I Missed My Nap For This?

Hmm.

The Redskins packed more ineptitude into the three hours of their pants-soiling at the Meadowlands today than TJ jams inappropriate references into a happy hour. And it was all bad, to be sure, but there was one particular level of suck that stood out above (below?) the rest in a way that sours the newly earned optimism in Skins camp.

I have never seen such a drastic case of regression, outside of my own psychological profile, as I saw in Mark Brunell today. This was the Mark Brunell we watched for half a season last year as we clawed our own eyes out. This was the Brunell who made P-Ram look like a pretty good option. Today's Mark Brunell, with the toe-tapping, head-swerving, and obvious unwillingness even to fire a warning shot down the field, was the guy we tried to run out of town last year.
Toe a tee. And that's horrible news for people who had just gotten suckered into believing again. (No, not me, of course not.)

That he had a legion of Jerry Lewises, Chevy Chases, and Chris Farleys alongside him didn't make it any easier for him to succeed, obviously. The runners couldn't, the receivers didn't, the blockers appeared not even to know how, and the defenders -- though taxed by their teammates time and time again -- pretty much tripped over themselves trying to. Penalties, play calls, and missed assignments -- you'd find more heads-up decisions on an episode of Gilligan's Island than in the Skins' portion of this game. But there was nobody who looked as cast away as Mark Brunell, and all we can do is speculate as to why and pray for never again.

It's harder in the NFL to shake this one off. You lose in baseball by a score of 26-3, you're usually back out there in fewer than 24 hours to change things. Similar stories in the NBA and this new hockey league that just started up. The Skins get a week to wallow in the excrement they created for three hours Sunday, and what with there being 18,755 journalists per actual sports new item, they're going to have a lot of unanswerable questions coming at them that will help the wallow. Enjoy, boys.

It will be interesting to see how contagious Brunell's regression is this week. Those of us who predicted 6-10 for Washington, then shied away from that as progress was made, may now begin to revisit those old prognostications with increased confidence in our own premonitory skill. If Bad Brunell shows up next Sunday night versus Philly -- and trust me, we'll know it by series #2 -- the last few weeks are going to feel like the running-on-the-beach dream for the double amputee.