Greasy, Grimey, Glorious…. Win

The first half of Redskins-Giants on Thanksgiving night was the kind of game you would delete on your DVR, then do a complete disk reformat just to make sure none of it survived. The second half wasn’t much better.

But an NFL season isn’t an art gallery, where you hang the prettiest “W’s” on the wall and just gaze at them. All the wins and all the losses count the same. It’s binary. So don’t fight it. We’ve now got 5 wins, 6 losses. 10-6 might get you to January. So … the show goes on!

We recently saw the 30 for 30 of the 1987 replacement Redskins (aka “Scabskins”) from the strike year. This team won’t get any such documentary, but as chicken-wire and duct-tape jobs go, this season is getting closer and closer to that all the time. Tony Bergstrom played all 71 snaps at CENTER – not even his natural position of guard – on 2 days of prep. He’s been cut from 3 different teams in 2017 alone. He’ll be cut by us when the season’s over too.

Zach Vigil started at inside linebacker and played 39 snaps after getting here 8 days ago. Former Terp AJ Francis spends more time on our radio station guest hosting shows between practice squad stints than he does in shoulder pads. He played 14 snaps. Byron Marshall was stolen from the Eagles practice squad 2 weeks ago. 21 snaps. Arie Kuoandjio got dumped by us in August. The Ravens picked him up. We stole him back from their practice squad 3 weeks ago. All 71 snaps at guard.

And to be honest, the Giants aren’t much better when it comes to mass injuries, and key injuries. And from what I saw of Eli Manning, early retirement might not be such a terrible idea. Roger Lewis and Tavarres King at wide receiver are a scrub’s breakfast of targets, but Eli looked truly awful en route to a 13-of-27 for 113 and a pick night.

So here come the Cowboys next Thursday, with a chance to climb back to 6-6, and put a virtual season dagger in our hated rival’s back. Am I excited? Hell yes. (Feel these nipples!) We are still alive and in the mix of an NFL season heading into December. Football itself lasts way too short to begin with. And many teams end up dead by the holidays anyway. Like the team, I’m still grinding as a fan.

It’s tempting to ask the question: “Why do you still care about the playoffs, Czabe? You know this team was never good enough to do anything, and that’s even more true now with all of the injuries.” Fair point, and it’s probably correct. But as I pointed out to begin today’s post: all you have in this league is winning and losing. The more you do of one, begets more of the same, I believe.

I like having a team that grinds. A team that carries on. A team that doesn’t look for excuses on the way to tapping out. That is, after all, the very essence of football, no?

About this time last year the Redskins seemingly put the 2016 Packers to bed with a rollicking win at home, punctuated by a Kirk Cousins “how you like me now!” hair-tussle of Scot McCloughan. Next thing you know, the Packers run the table, and end up in the NFC Championship game. Sure, they have a nijna at QB. But the point is, anything can happen.

The Redskins haven’t had a “walk in” playoff season since 1999. The ’05, ’07, ’12, and ’15 seasons all saw year-end streaks of 5, 4, 7, and 4 games to make it. This is what we do.

As the spine-tingling opening montage of the NFL Films production “Football America” says…. “Theirs is a game that glories in it’s toughness… it’s willingness to endure.. and play on… when other games… would not.”

We’ll see everyone in Dallas next Thursday, and just keeping figuring it out from there.