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Why Arizona means something but the Giants just felt good. Welcome 4-0 into the bye.


Art

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Beating the Giants was getting a monkey off our back. It was a good win by a fired up team at home. It was the Redskins at their typical best over the years. Meaning, when people thought the least of them, they played loose, confident and capable. They have for years. Against the Giants it was no different really.

Now, while we're seeking to discover whether this team is any different than any other team we've had, we get a home game against a team we're easily capable of defeating. In the past, such games, those which serve to announce we're coming or to confirm we're not, play out EXACTLY as we saw.

We push the other team around for a good portion of the game. We self destruct in multiple phases. We leave points on the board. The other team stabilizes, adjusts, takes over and wins a game we know we COULD have won, had we just not been so mistake prone. Losing that game is EXACTLY what we do.

While Redskins teams have the ability to play well when people think they are at their worst, NO Redskins team has had the quality of good teams. Resilience.

That's not us.

We don't make mistakes and find a way to win. We don't hurt ourselves and overcome. Not the Redskins. Either we have never been good enough to do that OR we've always had the attitude that we were better than we were. We were our mistakes and unmerited overconfidence.

Winning Arizona IS a sea change.

Period.

Flatly.

That doesn't mean we are a Super Bowl team. It doesn't mean we are even a GREAT team. It merely means we are no longer a team assured to be at least as responsible for its own failure as the opponent. It means we have the team talent and weapons on all three units to overcome mistakes.

It means we are not doomed to lose every close game.

Now, we face Dallas. That's a sure loss for an ok team just emerging to build toward being a little bit better than ok. It's even ok to lose. But, we won't.

We won't for a reason that has nothing to do with Dallas. They are not a bad team. They are at home. They are a tough matchup for us. We'll win because this team now thinks it can. It now thinks the offense can't really be stopped.

Sure, we can stop ourselves. But, even today, when we were FAR from efficient, we still are capable of 480 yards. The team knows you can't cover EVERYTHING we have. You can't consistently push our defense around. It IS NOT yet a great team, but it wants to think the belief in itself and confidence in itself is merited.

Arizona gave it the SLIGHTEST bit of merit.

4-0 into the bye gives it a throaty arrival, a little ahead of where it should be, but, fixed in the knowledge this is no longer the Redskins team of a generation.

It's not so much a statement as an inexorable march for a team that actually seems to like itself AND those leading it.

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Nice post, Art.

I believed this team could win in a game like this that they would normally lose, but I must admit my confidence got a little shaken in the second half when the 'D' was letting Wells run all over them (he averaged, I think, almost 9 yards a carry in the second half).

Fortunately, they tightened up and played better and won the game. HTTR!!!! :)

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I don't think there's any doubt that this was exactly the kind of game we would have lost in the past but there seems to be a difference this year. The players say they can feel it and the results on the field so far are positive. This looks and feels like a different team!

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Good post Art. I would love to come out of a game with no injuries, win or lose. I would hate to have any after the bye week. Hopefully next week we won't be "sneaking by" to get the win, and hopefully we can really finally put a team away, which is the one thing I haven't seen us do in a long time.

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All time jinx.

You aren't kidding. Can a mod delete this thread?

---------- Post added September-18th-2011 at 09:08 PM ----------

i have to agree. WTF is this 4-0 talk???

we still have to play the cowboys and the rams

Exactly. Its Dallas in Dallas and we usually lose there. We always seem to play like crap against STL no matter their record.

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I don't think there's any doubt that this was exactly the kind of game we would have lost in the past but there seems to be a difference this year. The players say they can feel it and the results on the field so far are positive. This looks and feels like a different team!

Agreed. But I tell you what. If our Skins had lost this and then lose next week to the turds then all the good tidings established after the huge Giants win would be gone. And yeah last seasons and past this would have been a loss.

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You aren't kidding. Can a mod delete this thread?

---------- Post added September-18th-2011 at 09:08 PM ----------

Exactly. Its Dallas in Dallas and we usually lose there. We always seem to play like crap against STL no matter their record.

Why would a mod delete this thread?

It is impossible, you understand, for a fan to jinx the football team. The team itself will perform as it's going to perform, whether individual fans believe in it, or, tear it down.

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Why would a mod delete this thread?

It is impossible, you understand, for a fan to jinx the football team. The team itself will perform as it's going to perform, whether individual fans believe in it, or, tear it down.

it's bad karma, mojo, whatever. you don't talk about a no-hitter during a no-hitter

sports fans by nature are superstitous, and there is NOTHING wrong with that

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it's bad karma, mojo, whatever. you don't talk about a no-hitter during a no-hitter

We are a team with the history of Kornheiser's Bandwagon going for us. We're fine talking about hitting a roll when we hit one, which has been rare and is not yet even assured to be happening now. And it still has no answer as to why anyone would delete a thread.

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Dear Art,

A good and thoughtful post. And a bold starting point for discussion.

But I have to say I disagree ultimately with your conclusion that a sea change in the identity of the team has occurred ... at least not yet.

Exhibit A: the first botched field goal.

Exhibit B: the second missed FG.

If you want to say this is a team that's exorcised the demons of its past, then consider Exhibits A and B: I don't think a team that really has turned a corner lets those two mistakes happen. It just doesn't. I can almost forgive the INTs by Sexy Rexy (one of which wasn't really his fault). But to be in such a critical situation (and after having not scored TDs which we arguably should have if we truly were the confident team that you hypothesize we are) and to choke like that is a little troubling to say the least.

Thank God we didn't on the third, and most important, one. But who here was confident that Gano makes that game winning FG?.... I had an uneasy feeling on that one, and I think that stems from the fact that, as of yet, the team still hasn't quite turned the corner yet. Too much of a residual vestige of seasons past reared its ugly head in this game.

Just my 2cents.

HTTR!

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