The Redskins are in trouble. Since their 4-1 start, they've lost to St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Dallas at home while squeaking by lousy Cleveland and winless Detroit. They can't affect Carolina and Tampa Bay, whom they trail in the NFC playoff chase and they won't catch the Giants, who've they lost to and trail by three games in the NFC East race.

Until coach Jim Zorn can figuren out a way to open up the offense with more downfield throws to Santana Moss, this team will continue to have problems scoring. They haven't reached 20 points on offense once since the consecutive victories at Dallas and Philadelphia that now seem like they happened in a different season. Much of this downturn happened when Clinton Portis was still the NFL's leading rusher.

The defense eventually got worn down last night by Marion Barber, but that side of the ball isn't the problem despite the invisibility of Andre Carter and Jason Taylor and the continued unavailability of Shawn Springs, who said that he could've played tonight.

While the ugly short passing game was reminiscent of the forgettable Joe Gibbs/Mark Brunell 2004 disaster, the season's beginning to remind me of a Norv Turner-esque slide circa 1996 and 1997.

-- David Elfin

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