Redskins enter NFL stretch run hoping to maintain a steady cadence
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Version 0 of 1. If there was a temptation to celebrate after the Washington Redskins won on the road for the first time this season, defensive end Jason Hatcher checked that impulse the moment the team reached the locker room Sunday at Soldier Field. “I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but we really can’t celebrate,” Hatcher stood up and announced, as linebacker Will Compton recounted this week. For one, Hatcher pointed out, the Redskins could have played better in their 24-21 victory over Chicago. After being on the cusp of a 21-0 lead, they let the Bears tie the score in the third quarter and averted overtime only because place kicker Robbie Gould missed a 50-yard attempt with less than two minutes remaining. Moreover, Hatcher noted, the Redskins still had another major hurdle to clear: winning back-to-back games for the first time. “The leader that he is, he kind of let the obvious be known,” Compton said of Hatcher, 33, a 10-year NFL veteran. Five questions facing the Redskins entering Bills game With the 6-7 Redskins locked in a three-way tie atop the NFC East, holding the tiebreaker over the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles, there are myriad scenarios for clinching the division title and the playoff berth that is its reward. But one thing is nearly certain: The Redskins won’t clinch without stringing two victories together, whether following the upset of Chicago with a victory Sunday at FedEx Field, where they will host the 6-7 Buffalo Bills, or winning their final two, at Philadelphia on Dec. 26 and at Dallas on Jan. 2. If the Redskins have been anything this season, it is inconsistent. The offense has flashed big-play potential one game, only to undermine itself with rash decisions and foolish mistakes the next. And the defense has made impressive fourth-quarter stands against some opponents, while wilting down the stretch against others. “I’ll be the first one to tell you that that’s got to change,” quarterback Kirk Cousins said Wednesday. “Much like winning on the road, we’ve got to be more consistent putting a string of games together. I think we can all look at ourselves and say, ‘What can each of us do better? As a group, how can we be a more mature football team to find ways to win consistently?’ ” Jay Gruden ‘tickled to death’ by Cousins’s progress To a man, a handful of locker room leaders couldn’t identify the reason behind the season’s one-step-forward, one-step-back pattern. Tight end Jordan Reed, who had his most complete and productive game of the season against Chicago, said he didn’t think it was a matter of arrogance — Redskins players lulled into thinking they were better than they are after victories. But that’s what it appeared when the Redskins followed their 24-10 thumping of the St. Louis Rams in Week 2 with a sloppy performance in a 32-21 loss the next week at the Giants, where they fell behind 12-0 in the first quarter. “I know we’re a humble team. It has been a rough couple years,” Reed said, alluding to the 3-13 and 4-12 campaigns that followed the Redskins’ 2012 playoff season. “Ain’t nobody getting big-headed or anything like that.” Said defensive lineman Kedric Golston, who, like Reed, was on the Redskins’ roster for the lows that followed 2012: “Obviously when you win a football game, you feel good about yourself. But you have to understand that what you did last week isn’t going to help you. This is next week. It’s a matter of not losing that attention to detail. We don’t have any margin for error.” This is the second consecutive week the Redskins have held the tiebreaker over the Giants and Eagles. The fact that all three teams won Sunday did nothing to loosen the logjam at the top. And all three have home games this Sunday, but the Redskins have what ought to be the easier challenge in hosting the 6-7 Bills. The Giants host the 13-0 Panthers, while Philadelphia hosts the 11-2 Arizona Cardinals. If the Redskins win Sunday and both the Giants and Eagles stumble, Washington could clinch the NFC East with a victory at Philadelphia on Dec. 26. If all three lose this weekend, the Redskins’ postseason hopes would end if they also lose Dec. 26 at Philadelphia. Still other permutations extend the division race to the final weekend of the regular season. Rather than game-plan each scenario, Redskins defensive end Ricky Jean Francois is urging teammates to narrow their focus and think only of the opponent at hand: Buffalo. “Don’t think about what’s at stake. Don’t think about winning first place or the division title,” said Jean Francois, who played his first six seasons for San Francisco and Indianapolis, franchises accustomed to winning back-to-back games and contending for the playoffs. “Each game has an importance,” Jean Francois said, explaining the advice he has given youngsters who have dreamed about making the playoffs but have never made the journey themselves. “We don’t want you to go to sleep thinking about, ‘Oh man, if we lose this, we’ve got to wait for the Giants to do this, and we got to wait for Dallas to do this!’ We don’t want to go through all that. Let’s just take care of what we can control.” |