Santana Moss said the Redskins' problems during their 1-2 start are correctable

The Washington Redskins in only brief flashes have shown themselves to a team that has abandoned years of futility and gotten back on track under the new leadership of Mike Shanahan.

Through three games, their offense for the most part has sputtered, producing only two touchdowns in nine trips into the red zone. The defense ranks last in the league, and on Sunday, the team suffered an embarrassing blowout loss to the St. Louis Rams, who entered that game with a 6-44 record in their last 50 outings. 

The Redskins are still learning a new system on both sides of the ball and uncertainty looms at several positions, where players’ roles and playing time have changed with little explanation. But the Redskins insist that they remain confident that they are on the right track, and this year’s 1-2 start -- which very well could be 0-3 had the ball not bounced their way against Dallas, or 3-0 had they capitalized on third-quarter leads against both Houston and St. Louis -- is far from “same-old, same-old.”

They are, however, in for more of an uphill climb than they may have expected when they entered the season after what was classified as a strong training camp.

“It’s a process, obviously,” cornerback DeAngelo Hall said. “I don’t think we understand fully what they want us to do. Like I said, in training camp, maybe there was a false sense of security. We’re going up against offenses that have been together for a minute, their coordinators are coaching them up on what they need to do to beat us. For some reason, we were just a step behind [against St. Louis].”

A week after fuming over the game-tying touchdown catch that Houston’s Andre Johnson hauled in, and saying that from that point on, he wanted the assignment of covering the top receiver on opposing teams, Hall struggled on Sunday against the Rams.

He at times blew coverages of Mark Clayton and Danny Amendola, and also neglected tight end Daniel Fells in the back of the end zone for a touchdown. But Hall pointed the finger at following the loss.
It’s hard to make a play in man-to-man. You’ve got one slip, one false step, one thing that you can get wrong and it’s a big play,“ Hall said. “I had a couple of those. Slipped twice and they were big plays. … those things can’t happen. I can’t lose my feet if we’re going to play man.”

The Redskins on offense have managed to move the ball when going to wide receiver Santana Moss and tight end Chris Cooley, but that’s about it. And their run game had produced only 107 total yards entering the St. Louis matchup. Then after appearing to find life and producing 115 first-half yards on the ground, Washington had only one rushing yard in the second half.
Moss cautioned that he and his teammates must keep working,

“We’re not as bad as we might think we are. I think it’s just because we’re losing. We just need to get it together,” Moss said. “Anyone would know you’re not going to be a new team together the first three games together and come out in midseason form. … We just have to do what we do. Regardless if it’s good or bad, we just have to keep pushing and then eventually, we better be saying, ‘Look where we came from.’ but it’s not going to be easy.

"We didn’t come into this thing saying, we’re going to jump out here, new coach, new offense, new quarterback and we’re going to roll though this season like it’s nothing," Moss continued. "But we also know we’re making it harder on ourselves because of the mistakes. These games that we lost could’ve been a lot easier on ourselves. We put it on ourselves. So, no doubt I’m going to say we’ve got to do better.”