By Michael Wilbon
Washington Post Columnist
Monday, October 5, 1998; Page C1

That last Cowboys scoring drive – the 96-yard march without a pass for a touchdown when Dallas wasn't even trying to score but did anyway – is the most embarrassing stain on an embarrassing season. If you can't stop a team that isn't even trying to score, how sorry and no-account are you?

One carry for 96 yards is bad enough, but 11 carries for 96 yards when players on both sides know what's coming is disgraceful. Chris Warren is a fine running back, but he ain't Jim Brown. It's not the simple act of losing that has shamed the Washington Redskins; it's that they are playing like a bunch of losers.

There won't be any playoffs this season – not a wild-card berth, not a division title, perhaps not even respectability. The suspenseful part of this season, even with the Redskins playing in a lousy division such as the NFC East, is over and done. Hard as it is to believe, the Redskins already are playing out the string. It's not just that they're now 0-5, it's that they're not even competitive. They haven't been closer than a touchdown all season. Nothing they've done the last four weeks suggests this team has a pulse.

The 96-yard scoring drive confirmed it doesn't. The Redskins say they didn't quit, haven't and won't. I don't doubt their intentions and sincerity. But actions speak louder than words. And letting a mediocre offensive team – your arch rival, no less – whip your butt on your home field when you have to win a game to keep your season alive suggests not everybody is laying it on the line.

You know what the knock on Norv Turner was coming into training camp? It was that his teams couldn't win the close ones (the Redskins under Turner are 3-14-1 in games decided by three points or fewer). Wouldn't they love to have that problem now that they've lost the last four games by an average of 22? These are the scores the last four weeks: 45-10 to the 49ers, 24-14 to Seattle, 38-16 to Denver and 31-10 to Dallas, and the last score doesn't even count a nullified but nevertheless spectacular Gale Sayers-like punt return for a touchdown by Deion Sanders.

The Redskins are so pathetic now that they get run over by backup players. They were eviscerated yesterday by a quarterback who is a veteran of the World League and the Canadian Football League. While Troy Aikman is out with an injury, Jason Garrett's job is to not screw things up. The same Jason Garrett completed 14 of 17 passes for 169 yards and a touchdown. The Redskins defense made a World League guy look like Joe Montana.

As if that's not bad enough, for the fourth straight week the defense allowed an opposing back to rush for more than 100 yards. But there's a twist! The Cowboys had two guys rush for 100 yards this week, Emmitt Smith and Chris Warren, who came out of sick bay to run wild.

It's easier to pick on the defense because at least the Redskins, on that side of the ball, have bona fide players. But the offense stinks, too, and that's irreparable this season. In fact, you could stand in the locker room, close your eyes, spin around, point your finger and have a 99 percent chance of directing it at somebody who's goofing up.

On defense, starting ends Kenard Lang and Kelvin Kinney are NFL backups. Ken Harvey, an outstanding player for many years, hasn't rushed the passer so far this season and may have lost a step at 33. Cris Dishman was as fine a cover corner as there was in the NFL last year. But at 33, having been beaten badly every week, it's certainly possible he too has lost a step, which is a disaster for a cornerback.

Tackles Dana Stubblefield and Dan Wilkinson haven't justified one bit of the hype, or their huge salaries. It was in total disbelief that I heard Stubblefield say that the Cowboys didn't gain many of their 224 rushing yards by running in his direction. Maybe Stubblefield was knocked on his rear end so much he was oblivious to Smith and Warren stampeding the ground where he should have been. When right guard Everett McIver went out early with an injury, Dallas replaced him with another CFL veteran, Mike Kiselak, who had no NFL experience that amounted to anything but still took care of Stubblefield and Wilkinson as if they were chumps.

On offense, not one Redskins lineman has played well consistently. This isn't coming from a sportswriter, it's coming from scouts and coaches who've studied the Redskins this season. Tre Johnson's moments of brilliance have been undone by mammoth mistakes. Is it a rule that tight end Jamie Asher has to fall down in a heap the moment he catches a pass? Michael Westbrook leads the league in receptions now, but also in incorrectly run pass routes that can get the QB killed, according to the coaches. The quarterbacks, all of them, are backups and not starters for a playoff-caliber team, so it makes little difference whether it's Gus Frerotte or Trent Green or Casey Weldon in the game. The Redskins don't have a quarterback who can make a difference.

Only three players of great significance have played up to the level they're supposed to: Darrell Green, Terry Allen and punter Matt Turk. Okay, and maybe rookie tight end Stephen Alexander, who ought to be in there every down.

The ultimate responsibility in professional sports falls on the shoulders of the head coach and general manager. Many of these players shouldn't be starting on an NFL team with any ambition, which is the fault of both Charley Casserly and Norv Turner. The ones who do belong play as if they don't, which is on Turner. When Turner said in the minutes after the Dallas game, "In most cases we feel we're playing the best people," it was an indictment of himself and Casserly. Unfortunately, it was also the truth. There's little, if any, possibility of dramatically improving this offense this season, based on personnel. Even if they can fix the defense, it'll be too late to reach the playoffs, which everybody with the club agreed was a must this season.

In Year 1 or Year 2 of Turner and Casserly's time together, I was certainly inclined to be patient during the rebuilding effort; San Francisco is the only team in the NFL that hasn't endured an overhaul the last 20 years. But this is Year 5 and will be the fifth year without a trip to the playoffs. Based on what's happened here this year and last – the payoff years in any regime – there's no way I could argue for Turner and Casserly to be here beyond December, unless we see a miraculous turnaround in the final 11 games.

There is a growing chorus to fire one or both right now, but that won't salvage this season. It'll just satisfy the folks who are convinced Turner and Casserly deserve all the blame. But nobody's going to walk onto the Redskins' practice field this week or next or two weeks after that and turn around this team as constituted.

It's so bad, some players feel the best thing that can happen is for the team to get out of town. "These two road games couldn't come at a better time," Dishman said. "I know it sounds crazy, but you go on the road and you get closer as a team."

And if getting closer as a team doesn't work, in a hurry, breaking up the whole thing may be the sad but unavoidable answer.