Something Wilkinson said really caught my attention

[RySkins]

Listening to the post game show on the way home from that humiliating game, Wilkinson said something to the effect of, "Dallas caught us totally off guard. They were running plays that we had never seen on tape and we had no idea what was going on out there."

I thought it, but never said it...we would have been a lot better off with that statue, Ryan Leaf, behind center. Of course my grandmother could probably QB Dallas to victory with the way Emmitt brings himself back from the dead against us.

[indyskinsfan]

Hasn't Wilkinson played against the Cowboys long enough to know to "expect the unexpected". Hate to be riding with him on the highway. We can't ALWAYS know what someone is going to do, we can control WHAT WE are going to do.

[ by indyskinsfan on December 02, 2001.]

[Guest The Angry Buddha]

They must have watched tape all week of Dallas passing plays then. "Caught us totally off guard???" Haven't they ever seen a running play before? I've seen that Emmitt Smith cutback play say, oh, for the PAST 10 EFFING YEARS!!!

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[TennesseeCarl]

Do they have no game film? That sure looked like the same set of plays that's been whipping us for the past 4 1/2 seasons.

At one point in the first half, they ran a pitch wide to the left on 1st down. On the next 1st down, they did it again. This wasn't about surprise. It was just one of those dominating performances where one team tells the other, 'This is what we're doing and we'll continue to do it till you stop us.'

[bulldog]

The most nauseating thing was listening to WTEM 980 this morning on the way to work and hearing all the excuse making by Darrell Green and even Joe Jacoby for the performance yesterday.

I love Champ Bailey, I wear his #24 to the game. But he made a cardinal mistake yesterday that helped the Cowboys build an insurmountable lead.

And no one on that show was willing to come out and say "yeah, the guy got beat. He is human and fell into the trap of looking back at the play rather than staying with his man."

The same thing goes for the defensive line. Everyone acknowledged the yardage Dallas got on the ground but the conversation never seemed to come around to the poor performance of the front four as individual players.

You can't start a defensive line in the NFL with 3 players 280 and under and expect to hold up against some the offensive lines we see out there.

People say that Miami and Tampa have smaller, quicker defenses so the weight and size issue isn't that important.

But Miami while light at end has two very big tackles in Bowens and Gardener that are over 300 pounds and adept at stopping the run. That allows Jason Taylor and Kenny Mixon to play in the 4-3 at 260 or 270 and not get killed.

In Tampa the line is anchored by a rare player in Sapp who gets extraordinary leverage to stop the inside rush and is capable of having 2-3 sack games from an interior slot.

The Redskins don't have those kinds of tackles. So, the ends have to hold the end of the line and be able to turn plays back inside.

And they have failed to do that.

Lang is at an understandable disadvantage playing out of position. But both Bruce and Marco can do more against the run than they did yesterday.

The Redskins still face a couple of teams in Chicago and New Orleans that have big backs and big offensive lines to face.

Once again the team could be in trouble if Marty plays to their strength by failing to seize early initiative with some risk-taking on offense and allowing these teams to get their running backs warmed up.