This One Belongs To the Defense

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Week 16: Redskins 10, Eagles 3

The Redskins deny a final drive by the Eagles, stopping Reggie Brown one foot short of the goal line to preserve a victory at FedEx Field.

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"We lost to Cincinnati and the Rams," said defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin. "But we also lost to the Steelers and Cowboys at home. You have to protect your own field against good teams. That's four games that could have been different."

That's how much optimism this victory brought to a Washington team that, if it had found a way to lose this game, would have entered its final week facing a coast-to-coast trip to play a hot San Francisco team with the fear that its year could end in utter collapse. That's how much one late-season result can swing the mood that surrounds a team and its season.

Now the Redskins, probably kidding themselves to some degree, can talk about how close they were to something special this year. "This is the first time all season that we've had everybody on the defense healthy. This is the unit that we expected to be before the season," said Taylor who, for the first time all year, played like one of the premier stars of the past decade.

The defense, now fifth in the NFL in yardage allowed and sixth in points permitted per game, as well as good work on special teams, were the reasons for this win. Once more, other units took the burden off an offense, held to a sickly 249 yards, that can barely get out of its own way in its first season of the West Coast offense.

"Once we figure out the system and our young guys come along, everything will move faster," said Clinton Portis, who rushed for 70 yards, scored on a one-yard plunge and now has 1,407 yards this season. "We needed this win. We need to finish strong so we can come back next year feeling good about ourselves."

Perhaps the Redskin who feels best about himself at the moment is Fletcher, who has unburdened himself publicly for the first time after a truly special career of crashing tackles (six in this game) as well as nose-for-ball big plays while being the signal-caller and leader of top 10 defenses.

"I don't know if it is because I wasn't a first-round draft pick, I don't do some kind of dance when I make a 10-yard tackle, I don't go out and get arrested," Fletcher said on Thursday after being named as an alternate for the Pro Bowl for the eighth time -- yet never once a Pro Bowler.

"You look at my body of work for 11 years," said Fletcher, who is the leading tackler in the NFL in this decade. "I'm not going out causing a lot of controversy, holding a private meeting with the coordinator saying this, this and this, causing a lot of strife on my team. [So] I don't garner a lot of attention."

Fletcher may have gotten a bit carried away, calling his career "Hall of Fame worthy" and facetiously comparing himself to Susan Lucci, the daytime soap star who finally got an Emmy after being bypassed 18 times.

"Everybody was glad he spoke up," said Griffin. "I should have said something and I didn't. Players like London who are respectful of the game don't get the credit."

Much of the season, Fletcher has spent much of the week with a medical boot so his foot can heal enough to allow him to play on Sundays. Last week, Fletcher finally felt frisky enough to practice. Then, he spent much of the day yesterday shadowing Eagles star Brian Westbrook, who was held to an inconsequential 45 yards rushing on 12 carries, although he added 71 yards on pass receptions, 47 of them on a play when Fletcher wasn't assigned to him.

Throughout this season, the Redskins and their fans have agonized, quite rightly, about the demons that haunted the offense and prevented the Redskins from being a January force. But, as this season winds down, it's time to focus on what the Redskins actually do have: one of the better defenses in the NFL.

Few teams have defensive backs as good as DeAngelo Hall, who has joined Landry, Shawn Springs, Fred Smoot and Carlos Rogers in coverage. Taylor has finally, in Fletcher's words, gotten healthy enough "to be used all over the place, like he was today, coming from different angles."

Now, after this win, which probably ruined the Eagles' season, the Redskins can presumably let out their breath, stop worrying about their coach's status and merely enjoy the end of a decent, though admittedly anti-climactic season.

"Well, at least today we didn't have a disaster on our third [offensive] play," said Zorn, joking about the early turnovers in the previous two games that led to disaster.

"It's our fault," said Zorn of a season with no postseason to follow. "There's a couple more games we're going to look back on and be very frustrated about for years to come. [But] we deserve what we're getting because we didn't earn the right."

When this season is remembered, however, the Redskins defense, and especially that non-Pro Bowler London Fletcher, should be remembered. No matter what the rest of the team may have been, it was one of the best units in the league. And on no day did the defense rise up and deliver a more important victory than this bludgeoning of the Eagles.