The Washington Football Team; New Name Same Mediocrity

The plague of bad football continues in DC. The Washtiongot Football team has donned a new – no mane and new uniforms but the mediocrity of play continue. The first half of football against the Baltimore Ravens looked pretty much like years past where teams run up and down the field with ease as the Washington offense struggles. And don’t start telling me how good that front seven is when they gave up Lamar Jackson’s longest running touchdown while Mark Andrews set a career-high in touchdowns in one game with 2.

Couple that with the worst third-down on efficiency in the league on both sides of the ball, overthrows, underthrows, sideway throws and no throws from your second-year quarterback and this is fastly becoming hard to stomach. Oh, did I mention falling for a fake punt and watching a running back being catapulted backward at the one-yard line? Then there was the end of half chaos we saw yet again. Although it doesn’t come close to Jim Zorn’s swinging gate fiasco in a 2009 Monday Night Football game – it’s not unprecedented over the years.

What probably epitomizes the frustration more than anything was the first series of the 4th quarter. The Football Team put together a 17 play fourth-quarter drive that got them to the Ravens 9 yard line. From there they went backward starting with a 5-yard false start penalty, an 18-yard sack where Haskins didn’t throw the ball away and the drive culminated in a check-down pass on 4th and goal well short of the end zone. So how was that 17 play drive responded to by the then well-rested defense? They proceeded to give up a time-consuming Ravens drive and 3 points.

It’s not like Washington fans had high expectations coming into the season. We typically spend the offseason creating false expectations which are usually dashed by week 5 anyway. The addition of first-round draft choice Chase Young was supposed to propel this defensive line to the elite level. That may still happen but until the defense can stop allowing turnovers to be cashed-in to touchdowns on a regular basis let’s hold off on overhyping this defense. Yes, it has great potential but until it results in on-field dominance it’s still just potential.

Then, as if to add insult to injury enter Robert Griffin III and all of the memories of the recent past come flooding back. The only saving grace is that he promptly threw an interception which led to a chance for some last-minute heroics. I guess there is karma after all. Despite that brief glimmer of hope – the end result was still the same – a loss and a team still trying to find a winning identity and maybe a quarterback presence. Let’s hope we start seeing more than a glimmer by the end of the season.