Pressure

Rarely has a team on a one-game losing streak been under such scrutiny and pressure. Of course, the pressure comes from the fact that the loss was to a team that had lost its previous 19 games. But, still, it’s just one game. I actually think that the 2009 Lions are not an awful NFL team. They aren’t a playoff contender by any stretch but they could win four or five games. Not that the Redskins shouldn’t have beaten them but they’re not as bad as last year’s miserable Millen-assembled, Marinelli-coached bunch. The Redskins won’t be the only team leaving Ford Field shaking their heads and wondering how they lost to them. On Sunday, the pressure cooker cranks back up when the 0-3 Tampa Bay Bucs come to town. Unlike the Lions, they truly are possibly the worst team in the NFL. In their first two games, they did manage to stay moderately competitive with NFL veteran Byron Leftwich at quarterback. On Sunday, Leftwich will be riding the pine as Josh Johnson will start. No, that’s not Josh Freeman, the Bucs’ top draft pick and the QB of the future. And it’s not Josh Johnson, the 6-7, 250-pound power pitcher for the Florida Marlins, who may win a Cy Young Award some day (while pitching for the Yankees or Red Sox, of course). It’s Josh Johnson, the second-year player out of San Diego University. He was an undrafted free agent who didn’t take a snap last year. Last Sunday against the Giants he took his first NFL snaps. He was 4 for 10 for 36 yards. Right now, playing a winless team with a very green quarterback is both a blessing and a curse for the Redskins. The good side is that they should beat them easily. The bad side is that they should beat them easily. The rumblings among the fan base and in the media, summarized pretty well here by Mike Florio Tom Curran on Pro Football Talk, will continue unless the Redskins really thrash the Bucs by something like 35-0. And even then the noise won’t stop completely. They might even go to Carolina and beat a team that’s also is in utter disarray. But, even then, skeptics will far outnumber those who think that they have righted the ship. Everyone will be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because the other shoe always drops. Fast starts fade into extended losing streaks. A few well-played games in a row are followed by multiple meltdowns. It hasn’t mattered who the quarterback is. I hasn’t mattered who the coach is. The Redskins have talent to be better. No, they aren’t the most talented team in the NFL as Clinton Portis said. But it’s not all about talent in the NFL. It’s about mental toughness, it’s about building a team that plays better than the sum of its parts. And the Redskins’ mismatched collection of talent plays below its level because it lacks that mental toughness. I try to be different here and take the less-followed path. But there is no other way to conclude this post than to say what everyone else has said—that Dan Snyder needs to give Vinny Cerrato his walking papers, hire a strong general manager, and get the hell out of the way.