Cowboys at Redskins: Romosexual

Dallas Cowboys (4-3) vs. Washington Redskins (2-5)
1:00 p.m. FedEx Field
It sucks that I don’t have more time to write. As I said, it’s been real hectic at work recently, and yesterday was my birthday. So I haven’t really been able to find the time to talk about the Redskins-Cowboys. Which is a shame…I wish I could give this game the time it deserves

Let’s just through the basics. The obvious story line is the Cowboys quarterback situation. Tony Romo has one decent game (one decent quarter, really) and suddenly he’s Roger Staubach. I watched the first half of the Carolina-Dallas game and he looked terrible. No better than Drew Bledsoe. And from the highlights I saw, it looked like the only thing Romo really did in the fourth quarter was turn around and hand the ball off to Julius Jones and Marion Barber.

Romo could be pretty good. I could be wrong. I don’t know. I’ve seen him play for a total of three NFL quarters discounting what I saw in preseason. One fourth quarter doesn’t make a season, a career or a quarterback. So Romo is still an unknown factor. He could go off for another big week, or he could easily look like he did against the Giants.

At lot of what will happen will come down to what the Redskins defense decides to do. For the first time the entire season, the Redskins will have all starting 11 defensive players in the lineup. Now while most of those players are playing at far less than 100% (Shawn Springs, Carlos Rogers, Joe Salava’a, Philip Daniels, Cornelius Griffin and Lemar Marshall are all still suffering from injuries but will apparently play). Still, the fact that the entire defense will be playing may lead to Gregg Williams actually calling his normal defensive sets. But probably not. With the weapons that Romo has, he doesn’t need much time to find capable receivers. The non-blitzing strategy completely failed in the first meeting against Bledsoe, and now the Redskins have to play a quarterback who can buy himself extra time.

The real problem will be on the offense. Clinton Portis is still banged up. Jon Jansen, although not listed on the injury report this week, can barely walk in practice. Most importantly, Santana Moss is likely out. Moss was declared out today, despite the inside information I received yesterday from Redskins’ beat writer David Elfin of the Washington Times who said he was almost 100% certain Moss would play. Even though Elfin usually has the good inside dirt, it looked like he let me down this time.

Missing Moss this week may actually benefit the Redskins. It will force Mark Brunell to look to someone other than the speedy Miami receiver. One of the obvious problems the offense has faced this season is the reliance on Moss despite other dangerous receivers. So Brunell will actually have to throw to Brandon Lloyd and Antwaan Randle El. Maybe Brunell will learn to trust his other highly paid receivers. Since it appears the hamstring injury will only sideline Moss for this week, that will be nice for the rest of the season if Brunell can get into a rhythm with Lloyd and El.

It would be nice to see the Redskins establish the run early, but it’s clear that Al Saunders refuses to do that. It would be nice to see the Redskins throw the kitchen sink at Romo, but it’s become clear that Williams will refuse to do that. So in other words, the same problems that have plagued the Redskins the last three weeks will most likely continue.

The Redskins have had a tough first half schedule and finally get a home division game. They are far from done in the NFC. They were in a worst situation last season with less time to make up ground, and came back to make the playoffs. The Redskins still have all three of their home division games left to play and they also have a couple of winnable road games. On top of this, Dallas and Philadelphia have just killer second half schedules, and couple of wins are all the Redskins need to get some momentum and get back in the race. But the Redskins must beat Dallas. This is their last stand. It’s one thing to lose to the Cowboys on the road, but you must defend your home turf in the division. The Redskins are finally given a chance to do that after going two months without a division home game (it’s also their first home game against a conference opponent since the opener). There should be no excuses for a loss here. The Skins, despite the injuries, have had two weeks to prepare for their archrival at home. They’ve had two weeks to figure out how to beat this fraud Romo. They’ve had two weeks to straighten out some horrendous play calling. They’ve had two weeks to figure out a way to stop embarrassing themselves and underachieving despite a wealth of talent. They’ve had two weeks to figure out how to save their season. Let’s see if they’ve learned anything.