Week 5: Panthers 20, Redskins 17 - Knee Jerk Reactions

Football season is in full swing! The hair pulling, TV-screaming, remote control throwing and furious cigarette smoking is in full force. Before I let rationality cloud my judgment, here are my knee-jerk reactions from the fifth game of the season:

-Up 17-2 in the 2nd half on a winless team Football Outsiders says is the worst in the NFL, and we blew the lead. What else can the Skins do to kick their fans in the balls? Scratch that, this was more like giving us blue balls, specifically blue balls from an ugly chick.

-DeAngelo Hall had what, maybe 6 yards to tackle an immobile QB and couldn't make it happen?

-Buying http://www.firejimzorn.info/ is seeming like a smarter and smarter purchase by the day.

-After a week of hearing how D******* Hall has a rivalry with Steve Smith, it was Carlos Rogers who was matched-up on Smith most of the day. I don't want to type his full name anymore, not worth my time and anger, because I am finally almost at peace with the Redskin suck-fest, except for that all talk, no walk salary cap black hole.

-Rogers had a great game. By my count, the Panthers threw at Rogers 2 times, with one of those being a near-INT in the endzone. Hall, meanwhile, was picked-on all day, with success. I even noticed one play where Landry's guy caught the ball, but it was because Hall got smoked deep, so Landry left his man to help and then came back to make the tackle.

-Did anyone else notice that on the interception, the reason Hall was in position to make the play was that he was so badly beaten on the route that he was 5 yards behind the receiver? If he had been in tight coverage, that ball would have been tipped over his head. Knowing the DC media, Hall will get credit for that play, while Rogers will get criticized because he 'dropped' what would have been a spectacular INT in the endzone.

-Orakpo had a 0.5 sack, and another called back because of a penalty that did not appear to give him any advantage. That gives him 2.5 sacks this season, with 2 called back on penalties, and all while playing DE. This is for a guy the WaPo said today plays only 25% of the time at DE. Granted, those are all passing plays, but is it hard to imagine he has at least 5 sacks now if he plays DE full-time? Meanwhile, he looked completely lost on that TD pass to Jeff King and was beaten on another play in coverage. Is there something I am missing here?

-Brian Billick had a thought on Orakpo's position, but it has to be the dumb announcing comment of the day. Billick said Orakpo is a great pass rusher (okay, I'm good with that), and that he struggles in coverage (okay, so far so good and now waiting for him to state the obvious here...), but that the Skins moved Orakpo to LB to make him a complete football player (yeah comple...wai, wha?!?). That is like saying, ohhhh, I have a great idea, I think Albert Haynesworth is a great defensive tackle, but maybe we should move him to WR to make him a more complete football player. Jason Campbell, doing okay at QB, but how about trying him at kicker to round-out his game.

-Landry and Haynesworth had good games.

-Our defense was great, giving up a TD on a 12-yard drive is not their fault, and the other scoring drives were 40 and 38 yards. On the flip side, the D gave our offense the ball on the 13 and 1 yard lines, which you have to think is worth 14 points. That math gives me that the D is responsible for 11 points, but basically scored 14. My only complaint is that this performance came against maybe the worst offense in the NFL.

-After playing at the same mediocre level of our D for 4 weeks, the offense was awful. The D gave them 14 points, which means the offense really scored 3, but gave up 2 for the safety. Did I say awful? That's beyond awful.

-Another set of eyes?!? There are gazillions of eyes around the world that can see we need more shotgun and to throw deep occasionally, even with an o-line comprised of tackling dummies.

-Good to confirm that Chris Samuels is indeed the most irreplaceable player on our team. The line crumbled without him last year, and D'Anthony Batiste was like a turnstile. I was almost excited to see what Peppers would have done to him.

-Stephen Heyer against Peppers was a no-contest.

-Campbell definitely missed some guys wide-open on a few plays. The most notable was Santana on a double-move deep to Campbell's right in the 2nd half, and his first reads were left, so he never saw him. JC played okay, but the lack of deep throws looks like 3/4 the offensive line and play calling, and 1/4 JC just not seeing open guys or deciding the deeper throws are too risky.

-Did anyone else notice that Cooley, after recovering the fumble by Moss, did the Santana first down dance? That made me laugh.

-I feel a little bad for Byron Westbrook being blocked into ARE and then having the ball hit his leg, but I guess that's within the rules. The worst part was seeing about 9 Panthers chase that ball against 1 Redskin.

-I think I am comfortably numb. Even if we beat KC next week, that's 3-3 going into an impossible schedule. The only bad team we play after KC is the Raiders, so I think our over/under on wins right now is about 4.5. Yeah, comfortably numb.

(Image courtesy of the AP via ESPN.com)