Yard Work Needed

That fumble was especially unnerving. It gave the Giants the ball at the Washington 44-yard line in a deadlocked game with 7 minutes 33 seconds to play. After a third-down pass interference penalty on Shawn Springs kept the drive alive, 6-foot-5 wide receiver Plaxico Burress caught what appeared to be a harmless short hitch pass in the left flat; however, the defense had been on the field far too long.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

As running back Rock Cartwright said: "If you don't give the defense a chance to rest . . . eventually something is going to break. And it did."

What broke was the tackling of defensive backs Carlos Rogers and Sean Taylor who both ended up missing Burress as he broke free for what proved to be the game-winning 33-yard touchdown pass from Eli Manning.

Almost every memory from the second half of this game will bring a Redskins shudder. In Washington's final drive, the Redskins began from the New York 35-yard line with 2:19 to play. Campbell completed passes of 25, 18, 15 and 20 yards on that drive -- a total of 78 yards. Yet the Redskins ended up one yard shy. How is that possible? Center Casey Rabach had both a holding and a false start penalty, one of them negating a long gain. Campbell also took a loss after fumbling a snap in the shotgun when the ball simply hit him in the chest when he wasn't paying attention.

Those foul-ups were simply emblematic of an entire afternoon of mistakes at the worst time. "We just have to learn to finish," defensive tackle Phillip Daniels said. "Go up the first half, 17-3, and end up losing the game -- that's crazy. Right now, I'm speechless. You don't get a second opportunity in this league.

"We're still a good team," added Daniels.

That is almost true. The Redskins are close to being a good team. But that has been the case several times in the last decade, yet often those teams self-destructed, often beginning the process with a defeat much like yesterday's brutal loss.

The Redskins' final four plays will be scrutinized hardest. First down was used to stop the clock with a spike because the Redskins were out of timeouts, having used them all in the Giants' previous possession. Should one timeout have been saved, letting the two-minute warning stop the clock instead? In the final 51 seconds, just one timeout could have prevented a general lack of poise by the offense. "Everything was happening so fast," said Betts. It always does. Except for truly polished teams.

On second down, the Redskins called a pass in the flat to 284-pound fullback Mike Sellers, seldom used as a pass receiver. Campbell threw slightly behind him and Sellers dropped the ball. On a team with so many highly paid offensive weapons, including recently re-signed star tight end Chris Cooley, it was curious to see the ball aimed at Sellers and handed to Betts twice in the final minute.

"We spiked the ball, then we called what we thought were our [three] best plays," Gibbs said.

Nevertheless, almost nothing about the final 2:19 seemed like what Gibbs has, in the past, called "a smooth operation" on offense. Part of that is the herky-jerky rhythm associated with the development of any young quarterback like Campbell. But when, since Gibbs returned, have the Redskins looked half as smooth as they always seemed to be in Gibbs's first term?

Brutal defeats late in a season can be killing. Loses that leave a team at 2-1, facing the Lions next, should not be devastating. With two weeks to meditate on their sins, the Redskins may emerge a tougher team.

But they won't be 3-0. And they should have been.