Where Does The Loss To The Eagles Rank Among The Worst Ever?
Posted by Matt Terl on November 17, 2010 – 10:14 am
Let me get this out of the way first, in bold capital letters to make it unmissable: THIS WAS A BAD LOSS.
No one is arguing that — at least, no one sane, not after seeing a final score like 59-28. It’s picking up names like Monday Night Massacre; it’s being called a rout, an embarrassment, and plenty of other things that I’m not allowed to write here.
And I understand some of the circumstances that made it seem even worse than the 31 point deficit would indicate: it came on national television, at home, in a game where a win would’ve thrown the Redskins firmly back into the NFC East mix, against an opponent that they had beaten just a month and a half before.
I get all of that, and I reiterate, again in bold: this was a bad loss.
But I’ve been hearing from people claiming that this was the worst loss of recent years, of the modern era, of all time. And that, I think, is a bit much. To be perfectly blunt, I think anyone saying that has forgotten just how grim some of the losses of the last few years were.
In many of the losses during the 2009 season, the team flat-out gave up. They lost to much lesser opponents, and to good opponents playing much less hard. If this team embarrassed itself last night — and they say they did, and people who agree with Chad Dukes say they did — they did so by not playing as well as their opponent. Last year, they found much more novel ways to embarrass themselves, like trick plays or late safeties or primetime shutouts.
In fact, I’ll go even further and say that this wasn’t even the Redskins’ worst primetime embarrassment of the last two years, let alone the modern era.
Last year, there were two terrible embarrassments on national TV. (Three losses, but only two terrible embarrassments.) The second came against the Cowboys, and was relatively pedestrian as far as humiliating losses go: a simple 17 point shutout to a divisional rival while the Redskins wallowed in off-the-field turmoil. (And also gave up 5 points to a placekicker they had cut just a few weeks earlier.)
But the first … that one came against the Giants on Monday Night Football, and that’s a loss that has gotten even more terrible with the passage of time. Here are the ways that game was worse than the one a couple nights ago:
- Margin of defeat: 33, versus a relatively paltry 31 Monday night.
- Points scored: 12, versus a relatively robust 28 Monday night.
- Timing of points scored: During that 2009 game, the Redskins went into the half scoreless. They scored on their opening drive of the third quarter (as they did Monday night) but had the extra point blocked. Monday night, after being punched in the face for the entire first quarter, the team still came back for two straight touchdown drives in the second. It amounted to nothing much in the end, but there was a moment in the second quarter where it still seemed possible that the Redskins could make a game of it. That never, ever happened in the 2009 game.
- Recent organizational change: The announcement of Donovan McNabb’s contract extension was a big deal, sure, but the Giants game was the first that Bruce Allen watched as General Manager of this team. I give that the edge.
- Most embarrassing play: Monday night it was probably the pregame scuffle, or the Eagles touchdown where Albert Haynesworth appeared to lay on his stomach for five straight seconds while Michael Vick made himself a nice souffle in the pocket. Both of those were bad, sure. But none of them came even close to the failed fake field goal of 2009, a play that inspired such headlines as The Failure That Was the Redskins’ Swinging Gate and The Redskins Run The Worst Trick Play Anyone’s Ever Seen — and those both came from actual national media outlets — and that was later immortalized in an ironically hipsterrific oil painting. So, yeah, not even close.
And that discussion doesn’t the other terrible losses in recent Redskins history, many of which were included in this poll I conducted after the FIRST Worst Redskins Loss Ever of the 2009 season (to the Detroit Lions, then riding an 0-19 streak).
I’m not sure if reminding everyone how terrible things were in the not-too-distant past qualifies as positive thinking or not, but that’s where I find myself. Monday night’s game was, as I’ve repeatedly noted here, a bad loss. But it was a bad loss to a good team that was very motivated by their Week 4 loss, that had an excellent gameplan, and that received an All-World performance from their quarterback.
Compared to the absolute abomination of the 2009 Giants game, that’s just a minor blip in the L column.
Having said all of that, I’m quite sure that many of you disagree, and I look forward to seeing your objections.
Tags: redskins vs. eagles
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