Case of the Mondays: I feel foolish

I can't help but feel partly responsible for the Washington Redskins' 14-10 loss to arch-rival Dallas last night. I guess spending the whole week hyping up the contest meant an epic potential for a letdown if things didn't turn out the way we would have liked. This is exactly what happened.

However, my lack of foresight pales in comparison to that of the Redskins organization, who pretty much guaranteed a loss with two unbelievable acts of bad karma. The first was to hand out "Redskins Rally Rags," this coming after our last game against the Pittsburgh Steelers was basically overrun with opposing fans and their long-standing tradition, the Terrible Towel. As a response, we straight-up copied one of the most original aspects of a very die-hard fan base with a lame attempt at a gimmick. Very stupid.

But if that wasn't enough to ensure defeat, we also picked last night to honor former greats Art Monk and Darrell Green, both of whom were inducted into the latest class of the NFL Hall of Fame. This was a setup for failure from the very start, as one of Washington's most famous victories in the history of the rivalry came in 2005 in Dallas when the C*wb*ys honored Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and the Throat Cutter. Trailing 13-0 with less than four minutes left to play, Mark Brunell threw two touchdown passes to Santana Moss, giving the Skins an improbable 14-13 win. Of course, the football gods would punish us for idiotically trying to get away with viturally the same thing!

Yes, maybe it's true that what happened on the field was more responsible than what happened off the field. But it's always more fun to find a scapegoat than to admit to yourself that perhaps your team is not very good.

Beating Dallas would have effectively ended their season. Not too many chances come along to bury your rival, so to blow this chance is especially tough. In no way is our season over, we've just left ourselves with a lot more work to do. Next week, we travel to face an awful Seahawks team, but keep in mind how we've done against horrible teams earlier this season. Plus, in recent history we have played terribly in Seattle. Even though this year's Seattle team is not as strong as those recent ones, our record in that stadium is still very poor. Games like these are exactly what I was worried about and until we actually go out and take care of business, I will still be worried about our ability to make the playoffs.