LANDOVER — Jay Gruden stood at the podium early Tuesday morning – his eyes glazed and his voice raspy – and tried his best to explain what had gone wrong with his Washington Redskins in their 26-15 Monday night loss to the Carolina Panthers at FedEx Field.
I don’t know pretty much summed it up.
Why couldn’t the offense get going early in the game?
“I don’t know,” Gruden answered.
What was off about quarterback Kirk Cousins?
“I don’t know,” Gruden answered. He had three “I don’t knows” mixed in his answer about what was amiss with Cousins, rubbing his neck a little harder with each “I don’t know.”
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How did the Washington Redskins go from being so good to being so bad?
I didn’t ask Gruden that, because I am presuming he doesn’t know.
Neither do I.
The Redskins (7-6-1) turned in perhaps their worst performance of the season Monday night before their home fans during their loss to the defending NFC champion Panthers.
If you didn’t see this coming, then you weren’t paying attention to another one of their particularly bad performances last Sunday in Philadelphia. Perhaps the score and outcome of that game – a 27-22 victory over the Eagles – blinded you.
It certainly did to Gruden, who proclaimed last week a “great” game, confusing that with a “great” win.
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There was no confusion Monday night. There was nothing great, save for DeSean Jackson’s slight-of-hand sliding sideline catches, about Washington’s play.
The question is, what happened?
What happened to the Redskins team that looked full of promise and potential four weeks ago on a Sunday night on this very field, the team that Cousins, who completed 32 of 47 passes for 315 yards no touchdowns, one interception and one fumble, led to a 42-24 win with 375 yards passing and three touchdowns, and Robert Kelley rushing for 137 yards?
How did the Redskins go from that team to the one that was manhandled Monday night by a 5-8 team with its own self-destructive issues?
How did the Redskins become a bad team?
Something has gone wrong. Maybe the burden of carrying a defense that can’t really stop anyone unless the team they are trying to stop simply stops themselves has taken its toll on the entire squad. Maybe it was that short week following the Sunday night Packers win, followed by the Thursday Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas that they may have never recovered from.
They were competitive against a good division-leading Cowboys team at home that day before losing 31-26 in the final two minutes of the game. They were less competitive when they lost 31-23 to an inconsistent Arizona Cardinals team that had won just four of 11 games.
But it was there for everyone to see in the win over Philadelphia. Like I wrote last week, the Eagles were a team that had the look of a Jim Zorn Redskins December squad, with a rookie quarterback, rookie coach and a divided, underachieving defense. They were ripe to be beaten, and beaten badly by a good team.
Instead, they had the Redskins on the ropes near the end of the game until Ryan Kerrigan sacked rookie quarterback Carson Wentz, who was driving his team down the field in the final minute for a possible game-winning score.
That was a bad Redskins team. Monday night was a bad Redskins team.
Something has gone wrong.
“I don’t know what it is yet,” Gruden said when asked about the offense’s inability to function early in the game. “I’ll have to check it out. It wasn’t good enough offensively. The plan obviously wasn’t good enough. The execution wasn’t good enough.”
Thom Loverro hosts his weekly podcast “Cigars & Curveballs” Wednesdays available on iTunes and Google Play.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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