Om Field: Redskins Reality Check

All they need to do is win. Whether its by 1 in OT or by 30 in regulation. This is the NFL not college. How much a team wins by isnt important.

Ditto. Yes, the Lions are a bad team, but even putting aside the any-given-Sunday cliche, the fact is that the league is tight this year. No doubt, the Titans are off to a great start, and the Giants look tough, but are either of them "dominant" teams right now? The Giants needed overtime to beat the 0-7 Bengals AT HOME and lost by three touchdowns to the Browns. With regard to the Titans, none of the six teams they've played currently has a winning record. The fact is that this is a season in which, league-wide, no victory will be taken for granted. After the Eagles game, I may have been a little tempted to look ahead to the game against the Lions as potential blowout, but after the Rams game, I know better and just want to walk out of Detroit with a win.

good article... but the media is always trying to either build teams up or tear them down. we all know that. however that doesn't mean that this isn't the best team we've had in years. new or not, this team has done some amazing things so far, and most definately has the potential to really stir things up later in the season. Who knows, maybe we'll have a good run in the playoffs this year. i absolutely refuse to even say the "s" word until playoffs tho... no thoughts on that.

Im excited to see how we do this week. I would love a blow out, but a win is a win. Lets just take this one week at a time. GO SKINS!!:spank:

Hmm. Due respect, but did you actually read the piece? Because what it looks like is you picked a couple buzzwords out of any context they might have had in support of your contention that I'm about "calling out and dividing up" the fanbase.

If it's true you've read and enjoyed my stuff in the past, first, thank you, and second, I'd like to think a fair reading is that that ain't what I'm about at all.

Nor was this particular piece about people not "wanting" to win big against Detroit. Trust, me, nobody wants to see us turn the Lions into a smoking pile of goo more than I do. My point is that expecting that--or reading a possible failure to accomplish it an indictment of the Redskins for not meeting expectations--is premature by at least half a season.

I think a fair reading of the piece would have made that pretty clear.

You're probably right.

I think an interesting discussion could be had on why we as Skins fans, are so hyper-sensitive to negativity of our team but on the other hand we seem to wallow in it pretty consistently. Of course these are generalizations but it seems to me that our fan-base is somewhat hypocritical in this regard.

OK. ill say it again. a win, is a win, is a win. can anyone remember any of the scores of the 1991 championship season? no, but i bet alot of us remember the record that season. the margin of success in the nfl is so slim, that ill take them any way i can get themWhile we may not remember all the scores in '91, that team took care of business against lesser teams. They put opponents away early and buried them (the average margin of victory that year was 15 points). The only close calls that I remember that season (aside from the two losses) came against the Oilers and the Bengals.

As a fan, yes, a win is a win, but if this Skins team keeps living dangerously by letting lesser teams hang around, they will eventually lose their share of close games, as exhibited against the Rams two weeks ago. Detroit has POOR talent overall. There is no reason why the Skins shouldn't win this game by double digits unless they play down to the competition's level.

I could care less about laying the wood to the Lions. But when Romo comes to town.......

Let's just say nothing is better than seeing Wade Phillips in his skirt (with a star on it) and his Pom-Poms, wipe'in the tears out of Romo's eye's! Well maybe one thing; T.O. going to a nice D.C. Jail cell.

i just worry because in the past,winless teams often have'nt got a win until they have played the redskins!

I think we all need to not overanalyze here. We have a much better team than Detroit. Much better. Will i be happy being 6-2, yes. Did I think that we'd be 5-2, 6-2, or 5-3 at the beginning of the year? No. The first 7 weeks of the season has told us we have a pretty good team w/ wins on the road in the division against good teams. I think good teams should beat bad teams, really bad teams by a decent margin, and I think we have a good team.

The bar has been moved by the team itself, not the fans.

Expectations by fans should be high. There's nothing wrong with that. The redskins have earned higher expectations this year and that's not a bad thing.

When you have a QB approaching the mid season point with 0 ints, you expect him not to come out and have a 4 turnover performance.

When you have the leagues leading rusher and a league MVP as a backup, along with a stellar O line, you expect to have success running the ball.

When you have the #6 D in the league after playing several of the top 10 offenses in the league, you never expect ANY team to hang 30+ on you.

The media didn't make one of those things happen. They could all write this team off or sell us as the next 70s steelers. It won't change what this team has accomplished and acheived thus far.

And, if you have all these things working for you as we do, how can you not expect to destroy the lions; a terrible team with a terrible record. I don't see how we can just be content with our record and throw theirs out when coming up with expectations for this game. Not to mention if you asked me at the beginning of the year (or even after week one, hell) what I predicted for the skins lions game, I would have still predicted a stifling skins victory.

Ill be happy with a win either way, but if we squeak this one out I'm going to be worried and rightfully a bit disappointed. Shame on me.

And the end of the year is anyone going to look back and wonder why the Skins didn't blow out Detroit? You count up the wins and go from there into the playoffs.

PLAYOFFS!? PLAYOFFS!? Yeah baby. PLAYOFFS!

OK. ill say it again. a win, is a win, is a win. can anyone remember any of the scores of the 1991 championship season? no, but i bet alot of us remember the record that season. the margin of success in the nfl is so slim, that ill take them any way i can get them

YES! The Redskins killed detroit 45-0 first game of the year. I also remember them shutting out their first 3 home opponents.

The good teams put teams away.
The pretenders play down to their opponents.

I hope the Redskins prove they are a good team tomorrow.