hopefully, they’ll be as lucky for you as they were for me. RG: Gee, thanks (author: okay, he probably doesn’t say ‘gee’) – *wipes away tear*. CR: Go get ’em, tiger. Moose is still an idiot. So that little card that tells you when you should go for 2, you should pull it out with about 6 minutes in the 4th quarter? Some teams go six minutes without touching the ball. So you’re supposed to go for one, and then let the other team run out the clock, according to Mr. Johnson. 3rd and freaking 21. There is no way a team should even come close to converting a 3rd and 21. Here’s a hint – they’re probably going to pass. Cover the guys with the 80’s on their chests running towards that tall orange thing. No way. On the subsequent 4th and inches, Moose states that there is no way that the Eagles run a quarterback sneak with the Redskins stacking the line. And what do the Eagles run? A QB sneak. The chair recognizes the annoying little man with the glasses. After 4th quarter collapses to the Giants, Packers and now Eagles, expect Dan Snyder to petition the league to eliminate the 4th quarter entirely at the next league meeting. Wow. I’m not hearing much talk this week about how much Jason Campbell stinks. The guy was sharp this week. The throw to McCardell for the touchdown was a major league throw, on the money. If he plays at that level every week, we’ll get better. Ch-ch-changes. So now we’ve confined Joe Gibbs’ play-calling stupidity to the offensive series in the 4th quarter where the Redskins failed to score a touchdown despite numerous attempts. But what about how conservative he was the rest of the game? Oh, wait, we used lots of play action, the no-huddle, and let Campbell air it out? Perhaps Joe really means it this time when he says he’s willing to change… Speaking of which… That offensive series (no pun intended) has been the talk this week. What Joe should have done, what he didn’t do, prayers he should have said. Let me throw this out there – say Joe does throw down there more, and the Redskins still fail to score. Then you’ve stopped the clock for the Eagles, and saved their timeouts for them. You still kick the field goal, and instead of getting the ball with 3 ½ minutes left and no timeouts and needing to go 70 yards, the Eagles get the ball with 6 or 7 minutes left, and two timeouts. Big difference. And lastly… The Eagles go-ahead touchdown was a disaster, start to finish. I mean, they have to go 65 yards in three minutes. What are the chances? With the ‘skins luck, pretty good. Here’s how improbable that screen pass was: Gregg Williams blitzed Godfrey, the backer on the side of the play, Fletcher read the play, but was blocked out of the way by two lead blockers, Rocky was late getting there, Pierson took a bad angle to wards the sideline, and was blocked out of the way by Landry, who was being held. The only thing that didn’t happen that I expected to was ACL tears to every Redskin player, including those on the sidelines. Best Use of an Expletive Award goes to… Mike Sellers. While I wasn’t there to hear it, I can only imagine the words coming out of his mouth after getting whacked in his…uh…special place by Samuels (who had a horrendous day, by the way). Ouch. Schadenfreude of the Week goes to… Earnest Byner, who made the effort to actually come on to the field to laugh at Sellers after his date with Samuel’s arm. Onward, upward. This loss hurts. And yet I can’t help but be slightly impressed that we’re still 5-4 after losing so many key players to injury. After the o-line was cut in half with the losses of Jansen and Thomas, plus Rabach and Kendall hurting, I figured the season was over. And here we are still in control of our own density, I mean destiny. Not bad – not great, but not bad considering. And there’s still a chance that we can get better between now and Week…