In the second half, poor clock management came back to haunt them again. The complicated formation shifts that Joe Gibbs regularly employs led to two more timeouts being used early on in the third quarter. The third and final timeout was wasted on a challenge of Terry Glenn's 27-yard touchdown catch from Richie Anderson that had no chance of being overturned. That forced the Redskins to play the final 13 minutes of a close game with no timeouts. Had even one of those timeouts been salvaged, the Redskins could have stopped the clock on the Cowboys last drive, or better yet, stopped it right after Rod Gardner caught a 46 yard pass in the closing seconds to put the Redskins in field-goal position. Instead, Gardner was prevented from getting out of bounds, and the clock ticked down to 0:00. Once again Redskins fans were left to suffer the wrath of Cowboys fans everywhere.
You can be sure that Joe Gibbs is taking the blame for those miscues. He has already stated that the formation shifts would be toned down slightly in order to help prevent the delay of game penalties and wasted timeouts. It also seemed that he had begun to make adjustments in his play calling for the Dallas game. Gibbs used more three-wide receiver formations in order to spread the offense out and allow Portis the opportunity to run outside of the tackles. James Thrash also saw his first significant action of the season, and it resulted in four catches for 47 yards. After struggling early in the game, Brunell ended the day with 325 yards passing with two touchdowns and Portis added 94 yards on the ground. Those are respectable numbers against one of the best defenses in the league.
In the end, what you find in the stat book makes no difference. The only thing that matters is what can be found in the standings. The Redskins have dug themselves into a deep hole early on, with a 1-2 record overall and a familiar 0-2 record against their NFC East opponents. For a team with play-off aspirations, the Redskins have found themselves making many of the same mistakes that they made last year. Somehow, they have managed to keep their losses close, but unless they can rectify the mental lapses that have cost them the past two games, it figures to be a long road ahead once again.
