This Time, a Game Was All They Lost

Neither he nor Portis, who rushed for 52 yards on 20 carries and often ran into instead of away from pursuit, had their best games on the final day of this unfinished fable.

This wasn't supposed to be how this season ended for Moss, the impish wide receiver who quieted the loudest mob in the NFL with a touchdown catch to complete a stirring comeback from 13-0 down. When Moss pulled in that 30-yard post route from Collins in the fourth quarter -- folding his arms in mock defiance, standing for a good 30 seconds at the back of the end zone, pointing to the heavens -- another emotional victory was the salve we thought he needed.

Same goes for Portis, who trudged slowly to the sideline near the final moments of a game Joe Gibbs's team came amazingly close to stealing in the fourth quarter.

A compact and often complete rusher the past month, Portis began cutting across the grain in the second half, reading his blocks better, finding nooks and crannies in Seattle's defense where once there were none. It had all the earmarkings of another spine-tingling day for a group of players who should come to be known as Team Tragedy after Sean Taylor's death.

But somehow, they could look back today and see from whence they and their teammates came the past tumultuous month. Moss and Portis, Taylor's closest friends on the team, understood the truth most of us could not fathom:

The Redskins probably weren't supposed to be here on Saturday, playing in an NFC first-round playoff game that had to unimaginable after Taylor was killed in late November.

The common theme throughout their surreal four-game winning streak was context, how many more important things remain larger than dissecting a postseason loss. So if that perspective has truly been gained within the organization, that's how it should be taken: as a loss, period.

It would have been one of the more incredible sports stories of the new millennium had they kept going in the playoffs in memory of Taylor, but it didn't happen.

The Seahawks showed themselves to be a more resilient team with their backs to the wall and deserve to go on; Washington doesn't. End of story. End of season.

Go ahead, take Shaun Suisham to task for missing a chip-shot field goal. Knock Collins for leaving the ball up there too long a few times or Chris Cooley, whose one-handed catch was pure Pro Bowl, for letting that ball touch the ground near the goal line with his team leading 14-13 and having every ounce of momentum on its side.

Fine. But don't disparage the turnaround, what it took to rebound from such a calamitous, awful circumstance such as losing a teammate in the middle of the season.

The argument surrounding this team heading to the playoffs: What triggered the turnaround? Was it the emotion of losing a teammate leading to a more focused, passionate unit? Was it Gibbs intuitively knowing what his team needed? Or was it simply Shawn Springs returning that interception against Chicago last month to the 21-yard line and Collins finding the most unlikely target, Todd Yoder, for, yes, a 21-yard touchdown before halftime?