VICTORY!!

Redskins 29 - Giants 27

 

 

 Well ladies and gents, here we are.  Coming into New York (except not, because it's New Jersey, but who wants to admit they're in New Jersey on purpose?), we sitting here 0-2, last in the division, while the Giants are sitting pretty (pretty ugly) at 2-0 with a division win.  My my how things turn so quickly, and that's the goal today.

With a win today, we're right back in this.  That'll put us at .500 in the division and put some wind at our backs when we come home to face the Browns.

So far, it's been a hell of a time up here.  Going to the Redskins Rally with @TK, we walked past Trent Williams in the lobby.  Keep in mind, I'm not one to get opportunities to see players, so I pretty much was "NBD" on the outside but "OMG!!!!!" on the inside.  Rinse and repeat as I met Cooley, Doc, Bruce, and Larry Michaels.  Yeah, it was a good time.

Just finished up breakfast and I got to rinse and repeat walking by Sonny and meeting Doug Williams.  I'm 32 years old and feel like I'm a quarter of that age (probably still the same height).  The Rally was a really good time, but now I'm sitting here in the press box waiting for the game to start.

Warm ups look like warm ups, but for all of our Fashion Police, we're in white tops and burgundy bottoms.  I usually don't care too much about that stuff, but it helped our run in 2005, so why the hell not?  Not much interesting going on right now, but we're 80 minutes from turning this season around.

I'll update throughout the game, probably at the quarters.

 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF INACTIVES

 

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Washington Redskins have announced the following inactives and lineup changes for today’s game against the New York Giants:

 

The Redskins declared the following players as inactive: 

o   No. 2 QB Nate Sudfeld

o   No. 18 WR Josh Doctson

o   No. 38 CB Kendall Fuller

o   No. 50 LB Martrell Spaight

o   No. 72 DE Anthony Lanier II

o   No. 74 G Arie Kouandjio

o   No. 97 DE Kendall Reyes

The Giants declared the following players as inactive: 

o   No. 8  QB Josh Johnson

o   No. 23 RB Rashad Jennings

o   No. 27 S Darian Thompson

o   No. 73 T Marshall Newhouse

o   No. 82 WR Roger Lewis, Jr.

o   No. 97 DT Montori Hughes

o   No. 99 DT Robert Thomas

 

Well seven minutes before kickoff the stands are not that full, maybe 2/3, especially on the 50.

 

With 6:00 left in the first, down 14-3.

Breeland is out for the game with an ankle injury.  Did not look good from up here. 

With 25 seconds left in the first, it's 14-6.  Cousins looking better but still not good enough.  Can't trade touchdowns for field goals.

 END OF FIRST QUARTER - Not looking happy.  Bashaud out, and that muffed punt seems like it popped the balloon before it even inflated.  Really need to turn this around on this third and 8 to begin the second quarter.

Not sure how many more happy moments we'll have, but that :32 drive was beautiful by Cousins.  Need to see more of that if we want to win, today or ever.

 END OF FIRST HALF - Story of the day is still the same.  Cousins looking like a shell of 2015 except for three great throws.  Unfortunately, those great throws for him are expected for QB's getting $19.95M.  He's not getting it done, but somehow it's still a one-score game.

Tendencies so far are frustration on defense and frustration with number 8.  We're also doing our usual when it comes to the penalties.  Not really sure why it's going this way this year, but we're being consistent.  Injuries haven't been our friend with some of the guys in the box calling this another bodybag game.  Breeland, Hall, Jackson, who's next?

And then by my count are 35 drive-killing penalty yards.  Not sure how this keeps happening either, but at least we're beating the Giants in that department.

Despite how this game may be feeling, we're still in this and we get the ball at the half.  Hail.

Note: Last Redskin to get reception and interception in same game, Christmas Eve, 2000 was Champ Bailey

Halfway through the fourth and we've got ourselves a ball game.  Really need to start taking advantage of the opportunities that we're getting.  Seven for us on this drive would make a lot of people feel a lot better.

 FINAL UPDATE: Well I went a little silent after basically eight thousand things happened in a row, and then the game ended.  This team has a scrap to them, ladies and gentlemen, and boy did it come out when it mattered.  We finished with 29 points off of seven scoring drives, and that's nothing to sneeze at.  Going forward, we sure want to see those 29 become 49, but it seems that maybe we're wrong about this team. 

Having a more public platform to state this from, I'll take advantage.  Too often here do we have members cheer against the team in order to say "I told you so."  Man, being wrong is absolutely fantastic.  After we traded two touchdowns for a field goal in the first quarter, I thought that we were going to lose. I didn't say it in the Game Day Thread or in this blog, but I thought we were done.  We were 0-2 at the Meadowlands where we never win with an offense that was oozing incompetence and players were dropping like flies.  And you know what?  I was wrong.  Our backups came in, the team got some motivation and some insane plays from Reed, Way, Crowder, and Dunbar, and now I sit here listening to Giants fans being unhappy because we beat them in their house for the first time since 2011.  It sounds like Heaven.

We overcame adversity and instead of floundering in our losses, we went out there and done won the damned thing!  Our defense was porous and allowed six scoring drives for the Giants, but they also came up with huge turnovers to give our offense a shot.  Speaking with Josh Norman after the game, he told me that watching new unheralded guys was just amazing, like he's been there.  Specifically Dunbar and Cravens, Josh was beaming like a new father.

Not sure if it picked up on the audio, but Trent Williams said he was "stunned" when he got the call to shift over to left guard.  Maybe it was because he was standing next to him, but he was very happy with how Ty did taking over.  I missed the beginning of Gruden's conference because in the press box getting down to the players/coaches is like trying to get a new XBOX on Christmas Eve.  Both Gruden and Cousins were very happy with the team's resilience, but something I did like with Gruden is that when he was asked about what the hell happened before the half, his smile instantly disappeared.  He was very unhappy with how that was handled, and you couldn't even tell that he had just won the game.  It's good to see that the team takes the same approach to fixing mistakes win or lose.

A couple of random facts that I may be the only one finds interesting:

1)  The Giants had a player ejected after breaking a rule put in place due to Beckham's behavior against Norman last year.

2)  Quinton Dunbar now has two interceptions in the Giants' endzone.

3)  Quinton Dunbar's interception was an Odell Beckham-like one-handed grab.

4)  Giants fans.  I mean, just look at 'em.

 Got some audio up in the downloads section and trying to get some more up later.  In case you watch Norman's press conference, I'm the guy awkwardly asking the second-to-last question because why not?

Hopefully today is the start of something fantastic and we can keep it going next week at home versus Cleveland.

Hell of a first win, guys.  Now let's just get 16 more.

HAIL!