Wake Me Up Before You Go Go

Wham

Takeaway drill: Redskins give up 33 points, botch playcalling, waste timeouts and lose another second half lead; Jason Campbell and Clinton Portis look good; two receivers catch TD passes; Brian Westbrook is the Eagles.

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Monday walkthrough: The Redskins lose another second half lead and the game to the Eagles 33-25, dropping the team to 5-4 and hurting postseason prospects. This despite solid performances from Jason Campbell, Clinton Portis and the receivers.

The first quarter started poorly with the Washington spotting Philadelphia seven as the Eagles marched 82 yards downfield and scored. Consecutive penalties by Fred Smoot and London Fletcher kept the drive alive with fresh downs. The Redskins then punt and on the next Eagles drive Demetric Evans separates LJ Smith from the ball and Rocky McIntosh scoops it up. The quarter ended 7-0 Eagles.

The Redskins started the second quarter by finishing off the turnover by scoring a TD to James Thrash but Shaun Suisham missed the extra point(?). That miss would come back to haunt the team. The defense then forced the Eagles to punt and Jason Campbell led the team down the field on a no huddle calling his own plays drive that ended with another James Thrash TD catch. Foolishly chasing points too early in the game a la Bill Parcells the Redskins went for the two point conversion and missed it. The defense held to end the quarter and David Akers missed a 53 yard field goal. The half ended 12-7 Redskins.

Rock Cartwright kicked off the third quarter with a great return and the Redskins marched down the red zone but could not score a TD. Shaun Suisham kicked a field goal. The Eagles responded with a long drive and LJ Smith TD catch but it was the Eagles' turn to chase points and the team missed a two point try. The Redskins got the ball back and once again Jason Campbell led the team down the field in a no huddle. Sean Taylor left the game and would not come back. The quarter ended 15-13 Washington.

The dread fourth quarter started well enough with the Redskins finishing that drive on a Keenan McCardell TD catch, 22-13 and it was all downhill from there. After Randall Godfrey dropped a sure interception and Shawn Springs' illegal contact changed the Eagles down and distance from 2nd and 20 to 1st and 10 Reggie Brown burned Pierson Prioleau who was in for Sean Taylor and took it 45 yards for a touchdown, 22-20. On the next Redskins drive Ladell Betts did what he did too much of last season and fumbled the ball away, and on his first touch to boot. The Redskins challenged the play but it was upheld and the Redskins lost a timeout.

But the football gods disapproved and as they are wont to do gave the ball back to the Redskins on the next play when Andre Carter hammered Donovan McNabb, he fumbled and Anthony Montgomery recovered giving the Redskins the ball on the Eagles 25. Three and a half minutes later the Redskins could not get a TD and were forced to kick a field goal, 25-20.

The Eagles only needed three plays to score again when Dono dumped it over the middle to Brian Westbrook and he took it 57 yards down the middle for a TD but the two poiint try failed and it was 26-25 Eagles. On the ensuing Eagles kickoff James Thrash sprained his ankle and three plays later Mike Patterson sacked Jason Campbell, he fumbled and Trent Cole fell on it. The fans started heading for the doors. On the next play Brian Westbrook took it in for the backbreaker TD, Eagles up 33-25.

Down eight with 2:18 to play and no timeouts left the Redskins ran six plays before Jason's six yard route to Brandon Lloyd on 4th and 15 was off the mark, two kneeldowns and the game was over, Eagles win 33-25.

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Soapbox: silly penalties, poor execution, clock mismanagement, wasted timeouts, futile challenges. An emerging quarterback calling his own plays, leading the offense his way, spreading out the catches, a tailback continuing a comeback and a defense playing aggressively, this game had it all.

You know these games are going to be close but giving up 20 points in the fourth quarter, what the hell! Lots of flashes of the incompetent 2006 defense. If Sean Taylor has that much influence on the play of the defense then his injury better not be bad.

Chasing the points too early was not the only flashback to that Cowboys game last season (op. cit.). In that game the Redskins had seven consecutive plays from inside the Cowboys five yard line and could not score. In yesterday's game the Redskins needing a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up two scores the Redskins had eight plays inside the Eagles 10 yard line and could only come up with a field goal. The playcalling here was terrible and stalled twice in the red zone.

This bit about letting the Eagles score at the end of the fourth quarter, I don't know about that. It seems anecdotally to me that letting the other team score is a gamble that usually doesn't work out but looking at the game again the Redskins would have had no more than 30 seconds to go down the field if they had held while the Eagles just ran the ball.

The staff of The Curly R gives its condolences to the family of William Torney, the uncle of local product DeMatha graduate Brian Westbrook, on Mr. Torney's passing. Brian did him proud.

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Chattering class: Tom Boswell at the Washington Post flirts with the inevitable, first comes the joking and then the shrugging and then reality sets in: the Joe Gibbs II era is already over we just have not admitted it yet.

Mike Wise at the same paper pairs up the great things in this game and the awful things in this game.

The now-obligatory front page A1 WaPo piece is again penned by Les Carpenter and gets the far left column and less real estate than usual, crammed between stories on Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan lockdown and corrupt Alaska Republican politicians. Les also touches on the emerging old and befuddled Joe Gibbs meme.

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Omnibus: the last time these two teams split a season series was in 2001. The intervening five seasons were Eagles sweep, Eagles sweep, Eagles sweep, Redskins sweep, Eagles sweep.

The drought, the oft talked about lack of a TD catch by a receiver, the last team to get one, the drought is over (op. cit.). James Thrash caught two TDs and 100 year old Keenan McCardell caught a TD pass for his fifth team (op. cit.).

Marcus Washington and Santana Moss were late inactives. Cornelius Griffin was back. Sean Taylor left the third quarter with a knee twist and James Thrash left the fourth with a high ankle sprain (all op. cit.).

The Redskins lost their first game this season when rushing for 100 or more yards. Clinton finished the day with 137 yards on 30 carries, a 4.5 yard average.

After the game Chris Samuels praised Joe Gibbs' Christian leadership (op. cit.).

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Area 51: Sean Taylor's alien technology was grounded in the third quarter when he twisted his knee. He did not return and will have an MRI today (op. cit.). Without him in the game the Eagles scored 20 points in the fourth quarter. LaRon Landry was not influential at the line of scrimmage and sadly the image of this game is Brian Westbrook finishing his 57 yard run with LaRon trailing him (see image above), he got free in the secondary and no one could catch him.

Freddie Your Cruise Director: Loveboat Freddie committed an illegal contact in the first quarter that kept the Eagles drive alive leading to a score. Dono consistenly completed short passes on Loveboat Freddie in the first half. He went out of the second half limping on that hamstring but came back and was not really a factor in the second half.


Washington Post recap, box score, play by play. NFL recap, box score, full play by play, Gamebook (PDF), photos.


Other recaps: Derek at Iggles Blog, Hogs Haven, more to come.


Up next (op. cit.), a road game at the 8-1 Dallas Cowboys, they just pasted the Giants and Eli Manning (lol), a game I had mixed feelings about because I don't want Tony Romo's dream season to continue but I love to watch the Giants take a beating.



Brian Westbrook eluding LaRon Landry on the 57 yard catch and run: Greg Fiume / Getty Images from here. Tony Romo: Getty Images from here.