As a season ticket holder and attendee of this football game, I can say I was not pleased with my outing at FedEx Field this past Sunday. I was not able to stay for the entirety of the outing due to personal reasons. Those personal reasons being my mental wellness and the opportunity cost of time. That football game was not worth wasting my time sitting and watching in the rain.
We all knew going into this game that it was going to be a benchmark game to see how good we really are. We had beaten the Broncos who got 70 bombed and the Cardinals who took down the so-called “Super Bowl contender” Cowboys. That was by far the best game of the week. It was my favorite game of the week because it allowed me to make this statement. By the transitive property, we are a better football team than Dallas. I love saying that and having factual evidence to back it up. Anytime a team can beat Dallas, I am a fan of that organization for the day. I love how everybody was talking about Dallas being a contender and then it took only 3 weeks for them to come out as frauds. The fact that the agreed upon worst but not really the worst team in the league beat them makes it so much better. I give my personal thanks to the Cardinals organization for giving myself and everyone the opportunity to laugh and point at Dallas fans because they are literally the worst team in the entire NFL.
The field goal was a respectable one. It didn’t really change any of my emotions about the game. It makes sense to kick a useless field goal to not get shut out. If anyone out there was live betting and took Skins +34.5 then that was a very smart bet. The interceptions were really bad. There were a lot of them. At a certain point you have to wonder why we were still throwing the ball. I don’t understand why we don’t just resort to throwing quick passes and handing the ball to BRob. I could go on a very long rant about the Brian Robinson situation from this game. I actually will probably end up doing it. 20 snaps is a joke. We need to get that figured out right now. As for Antonio Gibson, he is on the hot seat. Everyone always talks about him fumbling the ball and literally every time he touches it I do worry about him fumbling and this week he fumbled the ball. I’m getting really tired of having to worry and having to watch him fumble the ball. Eric, please figure this out.
Our defensive line was nowhere to be seen. We let Josh Allen run around on us like it was fourth grade recess football. The first drive at least gave me some hope. They had two big gains off of broken plays and got 3. After that drive, I was at least somewhat confident that they weren’t going to end up putting 37 points on us. Clearly, I was wrong. To cut them some slack, they were put in a lot of bad situations and the number at the end of the game doesn’t truly reflect their play. This isn’t at all saying that they played a good game whatsoever. Just reducing the dissonance by stating that our offense did not give our defense any help.
A lot of things need to be fixed, but that is not my job. My job is to criticize, praise, and gamble on this team. I have done the criticizing and gambling so now let’s give them some praise. We need to lift up the spirits around here. The first of my positive takeaways is the fact that our terrible game, which was bound to happen, came against a team who we had absolutely no business beating. If it wasn’t for us winning those first two games, then I would have had absolutely zero confidence walking into FedEx Field on Sunday. They needed to get their shitstorm of a performance out of the way. It happened against the Bills. It’s all good. We can write it off and move on.
FedEx Field was sold out and the tailgate lots filled up this Sunday. Shoutout Josh Harris. I was surprised that the rain didn’t dampen as many people’s Sunday moods as I thought. As expected, I would put the number around 50/50 for Redskins and Bills fans that were in the building. The pregame vibes from both sides were very high. Skins fans and myself entered the stadium filled with hope and thinking we might have a chance to take down a juggernaut. Bill’s fans would not stop singing Twist and Shout. It got really annoying after I heard it for maybe the 50th time before even entering the stadium. I think it was pretty safe to say they all knew they were going to roll us the entire time.
It would have really sucked if tropical Cyclone 16 had hit FedEx on Sunday as hard as the news was saying earlier in the week. The idea of that game getting delayed and sheltering in FedEx from monsoon rains and hurricane like winds was not exactly something I was looking forward to. Knowing now how the game went, I can say that all Redskins fans who attended are very lucky that we all did not have to waste extra time waiting around to see that. Following that loss, if I had made that same drive home three or maybe even 4 hours later, then my Sunday night and Monday would have been a whole lot worse. Mother Nature holding out enough to allow that football game to happen on time was a blessing.
Other than the annoying song, the Bills fans were a bunch of great people. I don’t have a bad word to say about them. I did not experience any fans being assholes about their team absolutely destroying us. The man sitting in front of me was a Bills fan and very into the game. We engaged a bunch and had friendly conversations about the teams. It was really upsetting when it turned into the yeah we all know the Skins suck but let’s at least have some fun together. He even clapped for us after Fuller had the pick and expressed his concerns for him and our team during the injury. The game was already over at that point, but I appreciated his gesture. All around, stand up dude.
