The Washington Redskins may have surprised a few people by hanging around with the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, but the eventual loss was expected, and the national media is not likely to crown Washington as contenders just yet.
On Tuesday, USA Today’s Touchdown Wire released their weekly power rankings, and the Redskins moved up to No. 27 in the NFL — nothing to brag about, but at least they didn’t move down.
Washington’s quarterback, Case Keenum, looked dynamic early on, spurning the Redskins to an early 17-0 lead with a couple of highlight touchdowns from TE Vernon Davis and WR Terry McLaurin. Eventually, the Eagles settled in and returned to form, and Washington stepped aside and allowed the game to slip away rather quickly. Still, it was the performance early on that turned a few heads and inspired a little bit of confidence in the organization going forward.
With another tough divisional matchup on tap against the Dallas Cowboys this coming week, there will be no time for the Redskins to rest on their laurels and be happy about a solid half of football; instead, they will have to prepare for a Dallas offense that looked devastating on Sunday. Washington got thrashed by Desean Jackson and Carson Wentz in the secondary just days ago, and Cowboys QB Dak Prescott could potentially rip apart the Redskins defense as he further establishes comfortability with his newer weapons, WRs Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup. Meanwhile, RB Ezekiel Elliott will always look to eat out of the backfield, so the front seven will have their hands full trying to slow that train.
The Redskins may have looked better than expected on Sunday, but it still resulted in a loss, and it wasn’t inspiring enough to boost them out of the bottom tier of NFL teams. With a high-powered offense coming to town this week, there’s a good chance that Washington will fall to 0-2, coach Jay Gruden’s job status will come into question once again, and we will be back here next week, talking about how the Redskins are hovering around the lower-echelon of NFL teams.
