Redskins make statement with road win at Philly

What a difference a few weeks can make. Following the Washington Redskins’ opening game, where the offense’s extremely inept performance overshadowed a decent showing by the defense, many were questioning whether first year head coach Jim Zorn was in over his head. He’s now the toast of the NFL after his team has rolled off 4 straight wins, including a win over hated rival Dallas in Texas Stadium and most recently over the division rival Philadelphia Eagles on the road.

The 23-17 win over the Eagles gave the Redskins road victories over both Philly and Dallas for the first time since 2005 and allowed them to keep pace with the Cowboys in the competitive NFC East. While they won’t get a rematch with the undefeated NY Giants—who beat them in week 1—until November they’re in a great position to keep up their winning ways with their next three games against St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit who are a combined 1-11 on the year.

Basically, it was “old school” Redskins football: opportunistic defense combined with a punishing rushing attack that enabled the team to play a possession game. While the Eagles did muster 196 yards through the air the Redskins dominated the ground game outrushing Philadelphia 203 to 58. More importantly, they took care of the football by not committing a turnover and holding a 34:45 to 25:15 time of possession advantage. Smart, possession oriented football has been the Redskins ticket to victory this season—in fact, they’ve yet to commit a turnover in five games this year.

Once again, the catalyst of the Redskins attack was running back Clinton Portis who accounted for 145 yards on the ground plus a rushing TD. It was his second consecutive 100+ yard rushing game, the first time in three years he’s accomplished that in back to back contests. Until Sunday, Philadelphia was leading the NFL in rushing defense allowing just 53.8 yards per game.

While the Redskins will try to extend their winning streak against three of the league’s bottom feeders in the coming weeks, the Eagles are quickly finding themselves with their backs against the wall and their season on the line. Making matters worse was the announcement that running back Brian Westbrook suffered broken ribs in the loss, after sitting out the week before with an ankle injury. At least Philadelphia can look forward to a fairly agreeable scheduling stretch in the coming weeks as they travel to San Francisco, host Atlanta and then head to Seattle for a game against the struggling Seahawks.