Sam Howell. I still love him and I am not going to stop loving him. Of course, I’m going to talk about Sam in a positive manner. We all cannot sell out on him just yet. It was only the fourth game of his NFL career. So far, he’s at least shown enough to prove that he belongs in the NFL. I really don’t think anybody should be saying to bring in Jacoby just yet. Relative to the young quarterbacks we have had in the past, he is way above all of the ones we’ve had since RG3 and Kirk. Also, we can’t forget we are working with a fifth-round draft pick. It is going to take some time for him and Eric to be able to run a competent offense week in and week out. It is not surprising to see the flashes of good and bad that Sam has produced through 3 weeks so far. Honestly, I can say he has produced more positive than negative. I’m still all in on Sam. It is not time to push the big red button. Give him more time and let Bieniemy do his thing.
From the times Terry was targeted, he looked really good. He had 6 targets for 6 receptions. We should have gone to him a hundred times and he would have had a hundred catches. That is how math works right? At least in the midst of the worst loss I have seen in a long time, our best player didn’t look like shit. I loved how we were targeting him a lot during the first drive. It really seemed to be working for us and it makes me wonder why we didn’t continue to target him throughout the entirety of the game. Yes, I know the answer is because Sam couldn’t throw the ball to anyone but the other team. Either way for a WR1 and player of his talent, Terry needs to be seeing double digit targets every game. He’s our best player, Eric. Give him the damn ball.
Here it comes. Now to talk about Brian Robinson, the undisputed goat and best running back in the entire history of the NFL. Might I remind everybody that he is so good at football. I cannot believe he only played 20 snaps. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Other than Terry, he is easily our best offensive player. After what he did last week running and catching the ball, you would think they would want to give him the ball even more. He was averaging 7 yards per carry against Buffalo and we didn’t think to keep feeding him. I absolutely love Eric but I really don’t understand this part of the game plan. I would like for someone to make this make sense because it just doesn’t. The set of downs where we weren’t able to get in on our own one yard line had me livid. In those situations, I don’t understand why we don’t just give the ball to BRob four times. We need to start giving him a whole lot more touches and especially in the short yardage situations.
No matter how bad that was, our record still says 2-1. Next week, the world expects us to be in for another ass whooping. However, if I remember from just one year ago, Taylor Heinicke and company marched into Philly and absolutely shocked the world. If we can take down Philly then we are so back. I will entirely forget about that football game and this entire week of sadness ever because I will be so up in the clouds. One thing that gives me confidence is that they don’t have a quarterback. They snap the ball to a running back every play and sometimes he does his best Matt Hassleback impression. It’s pretty safe to say that gambling on him to do anything other than run is a terrible idea. He is literally incapable of throwing a football. But hey, we should watch out, his phone’s background screen is when he lost in the Super Bowl. He’s got a chip on his shoulder and wants everyone to know about it. I heard Sam Howell lowkey keeps a list of names of all the quarterbacks drafted before him under his pillow and literally sleeps on it every night. Jalen plays for clicks. Sam Howell plays for wins. If it wasn’t for the tush push and the amount of talent on the roster, he would be such a shitty quarterback.
Sam is going to come back from what will be remembered as the worst game of his entire 5+ year NFL career. Sam will be in the league for many years. And yes, you heard that right, his last game will be the worst game he ever plays in the NFL. It’s always an interesting game when we play Philly. You never really know what kind of Skin’s team is going to come out of the tunnel. My keys are to run the ball down their damn throats and cause turnovers. If the offensive line has let up 19 sacks in the first three games, then maybe just don’t pass the ball. And if we do, just hit some slants and screens. Please don’t let Sam get killed. Don’t turn the ball over in places that give away points. Honestly, I could go on forever about the keys. Everything that you did last Sunday, just don’t do again. Yeah, it’s another team that is contending for the Super Bowl, but it’s the Eagles and I think we’ve got their number this year. You can never count the Skins out.
We’ve got a great sports weekend ahead of us. The Ryder Cup is going to be sick and we get to watch the Skins kick the shit out of the Eagles on Sunday. Sounds pretty awesome to me.
Photo Credit: Andrew Harnik | Credit: AP | Copyright: Copyright 2023 The Associated Press