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This is why you keep watching.
Out of nowhere, out of a Washington losing streak that threatened to turn the rest of this season to ashes and dust, the Redskins and Cowboys played one of the more entertaining games in their long rivalry Sunday.
- Thomas Boswell
- Columnist
Redskins-Cowboys: This is why you watch
Why do these two teams care so much the instant they see the opposite uniform? Why do they dislike each other so much and raise their intensity to a level usually associated with January?
Who knows, but it happened again.
A game billed as boring turned out to be an overtime thriller. A Redskins team assumed to be deceased acted like it hadn’t received its death certificate yet. A contending Dallas team coming off a 37-point win and feeling, perhaps, a bit too good about itself, blew a 10-0 lead and watched the Redskins score with 14 seconds to play to force overtime. Then, the ’Boys watched helplessly as a 52-yard field goal attempt by the Redskins’ Graham Gano slid wide to the right early in the extra period.
With the Redskins now 3-7 after six straight defeats, and more injuries arriving every week, this 27-24 loss will eventually blend into what will probably be remembered as a gray season of rebuilding and slow learning.
But this game, this one balmy fall afternoon, truly gleamed with passion. Some games show the worst in a sport or its players. This battle showed a fair slice of what’s best in the NFL and in the tough and fanatically committed men who play in it. All that talk about playing for pride, about learning to despise a team you face twice a year and about wanting to play your best for your fans — it’s not always just talk.
For the last three weeks, the Redskins could hardly have been a more dismal team to watch. They knew it. They showed up Sunday anyway. Perhaps best of all, when everyone wanted to congratulate them on their effort afterward, they were too disgusted to accept any of it.
“I’d rather talk about silver linings on Wednesday,” quarterback Rex Grossman said.
That bitter taste stays in the mouth because pros know what it actually feels like — the risk, the pain, the injury — to play in a game that starts off like a routine boxing match, then suddenly turns personal, and finally evolves into a brawl with everything in play except the ring stools.
Afterward, linebacker London Fletcher wore a shin-high boot on his sprained ankle. He hurt it last week, then played — spectacularly — through the pain all afternoon. Think about this stat line for “a hobbled man,” as Fletcher called himself: 16 tackles, including two for losses, and a 12-yard sack, a forced fumble and another quarterback hit.
“You play for those moments. I’m disappointed we didn’t get a victory. But I enjoyed myself in that Redskins-Cowboys rivalry game,” said Grossman whose numbers were almost identical to Dallas quarterback Tony Romo’s — 25 for 38 for 289 yards, two touchdowns, an interception and a four-yard touchdown run on a quarterback draw.
“Fighting [beside] my teammates, the support from the fans. . . . It was a very interesting time. . . . This rivalry, it is the best in the NFL. Extremely, extremely disappointed, but we fought our [butts] off.”
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