Enough Alarm For a Wakeup Call

You think Bill Belichick would be doing a lengthy halftime chat with a local TV station as he did Saturday night if this junk mattered as much as it will in two weeks? Al Saunders, boss of the offense, said as much the other day. He told The Post' s Jason La Canfora that he has used perhaps 2 percent of the 700-page playbook.

Two percent is good if we're talking milk. But offense? The Redskins haven't tried to run any offense and I don't blame Saunders one bit. People who know about such things say Antwaan Randle El is going to be a big part of the offense, and the Redskins have barely had him on the field in the preseason.

And historically, I've seen too many Joe Gibbs-coached teams look blah in the preseason, then light it up in the real season. In fact, during the Joe Gibbs I era the Redskins went 0-4 in the 1982 preseason and 1-3 in the 1991 preseason. And guess what they did both years? Uh, they won the Super Bowl.

Whenever the Gibbs-coached Redskins have gone .500 or worse in preseason, they've gone on to make the playoffs. This includes last season when they were was 1-3 in the summer and went to the second round of the playoffs when it counted. Asked about the lack of correlation, even Gibbs said, "It's hard to figure and put your finger on."

So, I'm hesitant to believe what I think I see. The Indianapolis Colts were 0-4 in the preseason last year and went 14-2. And let's not forget Steve Spurrier, who ran up the score on everybody one preseason -- you see where that got him.

But I was cautioned by NFL scouts who have seen the Redskins on film or in person the last three weeks that there are some red flags.

They emphasize that the final scores of these games are meaningless, but the starters being so feeble is not. Scouts say that the starters for the Panthers, Eagles, Buccaneers, Seahawks, Giants -- among others -- have looked good in their limited appearances. Quite a few teams, the scouts caution, are showing progress each week that the Redskins haven't shown. Mark Brunell completed only 7 of 16 passes for 51 yards. And there's the problem of those injuries to Clinton Portis and Springs. Renaldo Wynn might have to be added to that list depending on how his sprained ankle feels after suffering what he felt was a low block.

You could feel the panic move all the way up I-95 through Northern Virginia and into Maryland, all the way north to Exit 9 for 2.8 miles, right into Gillette Stadium. No doubt, a good number of folks in and around Washington want to postpone the regular season right now, push it to the beginning of October or later.

But the reality is that the Redskins have two weeks and one preseason game to get themselves into game-day form. If they don't make it, those already in a panic will say the preseason ineptitude was proof the team was doomed. If the Redskins light up the rebuilding Vikings on national TV two weeks from Monday, folks like me who are totally dismissive of the preseason will say we should never have paid so much attention, that the preseason is as pointless as the Redskins' starters right now. With preseason football so wildly unreliable as a predictor of regular season success, this truly is a case of "only time will tell."