Disappointment

Ain’t in the mood for one of my full recaps, so here’s the short version:

What a bunch of crap.

Talk about a team coming out looking like it didn’t have any business being on the same field with the opponent.  And yeah…it’s mostly Jackson‘s fault.  Let’s face it.  If he completes a few passes early instead of throwing picks to people like Fred Smoot (why, God?), the Redskins maybe back off their 8-in-the-box approach and allow our running backs some room to operate.  Obviously that didn’t happen.  In the second half we finally started moving the ball, but of course this was after it was too late.

I said before the game that Jackson had to play the best he’d ever played if the Vikings wanted to win.  Instead he stunk up the joint.  Clearly, you can’t become a playoff team just on defense and running – your quarterback has to at least be proficient enough to keep the other team honest.  For three straight weeks now we’ve seen defenses sell out against the run; two of those we beat because they were bad teams that killed themselves in other ways, but Washington we didn’t beat because they played a calm, disciplined game (mostly) and were run by a veteran quarterback who may not be a Pro Bowler but can obviously make the throws, and is really good at looking off safeties (as Darren Sharper found out).

Of course a lot of crazy stuff happened in that game, and in the end we still could’ve won it – if we’d scored after the recovered on-side kick; if Joe Gibbs hadn’t been savvy enough to throw the challenge flag after the fumble after the Santana Moss catch Childress was planning on challenging but never did (guess Gibbs isn’t senile after all).  The whole game was filled with moments where it looked like the Vikings had held but something went against them:  like after we denied them the touchdown early then gave up the safety.  In the end there were too many turnovers, too many mistakes (can Aundrae Allison please just catch the ball in the endzone and kneel like a normal human being?).  The team simply didn’t play like a playoff club last night.  Now they need a miracle to get in.  I fear they’ve used up all their miracles for this year.