A question about the 1994 Regular Season

[Taylor 36]

OK, I was hoping someone could help me out here. My brother called me from a bar (Redskins Sports Bar), where a guy there was betting people that the Redskins played Tampa Bay twice during the same regular season during the '90s. My brother asked me to check if this was correct, because everyone at the bar (at least those involved with this conversation) cannot believe that that would be possible since Tampa was/is not a division rival. I checked and found this:

1994 Regular Season

1 1994 9/4 Seattle Seahawks 28-7 L RFK Stadium

2 1994 9/11 @ New Orleans Saints 38-24 W Louisiana Superdome

3 1994 9/18 @ New York Giants 23-31 L Giants Stadium

4 1994 9/25 Atlanta Falcons 27-20 L RFK Stadium

5 1994 10/2 Dallas Cowboys 34-7 L RFK Stadium

6 1994 10/9 @ Philadelphia Eagles 17-21 L Veterans Stadium

7 1994 10/16 Phoenix Cardinals 19-16 OT L RFK Stadium

8 1994 10/23 @ Indianapolis Colts 41-27 W RCA Dome

9 1994 10/30 Philadelphia Eagles 31-29 L RFK Stadium

10 1994 11/6 San Francisco 49ers 37-22 L RFK Stadium

1 1994 11/13 BYE WEEK

1 1994 11/20 @ Dallas Cowboys 7-31 L Texas Stadium

2 1994 11/27 New York Giants 21-19 L RFK Stadium

3 1994 12/4 @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers 21-26 L Tampa Stadium

4 1994 12/11 @ Phoenix Cardinals 15-17 L Sun Devil Stadium

5 1994 12/18 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 17-14 L RFK Stadium

6 1994 12/24 @ Los Angeles Rams 24-21 W Anaheim Stadium

Can someone explain to me how and why this would have happpened????

[Whiskeypeet]

Its funny you brought that up. That has been stuck in the back of my mind for some time.

However, I always dimissed it as getting years/games confused. I was sure that happened though.

[Taylor 36]

Yeah, I guess after all that has happened this past decade with the team, this completely left my memory. I just can't understand the reasoning behind the scheduling. I'm hoping someone here will have an idea as to why the league did that with the schedule that year.

[FedEx_Skinz]

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/was1994.htm

It happened but that is very strange...

:dallasuck

[scruffylookin]

I think it had to do with the Redskins finishing in last place in 1993.

I don't exactly remember the formula but prior to 1995 the NFC West and AFC Central both had only 4 teams.

That season (1994) the NFC East was playing the AFC Central. The last place team (us) instead of playing the 4 teams from the AFC Central, we would play fellow last place teams from the other divisions in the AFC (Seattle and Indianapolis).

Then I think there was some formula to determine which last place team from your conference (in this case the NFC) you would have a home and away meetings with and in 1994 we face the NFC Central last place team from 1993 (the Bucs) twice.

My memory is really shaky when it comes to the exact reasons for this. If it was simply because we were playing a 4 team AFC division that year and they had to do this, or if this was done for last place teams all the time.

The Skins finished last place again in 1994 but by 1995 when that schedule came out, we had two new teams (Carolina and Jacksonville) and all the divisions had 5 teams and the Redskins played 4 games against the AFC West in 1995 just like the rest of the division.

Whatever the reason, losing twice to the sorry Buccaneers in a 3 week span has to rank up there with one of the more embarrassing moments of the last 13 years.