True grit. The Skins hung tough and pulled out the win against a rising Cards team. Two wins against some decent teams. Can they continue the momentum?
Aside from Campbell's development, what I've been most impressed with the last couple weeks are Zorn's gutsy play-calls to close out the game. Against the Saints, he went for it on fourth-and-two and the slant to Moss gave the Skins the necessary first down to run out the clock. Similarly, against the Cardinals, Campbell rolled out on a naked bootleg after a play-fake to Portis and dumped a nice pass under pressure to Cooley. Cooley easily got the first down and more.
In comparison, Joe Gibbs would have gone for the safe calls - running the ball and milking the clock. The great thing about Jim Zorn's calls is that they are tremendous boosts of confidence for the players - it lets the Skins O control the end of the game, instead of hoping that the opposing offense runs out of time. On the Cooley pass, it was very well executed, as play-by-play man Larry Michael was fooled along with the Cardinals defense. Sellers and Portis sold it well.
The next two games are true tests on the road. The Cowboys are looking invincible. The Skins will have to be on their top game to stop the Boys. The last time they faced Dallas, Sean Taylor was missing and TO had a monster game. Let's hope that Blache can call up another great defensive game plan.
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