| Page 2 of 2 < |
Redskins' Run Finished in a Flash
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
After the game, and one final Seattle touchdown on an interception return that made the final margin of defeat 21 points -- the same number as Taylor's uniform jersey -- a crowd of reporters gathered outside the Washington locker room. When the door finally opened and Coach Joe Gibbs emerged, he was overrun by a mob of people carrying notebooks, microphones and television cameras. He momentarily fell back into the corridor. Then pushed forward.
A camera crew from NBC trapped him near the door. "This game was a little like our season," Gibbs told the camera crew when they asked about the day's emotional swings.
He walked down a long tunnel and into a small room set up for interviews. "I haven't been part of a group that took more pride in the way they played," he said in his news conference.
Which was something the Redskins players seemed to be trying to say themselves.
"We were never as close as we were this year," said Randle El, standing in the middle of the locker room. "A lot of it had to do with the loss of Sean."
"This is as close as I felt to a team ever," defensive end Phillip Daniels said.
Before Daniels finished pulling off his uniform, he was met by Gregg Williams, the team's assistant head coach for defense. Together they talked quietly, a conversation Daniels later said was "coach-player stuff" about "keeping the team together."
And even as the players packed away the most trying season of their lives, there was a notion that they didn't want to let go of that feeling in the locker room beneath Qwest Field. Some spoke of trying to wrest home-field advantage for a similar game next season should the playoffs come. Williams met reporters outside the locker room, near where Gibbs talked to the NBC crew, and said the next goal is to win a division title, something that would guarantee a postseason game at home.
But even in the fresh emotion of the loss they knew the looming months will be complicated. Keeping a team together is never simple; many players in the room will not return next year. There is no certainty Gibbs will be back himself. Within weeks, the makeup of the Redskins might look very different.
And yet Saturday evening, no one talked about such things as the players filed from the locker room and toward the waiting buses. The memories were still too fresh of the season they will never forget.
