Denver's Darrien Gordon returned this interception 55 yards for a touchdown Sunday. (Reuters)

By Mark Maske
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 28, 1998; Page D1

The calendar hasn't turned to October and already the Washington Redskins' season of high hopes appears to be slipping away. Even without quarterback John Elway, the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos raced to an early lead on a steamy afternoon yesterday at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium and never looked back, defeating the Redskins, 38-16.

The refrain was all too familiar to the Redskins, who made numerous mistakes on offense, defense and special teams, slipped out of contention by the middle of the third quarter and were booed off the field by the remnants of a home crowd of 71,880.

The Redskins, as they have done in each of their four games, crumbled after halftime, as their record fell to 0-4. The Redskins acknowledge their season will be a failure if they don't reach the playoffs, and only one NFL team – the 1992 San Diego Chargers – has regrouped from an 0-4 beginning to qualify for the postseason.

"It's rock bottom," Redskins wide receiver Leslie Shepherd said. "It's 0-and-4. You always say, 'Don't panic. Don't worry.' Well, panic. Worry. We've got to get out of it."

The Broncos got 119 rushing yards from running back Terrell Davis and a pair of touchdown passes by Bubby Brister, who started at quarterback after Elway felt tightness in his strained right hamstring during pregame warmups. Denver won a game in which Elway didn't play for the first time since November 1989 and became the first defending Super Bowl champion since the '90 San Francisco 49ers to begin a season 4-0.

Still, the Redskins beat themselves as much as they were beaten, following the same script in their defeats to the New York Giants, 49ers and Seattle Seahawks.

"The Denver Broncos are a fine football team . . . [but] they're not the issue," Redskins Coach Norv Turner said. "We knew we had to play our best to have a chance to stay in the game.

"We're the issue," Turned continued. "Right now, it doesn't matter who we're playing. We can say it's the San Francisco 49ers [or] it's the Denver Broncos. It's us. If we continue to make the kind of errors we're making right now, we will continue to have the same results."

Said linebacker Ken Harvey: "I don't know how deep the hole can get before you can't dig out of it, but it's getting there. . . . You can't keep saying after every game, 'Maybe the next game.' We need to start winning."

The Redskins fumbled four times yesterday and lost one, and quarterback Trent Green threw a pair of interceptions – the first of which was returned 55 yards by Broncos cornerback Darrien Gordon for a touchdown that gave Denver a 17-0 lead early in the second quarter. The Redskins committed eight penalties, including one that wiped out a 39-yard, first-quarter field goal by place kicker Cary Blanchard. Blanchard, the Redskins' third kicker in three weeks, proceeded to miss his next attempt, from 44 yards, that followed the illegal-formation call.

Davis became the third running back in three weeks, following San Francisco's Garrison Hearst and Seattle's Ricky Watters, to run for more than 100 yards against the Redskins, and the Broncos ended the competitive portion of the day with a pair of third-quarter touchdowns that extended their lead to 31-7.

The Redskins have been outscored, 56-10, in the third quarter this season.

"I know it gets old to hear it, but it's another game of missed opportunities," said Green, who completed 19 of 31 passes for 252 yards – 75 of them on a "this game is over" fourth-quarter touchdown to wide receiver Michael Westbrook.

Brister – in his first NFL start since 1995, when he was with the New York Jets – didn't try to pull off any Elway-like heroics but stayed within the offense and was efficient. He completed 16 of 24 passes for 180 yards and did not throw an interception. The Redskins outgained the Broncos by 22 yards, 387 to 365, but Denver didn't have a turnover.

"It is good to show people that I can still play," Brister said. "It feels good playing with a team like this. It's the first time in my career I've ever really had this caliber of talent on a team. This is a machine, and I was glad to have the opportunity to run it."

Denver wasted no time moving in front, going 81 yards on its first possession for a 7-0 advantage. Wide receiver Rod Smith took a handoff from Brister and went 37 yards on an end-around play and Davis ran for 11 yards on third and five from the Redskins 30-yard line. Brister rolled out to his right and found wide receiver Ed McCaffrey, who beat Redskins cornerback Cris Dishman to get open along the sideline in the end zone for a 19-yard touchdown.

The Redskins put together a nice drive that stalled when wide receiver Chris Thomas dropped Green's third-down pass, and Blanchard missed to the left after the penalty.

Denver moved smoothly down the field again but had to settle for Jason Elam's 37-yard field goal and a 10-0 lead 1 minute 25 seconds into the second quarter. Green made his first big mistake of the afternoon on the Redskins' next possession. Under pressure from blitzing Denver linebacker Bill Romanowski, Green tried to get the ball to Shepherd along the sideline. But his throw had no zip on it. Gordon, Green's teammate on the '93 Chargers, stepped in front of Shepherd for the interception and eased his way down the sideline for the touchdown.

"Maybe in that situation, I should just eat it and take the sack," Green said. "Obviously I wish I had that one back."

The Redskins didn't wilt, at least not yet. Running back Terry Allen got 31 of his 86 rushing yards for the day on their next drive. Green connected with rookie tight end Stephen Alexander for completions of 18 yards and 25 yards on consecutive plays, and Allen weaved into the end zone from five yards out to get the Redskins to 17-7 midway through the second quarter.

It could have been closer at the intermission. The Redskins reached the Denver 25 just over a minute before the half. But Green threw another interception under pressure. He shoveled the ball toward Allen as he was hit high by Denver defensive tackle Keith Traylor and low by linebacker Keith Burns. The ball never got past the line of scrimmage, and Broncos defensive tackle Trevor Pryce made a juggling interception.

"We were in field goal range, and I wasn't going to take a sack," Green said.

The Broncos sealed the verdict on their first two possessions of the second half. Vaughn Hebron provided a 44-yard kickoff return to open the third quarter, and four plays later Davis went 42 yards virtually untouched for the touchdown. The Redskins had to punt, and Denver went 79 yards to make it 31-7. McCaffrey beat Dishman again for a 41-yard gain on a pass from Brister, who followed three plays later with a rollout to the right to hit wide-open fullback Howard Griffith for a 14-yard touchdown.

That sent many fans scurrying for the exits, just as they did when the Redskins lost their home opener to the 49ers by 35 points 13 days before. The only consolation for the Redskins is that the brutal September portion of their schedule is over, and Dallas, 2-2, once feared like the Redskins, comes to town next Sunday to begin a string of apparently winnable games.

"This comes down to a personal deal now," Turner said. "This is about what people are made of. . . . I hope our players are tired of it. Until we find a way to solve our problems, this is us."

Said Green: "Everyone is frustrated. The players are the most frustrated. There were high expectations for this team from the people surrounding the team, but there were even higher expectations by the people on the team."