Seeking better reception

Defensive end Andre Carter has more. So does cornerback Carlos Rogers — points for the Washington Redskins, that is. Five games into the season, the receiving corps has yet to get on the scoreboard.

The last points scored by a Redskins wide receiver came in the first quarter of the final game of last season, when Santana Moss crossed the goal line with a 48-yard pass from fellow wideout Antwaan Randle El.

For quarterback Jason Campbell, the streak stretches a bit longer: Campbell’s last touchdown pass to a wide receiver came two weeks earlier when he found Moss from 31 yards out.

“Definitely, it’s a concern,” said coach Joe Gibbs, who back in the day had seasons in which receivers Art Monk, Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders teamed for more than 20 touchdowns. “You would like to be hitting things and scoring with ’em.”

Randle El termed the lack of touchdowns “frustrating” but said he won’t worry about it as long as the Redskins (3-2) are winning. Campbell, who has thrown four touchdown passes to tight end Chris Cooley and one to fullback Mike Sellers, noted that Randle El has been tackled three times at the 1-yard line and once at the 3 (after a Hail Mary).

“I told Antwaan that’s four touchdowns he should have had,” Campbell said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Perhaps, but Randle El, Moss, Keenan McCardell, James Thrash and Brandon Lloyd collectively have caught 39 passes without reaching the end zone. The only other team whose receivers haven’t scored a touchdown is the 1-4 Buffalo Bills, who replaced injured quarterback J.P. Losman with rookie Trent Edwards.

“When it comes, it comes in chunks,” said Moss, thinking back to Week 4 of last season when he scored three touchdowns in an overtime victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. “You’re more concerned with winning games. You are concerned sometimes with what you want to do individually, but if you don’t have that right then and there, you can’t panic. You have to say, ’Let me keep pushing,’ and hopefully as a corps we’ll get untracked.”

Moss, who has suffered from hamstring and groin injuries almost continuously the past year, scored 15 of the wideouts’ 19 touchdowns since the 2005 season. Randle El has three and Thrash one. Cooley leads the Redskins with 17 touchdown catches during that span, and Sellers has nine.

“We’re getting a lot of plays, but right now Cooley has been getting some good looks, and we’ve been giving [the ball] to him,” Moss said. “It’s no big thing. We just haven’t gotten ’em yet. Somebody might break the ice this week. You never know. They’ll come.”

Actually, the Redskins’ wideouts haven’t made many plays.

Only the Oakland Raiders (2-3) and San Francisco 49ers (2-3), both of whom have changed quarterbacks, have wide receivers with fewer catches than the Redskins’ corps.

By comparison, receivers for the Arizona Cardinals, whom the Redskins will face Sunday, have combined for 89 catches and five touchdowns in six games. The New England Patriots’ peerless group has 104 catches and 14 touchdowns, also in six games.

“It doesn’t matter who gets them. It really doesn’t,” play-caller Al Saunders said. “You just want to get ’em. Last week, Chris catches nine balls. The week before Antwaan had seven in the first half. Hopefully by the of the year, one of our wide receivers will have eight and another guy will have six or seven.”

In last week’s 17-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Redskins wideouts had almost as many drops (three) as catches (four). Moss was blanked for the first time in more than five years.

“I haven’t lost confidence in Santana,” Campbell said. “We’ve only played five games. What happened on Sunday is something that happens to the best of us at times. We know he’s going to bounce back strong. His touchdown catches are going to come. More catches are going to come for him.

“We just gotta start playing football, stop worrying about how to make a play and what we can do to make plays and just go out there and play the same way you’ve been playing since you were a kid, and things will start happening for us.”