The Kid Shows His Stuff

"I think back to that Dallas game last year, where I had Santana and missed him by one inch," he said, of the Redskins' last-minute loss at Texas Stadium. "Next play, Terence Newman intercepts it. Same thing happened in Tampa. Driving at the end. Interception, Ronde Barber. To get it this time feels real good. It's the kind of ending that's going to help me grow."

If this does not go down as the defining moment of Campbell's career in Washington, as the game-winning deep ball that gave him the confidence needed to make a team contend, it at least validates Zorn's trust in him and shows for now that he gets it.

The read-and-react offense. The magnitude of the moment. All of it.

Operating from a shotgun much of the afternoon, Campbell didn't just use nine receivers to throw for 321 yards, often going to second and third options (Moss, by the way, was the second read after Antwaan Randle El was covered), he had what Zorn called a "command at the line of scrimmage" unseen in the transition from Joe "Jumbo Package" Gibbs.

He displayed it on the game-winning play, making Ladell Betts move from his tailback position around to the end so he could pick up a possible safety blitz. "A good, smart call on his part," guard Randy Thomas said.

The game actually changed when Campbell hit Chris Cooley, who runs like a beer truck with a broken parking brake and who this team really cannot get the ball enough to, on a 23-yard buttonhook in the middle of the field. It was second and 22 and Campbell had just taken an ugly sack back at his 6-yard line with less than 11 minutes left.

"The biggest play of the game if you think about where we were," Campbell said.

What about the next play, when he moved away from pressure, wheeled right and threw across his body, 17 yards to Randle El? Very money.

"How about that fourth and two?" Zorn said, referring to the play on which Campbell found Moss on a quick slant to essentially end New Orleans' chance of getting the ball back. "That was an excellent throw."

It was after that play that Chris Samuels came up to Campbell, who said Samuels told him, "You can do some great things by the grace of God. We were always behind you. Don't worry about what people are saying about you."

Someone once said, "Failure is not a person; it's an event," the idea being that winners become winners not because they were born that way, but rather because they lost enough until they learned how to get it right.

Never had Campbell embodied the thought more when that 67-yard spiral with the perfect arc took flight -- any higher and it would have not gone far enough; lower and it would have been knocked away or intercepted.