‘Big D’ stands for ‘Dominated’

Okay, before we get started here, I need to complain a bit.  I tune into Fox on Sunday at about 4 p.m., expecting to have to watch a few minutes of the early game before they send us out to Joe and Troy in Texas.  Instead, I am forced to watch waaaay too much of a meaningless game between the Jets and Cardinals.  It’s 56-35 Jets with two minutes to play – the game is over, why not switch to the late game?  Just to add to my frustration, Boldin goes down (Warner’s fault, he led him right into the safety), and with all due respect to Boldin’s well-being, it just prolonged my frustration.  Fox should have switched to the Redskins-Cowboys at 4:15, given that the Jets-Cards game was completely out of hand, so I wouldn’t have to miss half of the first quarter.  End rant.

So I’m man enough to admit when I’m wrong.  And when I wrote last week that the Redskins would drop off the radar until later in the season, I could not have been more wrong.  The words ‘Redskins’, ‘Cowboys’, ‘T.O.’ and ‘hot pants’ have been spoken more over the past few days more than the word ‘bailout’ (or is that two words?).  So much for flying under the radar.  We’ll just have to get used to being media darlings.  *sigh*  Tough work, but I think the Redskins are up for it.

Finally, and update on the lucky underwear – wore them again, and another win.  That’s 2-0 for the lucky underwear.  I’ll probably wear them again this week for the Eagles game, but then I’ll save them for a worthy opponent.  I wouldn’t want to use up all our underwear-luck on the Rams or Bengals.

And now, for some oh-so-sweet, beaten-Cowboy drivel….

Duh.  I heard the question asked on post-game shows ‘Why didn’t the Cowboys run the ball more?’  Well, it’s a fairly simple answer – they couldn’t.  While the Redskins did a tremendous job stuffing the run, you have to give the Cowboys some credit for being completely predictable.  For the first three quarters, they ran on running downs, and passed on passing downs.  That made it easy for the ‘skins defense to have the right package in place.  Thanks, Cowboys.

Smoot Smarts.  Third and six, Witten is split out wide left, and at the last moment, Smoot pulls Rocky off the coverage, and goes out to cover Witten.  Result: batted pass by Smoot, fourth down, punt.  Blache had a great game plan with respect to Witten, and the defense carried it out well.

And now a word from our sponsor…  Okay, I get the point that Honda is trying to make – you don’t have to turn and look to back up – but has anyone given any real thought to how wrong it is to have six naked people stuffed into a balloon basket?  Gives me the willies, it does.

Hot & cold.  Rogers made some great plays filling in for Springs.  But he also had his fair share of goofs.  Not only was he called for holding on a third down that would have meant a field goal instead of a first and goal for the Cowboys, but on the touchdown, he gets beat by his man, forcing Landry to step his way to help up top, which means Landry can’t help Marcus Washington cover Witten.

This just in.  Chris Horton is the real deal.  Seriously.  Although just one measley pick is way below my unrealstic expectations.

More poise than you can shake a stick at.  Man, you want to talk about poise, this game was chock full of poise by the Redskins.  It was poise-a-riffic.  They give up a TD at the end of the first quarter, the crowd is rocking, the Cowboys get a big hit on the kickoff, JC has been sacked twice already, but do they shut it down and quit?  No way.  They respond with not only a TD of their own, but 17 unanswered points.

Infinity.  While it’s encouraging that JC has looked so good these past three games, it gets me all tingly when I realize that he’s also getting better each game.  If his current rate of improvement continues, by the end of the year he’ll be able to just sit on the sideline bench, run his offense from there and still score 90 points a game, all while eating a hot dog and flirting with the cheerleaders.

What?!?  Did the reverse-delay between Troy’s mouth moving and hearing the audio freak anyone else out?  Because you could hear the audio first, it was like the microphone knew what he was going to say before he even said it!

Dear Jay Novacek, the 80’s called, and they want their shirt back.  Really.  And the lines and triangles and zig-zags work really well with all those bright colors.  Nice.

You need a Tic Tac.  What was up with Evans and Marcus going face to face?  Was that a pep talk?  Argument?  Sharing recipes?  Telling secrets about London?  What?

They must have run out of cocaine in the locker room.  Cowboy DBs had a rough day.  They were faked, juked, spun, and just all around beaten.  I saw several occurrences where JC completed a pass to one receiver, and had one or two additional receivers who were open as well.

On the flipside…The Redskins DBs were outstanding.  They played a tough, physical game, and you could see how it threw the offense’s timing off.  Even when giving a large cushion, they closed the gap quickly, while at the same time protecting against the deep ball.

However… Doughty gave up another TD on a whiff.  I understand that he jumped the route to prevent the quick pass, but I’d rather take my chances with the guy getting the ball on the 10 and having to earn his way in, rather than catching it in the end zone.

I’m Batman!  My favorite moment from the game was when CP completely trucked Zach Thomas on a run.  I must have rewound that about a dozen times.

Whew, this is hard work!  My second favorite moment came during a timeout, when Zorn, JC, Collins and a few other guys are huddled on the sidelines discussing options for the next play.  The Gatorade guy comes over, and Collins grabs one and gulps it down.  Those clipboards must be heavy!

I see London, I see France…  Wow, talk about embarrassing.  Third and 3 after a timeout, and you have 12 men on the field?!?  That’s like naked-picture-of-you-when-you’re-six embarrassing.  Or farting-in-the-elevator-embarrassing.

Hello?  Anyone?  With the offense and defense playing so well, it seems to go unnoticed that Squeeze-um went 4 for 4, or that the kick coverage (on both punts and kickoffs) was stellar, or that Brooks had a great day.  We kept the Cowboys from having an advantage on offense by making them start back in their own territory (except for that one fluke kickoff), which went a long way towards preventing them from scoring points.

Poise-a-rama.  More poise from the Redskins.  The Cowboys start the third quarter by quickly driving for a TD to tie the game.  Do the Redskins pack it in?  No, instead they put together a good, long drive for the go-ahead field goal.

New Math.  So far, the Redskins have faced the second, third, fourth, and fifth ranked offenses (and will play the sixth ranked offense this weekend), and yet the defense is ranked 14th in yards per game, and 12th in points per game.  On the other side, we’ve faced defenses ranked fourth, ninth and eleventh, and the offense is ranked 9th.  Very encouraging.

That’s gonna leave a mark.  Watch Dan Snyder knocking people over with his thundering post-game high-fives, and try to tell me that this man does not love this team. 

I’m all out of ‘poise’ sayings.  The game is on the line, the offense gets the ball with 10:07 left in the game, up by six, and not only puts together a scoring drive, and takes almost 6 minutes off the clock, but beats the Dallas defense into submission with a punishing ground attack.  That must have been demoralizing to the Cowboys (tee hee!).

So what?  I wached T.O.’s comments after the game, and they didn’t seem as inflammatory as the media would have you believe.  I’m sure every guy on that team would like the ball more, that’s because they’re ball players.  Of course, I’m not going to write and complain to ESPN or anything, and miss all the drama.

I’m comin’ to join ya, Elizabeth!  I’m sorry, that final on-side kick was way too close.  The lucky underwear almost had a stain that I’d rather not admit to in public.  I’ll be sending Chris Cooley a bill for the year of my life I just lost.

You there!  Hired help!  Grimace for me!  I could see that Jerry Jones was trying to grimace after the on-side kick failed, but couldn’t because his face is too tight.  So he was left with only the fist-shaking and an involuntary fixed smile, but sad eyes.