Ominous

For the first 10 weeks of the 2010 NFL season, the Skins' outcome was
the same as the California Golden Bears's outcome. When Cal won on
Saturday, Washington also won that weekend. And when Cal lost,
Washington also lost.

It'd be a shame to see that repeated this year. Unfortunately, Cal
lost to the Washington Huskies today in Seattle, 31-23.

How the Skins Have Done in Other Years When Starting 2-0

Dan Daly of the Washington Times notes that 73% of the Redskins teams that have started 2-0 have made the playoffs.

I wonder what the percentage breakdown is for 3-0 starts versus 2-1 starts.

Week 2: It was in the Cards

Eight straight wins over Arizona. Nice to dominate a team like that, especially when rallying from an 8-point fourth quarter deficit. The game got off to an extremely shaky start and was in doubt until the final whistle. Two consecutive interceptions! Fortunately, Grossman was able to shake them off and leads the Skins to victory.

Must have felt good for Tim Hightower to exact revenge on his former team. He had over 80 yards by halftime. Not sure why they went away from him in the second half. Nevertheless, with Helu as the #2 guy, the Washington ground attack went for 172 yards. As a whole, the offense had 455 yards. Balance wasn't awful but still favored the passing game with 44 pass plays (including the sack) to 35 rushing plays.

Each getting a sack in this game, Kerrigan and Orakpo are looking like a mighty fine pair of bookend OLBs.

A blocked field goal, the two interceptions, and coming away with FGs instead of touchdowns are the types of mistakes (or ineptitude) that will separate contenders from non-contenders. Can they get those sorted out?

Week 1: Cowboys Lose to Jets

Almost as nice as the Skins' victory was the fact that the Cowboys lost. Even better was that they let it slip through the fingers with a bad Tony Romo interception.

Week 1: Giant Win for Washington

The G-Men have owned the Skins these past few years. The Giants had won 9 of the past 10 games over the Skins.

Facing the Giants, the Washington had a great opportunity to take advantage of a greatly weakened team that was without its top two pass rushers. The Giants also had suffered injuries in many other positions, forcing a 6th round draft choice to be the starting middle linebacker - the defensive playcaller.

But Skins fans have reason to be optimistic. The team was only 6-10 last season but had lost quite a few close games. The defensive personnel are better suited to the 3-4 compared to the players from last year. Certainly, it's unrealistic to expect such a strong contribution from its rookies all year long (two sacks and an interception for a touchdown) but it feels great in the short term.

On offense, almost the entire line is new and considerably younger than the starting five from last year's opening day. Trent Williams was a rookie last year but is already the most seasoned guy at his position this year. Will Montgomery took over at Center for long-time starter Casey Rabach. The Skins didn't dominate in the running game (only 74 yards) and did give up four sacks, so there is definitely room to improve.

The Skins faithful also are hoping that Rex Grossman is about to go through a Rich Gannon-like revival this side of the 30 year age mark. With 305 yards, 2 touchdowns and no interceptions, so far so good.