Then suddenly the NFC East hit Washington, DC like a runaway freight train. The New York Giants got the first crack at tackling their division rivals. At the time, the Giants were coming off a 31-17 clubbing at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles. Their offensive line had preformed as poorly as advertised, and Kurt Warner and Eli Manning suffered miserably through the repercussions. Off the field, Tom Coughlin's totalitarian policies were bringing the team to the brink of mutiny. If there was ever a time to kick a team when it was down, this was it.
Instead, the Redskins chose to throw the game away. Literally. There was only one statistic that mattered in that game. It wasn't Kurt Warner's passing yardage or Fred Robbins sacks that made the difference between the winners and losers. It was the seven turnovers that were committed by the Redskins offense. That atrocious performance easily overshadowed an otherwise solid game by the defense. Typically, when you turn over the ball seven times, the opposition is running away with the game. Not this time. The defense held their ground in the face of adversity and kept the score close enough that the offense still had an opportunity to win the game in the closing minutes. Unfortunately for the Redskins faithful, that last glimmer of hope was squandered by Patrick Ramsey's third interception of the afternoon. The best team may not have won that Sunday, but the team that deserved to win certainly did.
Next up on the schedule were the dreaded Dallas Cowboys. Since Dan Snyder took the reigns of the franchise, to say the Cowboys had the Redskins number would be an understatement. In the previous thirteen match-ups, Dallas had come out the victor in twelve of them. Some of those losses were ugly, while some were hard-fought close games. None of that really mattered, though. After each one, Redskins fans were subjected to the laughter and ridicule of Cowboys fans everywhere, and left dejected and bewildered, wondering if the football gods had levied some vengeful curse upon the team. This was supposed to be the year where the monkey was finally lifted from the Redskins backs.
Alas, another year and another loss to the Cowboys. Some probably saw this one coming. After all, Bill Parcells always seems to find a way to beat the Redskins. This time around, it had less to do with what the Cowboys did to beat us, and more to do with what the Redskins did to beat themselves. The turnover epidemic from the previous week was corrected, but most of the other problems were not. Much like last year, penalties and poor clock management led to the Redskins downfall. The easy way out would be to blame Gerry Austin and his officiating crew, as some highly questionable calls directly resulted in points for the Cowboys. A fumbled punt that would have given the Redskins the ball inside the Dallas 20-yard line was negated by a late change of heart by the officials. A few plays later, a phantom pass interference call on CB Walt Harris gave the Cowboys a 1st-and-goal from the one-yard line.
