Are YOU Ready for some Football?

It's the night before one of the biggest games at Fedex Field and I know I'm not going to get any sleep at all. Tomorrow the Redskins #2 rushing attack will face the Steelers #1 Defense. This week we find out what this team is truly made of.
Will Portis and the Dirtbags rise to the occasion? Or will the Steel Curtain Defense of Pittsburgh put a stop to Portis' 5 game streak of 120+ yards or more a game. If I was a betting man I would go with option number one but the one thing I never gamble on is my Skins.

All week long I've been quietly listening to various Steelers fans spout of statistics about how good their team is on Monday night.

Idiot #1, "We've won 18 games in a row on Monday Night." Idiot #2, "On paper the Steelers are hands down better then the Skins." Idiot #3, "Fast Willie is back you guys better watch out."

The idiotic rants go on and on. Each time I heard a meaningless stat or an asinine comment I cried a little inside for these vagabond fans.

Why is it that so many Steeler fans leave their awesome team and town behind for parts unknown?

I'll tell you why. It's because they realized that their franchise got lucky being in one the of crappiest divisions in football and they wanted to move away and see how a real team plays. If the Redskins got to play the Ravens, Browns and Bengals twice a year we would have over 18 Division Championships and 24 playoff berths in our team history also but we don't.

The Redskins are arguably in the toughest division of the NFL. The Giants are 7-1. The Eagles are 5-3 and the Cowboys... well lets keep them out of this.

Big Ben has played horribly against the NFC East this year throwing only 1 TD so far. He has a cumulative QB rating of 44.5 in his 2 games vs the Giants and the Eagles and he's thrown 5 INTs. Roethlisberger has been sacked 23 times so far this season and he's practically falling apart at the seams.

If the Skins are going to win this game tomorrow night they need to clock Ben repeatedly (I know I'm corny). The Steelers have 3 new offensive lineman protecting him and if there was ever a game for Andre Carter and Demetric Evans to wreak some havoc it will be tomorrow night. If the Redskins want to take the leap from a Good Team to a Great Team they can do it center stage on National Television Monday night.

I don't know about you but I'm ready for some FOOTBALL.

Good but not Great

All last week the Media kept hyping up the fact that the Redskins were the only team in the NFL to not have an Offensive Turnover this year. Every sports show and news article last week couldn't help but mention the fact that Jason Campbell hasn't thrown an interception yet (he still hasn't). Various Prognosticators were ranking the Redskins among the top 3 of the NFL Super Powers. I was getting text messages, while I was in Philly for the Eagles game, asking if I could get people tickets to Tampa Bay for the Super Bowl. People were talking about us possibly being 7-1 heading into the Bye week.

WOULD EVERYONE PLEASE SHUT THE HELL UP!

Yes, we won 4 games in a row. Yes, we beat the Cowgirls and the Eagles on the road but lets be realistic here. We haven't blown anyone out and if you take away a lucky tip here or a missed 4th down there we could be 0-5. The fact that we were 13+ point favortites against the Rams was Ludacris. Mike Wise wrote an awesome article on Monday discussing how close we've been to failure in each of our wins this season. If you haven't checked it out please do. It puts this whole 4 game win streak into perspective.

The Redskins seem to play down or up to their opponents potential. Great teams don't do that. The Redskins are a good team but we're not great YET. Clinton hit the nail right on the head when he said,

"We've been the underdogs since I've been here. And we came out with fight every game we was the underdog. Win, lose or draw, we came out to fight. So for us to expect St. Louis not to come out and fight, I don't know how we let them shock us like that."

I love this team almost to a fault at times. I've been to every game so far this year. I was just as excited as everyone else about our 4-1 start but I'm also realistic. I have watched this team for to many years to assume that we would beat the Hapless Rams, Steam Roll over the Doo Doo Browns and Demoralize the Detroit Lions.

We're the favorite team again for the second week in a row and we're going to be the favorite next weekend against the Lions in Detriot but can this team win when it's supposed to?

Can they make that step from Good to Great?

I sure as hell hope so but only time will tell