Dude, Think About It

Campbell has, in his own words, his best game of the season, while Cooley has, in NFL statistical words, his best game of his career. The defense swarmed all day, allowing only 10 points on what amounted to a Rogers whiff and a few Favre-fellating penalties, and Sean Taylor came close to having 7 interceptions (instead having just two). The offensive line, already redefining the term patchwork continued to face decimation all day yet the 'skins still only gave up three sacks. There is plenty of good to draw from this game, really. In fact, the tiny factor of win/loss in this case is completely minor when you look at what this team continues to accomplish. The Pack had the #1 ranked passing offense, yet could muster nary a pass that wasn't deflected or dropped by the skins stellar defensive backs. And when the constantly-mentioned Brett Favre finally got to gunslinging, on third down with four minutes remaining in the game, he delivered a precision pass directly to Sean Taylor for another record interception. With the cadavers standing in front of Campbell it was no wonder that no decent plays were mounted after that brilliant defensive stand, but the fact that the defense again delivered a potential game winner ought to be noted. The pieces are there ladies and gentlemen, they just haven't quite interlocked and fastened completely. Why?

My only guess is that the Redskins are a bit caught off guard by their imminent success and as a result have made a few tiny, crucial mistakes, a few blinks in the face of glaring prominence, leading to two losses. Santana Moss, bless his heart, had a Michael Ruffin "not possible"-like Sunday; it may have been the worst individual performance in the history of the National Football League that wasn't by Rex Grossman, and for it he humbly hangs his head, sheds a few inspirational tears, and focuses on what's next, the shredding of the 'zona Cards, once a yearly tradition in these parts. Motivated Moss, plus fantastic quarterbacking, and equally fantastic defense, will amount to awesomes for the rest of the season. Trust us.

Why not let history be our guide. In 2005, the skins start hot, 3-0 before two crushing road losses to Denver and Kansas City, both owning to turnovers. These tough, blame-themselves losses amounted to an obliteration of the '9ers the next week. If you recall, that season ended pretty awesomely, with the Sean Taylor diving into the endzone in Philly, John Gruden tossing failing playoff challenge flags, and Mark Brunell still having it. A key component in that dream season was Moss, who caught both Marys in Dallas, caught the OT-Field-Goal-setting-up pass two weeks later, and took to catching bounce passes off of D-backs in the Seattle rain come the playoffs. Instead of thinking about how on Sunday, every ball headed Moss's way just refused to be proactive, we will reminice about early '06 when during one of his two blistering touchdown catches against the Jags, he looked like a Madden sprite whose controller pressed the "b" button to cause a spin move that shook a d-back before scurrying to the end zone. We like those Moss memories, and we know he will have more games that will make us asterisk-ize this one. We only hope that, like the t-word's Washington Post debut being spoiled by latent editing, we can simply cut out this game from the Moss canon of glory.

If I had to give any reconciling thoughts to our loyal 'tism terrorists, I would simply paraphrase these inspiring words from Gilbert Arenas to recent heart surgery participant, Etan Thomas. “You don’t need to think negative thoughts.” Amen.