OK, as I said, I’ve been very busy of late with several projects that are due, um, well, today. By Midnight. Still busy, but I was starting to feel guilty because, for some bizarre reason, I actually have some people reading this tripe.

So, Redskins were shutout. I believe it was only the third time in franchise history. It was god-awful. I couldn’t watch the fourth quarter. They played as bad or worse than they did at anytime last year. It just doesn’t make any sense for a team that has proven themselves the way they have in the first half of the season.

My guess: this game came down to espionage. The former Redskins on the Giants team knew more about the play calling than the former Giants on the Redskins team. They certainly seemed to know exactly what was happening on every single f***ing play. I’m not bitter though…

In other news: Libby indicted. Yay! To those right-wingers who point and say how awful someone like me is to take glee in this: too bad. You took glee in the entire Clinton affair. Even if you didn’t voice it (and most of you did). My mother taught me a word: comeuppance (come uppance). That’s what this is. It suits my sense of social justice immensely.

In still more news: Bush is now officially the lamest duck president in modern history. Suspend the Davis-Bacon Act? Nope, don’t think so. Nominate another crony post-Katrina? Nice try, now try again (which he did this morning). Appearing with Republican Governors? Maybe next year. But if you don’t mind staying out-of-sight in the meantime, that would be greeaaat.

Ok, back to work.

I came into the season with no expectations. Or rather, with the same expectations as last year: awesome defense, pathetic offense with no quarterback. Suddenly Mark Brunell seems to have found himself and has taken over as the starting quarterback. I’m not sad to see Patrick Ramsey on the sidelines. I think he is always going to panic and choke. He was a bad draft pick. They should trade him for a good towel boy. Ok, maybe that’s a little harsh, but, still. I don’t even want him as a backup QB.

Turns out trading Champ Bailey for Clinton Portis was about the smartest thing the Redskins could have done. Who saw that one coming? Well, other than Joe Gibbs that is. That man deserves a hell of a lot of credit. The Redskins went 6-10 last season and he had to take the heat for that. As if you can come in to a team and turn it around instantaneously. I don’t know what the season will end up being, but I know what it is right now: 3-0.

I’ve taken great joy week after week watching the experts pick whoever the Redskins are playing against to win, especially King Kaufmann over at Salon.com, but that’s probably just because I read Salon a lot. Once again, everybody has picked their opponent going into week five: the Denver Broncos. Most Redskins fans that are publishing their predictions have them at 1-5 over the next six games. Maybe I’m an eternal optimist but I think they can do much better than that. I had originally gone 2-4, but after reflecting on it a bit, I can see 3-3 or better. After all, they’ve proven everybody wrong three times already, haven’t they?

I’m not just being a blind optimist here. They’ve held their opponents to an average of 12 points a game with only two turnovers so far this season. People don’t seem to have noticed the changes in the defense that have been consistent so far. Every week people talk about how much they expect the Redskins to blitz, but they haven’t been blitzing all that much. Look for Gibbs and Williams to mix things up. Gibbs likes to do that. If they’ve been winning by an average of a measley two points per game, something everybody keeps talking about, imagine what they can do if they force two or three turnovers in a single game?

I think they’ve been playing a more conservative defense against the weaker teams in their schedule just to be able to throw off the stronger teams when they change things up. Based on that assumption, I don’t expect much blitzing from them in the first half of this Sunday’s game. I expect they’ll see how things play out and then decide if they need to change things up during the halftime. From a strategy standpoint it makes a lot of sense.

On a different note, it’s always been about a good defense getting teams into the playoffs which in turn get teams into the Superbowl (no, I have no illusions about the Redskins going to the Superbowl this year, this is “on a different note”). One season differs from the norm on this (last season) and suddenly it’s all about the offense? Since when do we throw out years and years of statistical data in favor of the anomaly? Here we are a quarter of the way into the season and has anybody noticed anything? Like maybe that the strong defensive teams are dominating right now? It’s only a quarter of the way into the season, but I’ll take that statistic over last years fluke. Meanwhile, I suspect the experts will go on waiting for the NFL to correct itself and reassert the dominance of the strong offensive teams.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m predicting a win for the Redskins this Sunday. So far, their offense has proven itself to be the better of the two (statistically) and I’m confident they have the better defense too. Brunell was the biggest unknown for me and watching him connect over and over again when throwing backwards while running for the sidelines has convinced me that he’s the real deal. He may have only connected 20 of 36 passes last week, but those were the 20 that mattered. Twelve of the twenty were 3rd down conversions! A quarterback that gets better the more pressure there is? Talk about the exact opposite of Patrick Ramsey.

Here’s hoping I’m right about Sunday.

I didn’t post this yesterday, but as a lifelong Redskins fan, it cannot go without comment: they are 3-o for the first time since 1991. That was also the last time they won the superbowl. I’m under no illusions here, this is only our second season with coach Gibbs back and our quarterback is 35 years old. But! Our owner finally seems to have gotten his ass out of the decision making process, we have stability and growth, and Gibbs. And did I mention that we are 3-0? Woohoo!

PS I ripped off the headline from Bozzy’s Word.