Redskins Prove That Defense Doesn’t Win Titles
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers are probably the two biggest surprises in the NFL this season. Nothing was expected from the Steelers: After going 6-10 in 2003,most forecasters expected them to finish no better than, say, 5-11. That’s what the Redskins finished at last year, but with Joe Gibbs returning after an 11-year absence, it was simply assumed that the Redskins would finish at least 8-8, and a few – including myself – were bold enough to predict 9-7 and a playoff spot.
After the Steelers’ 16-7 victory over the Redskins in a game that was never as close as the score indicated, Pittsburgh is tied with San Diego for the best record against the point spread (9-2) while Washington is tied with Oakland for dead last against the spread (3-8).
The disparate fortunes of these two teams is all the more curious because they boast two of the best defenses in the NFL this year. Going into yesterday’s game, Pittsburgh was no. 1 overall in fewest yards allowed, 253 per game, while Washington was second, allowing just 279. If it’s true, as the TV pundits say, that defense wins championships, then what could possibly account for the spectacular difference between the Steelers and Redskins?
If yesterday’s game was any indication, the difference was between a good offense and an absolutely wretched one. The Redskins have scored the fewest points of any team in the league, and have yet to score three touchdowns in a game this year.
Before the season, much was made of how smart Gibbs was to swap cornerback Champ Bailey for Denver running back Clinton Portis; now, every other caller on Washington-area sports shows seems to think it was a bad trade. In truth, the Washington secondary has played quite well with free agent Shawn Springs replacing Bailey at D-back, and Portis, though a disappointment on paper, has done about as well as could have been expected, carrying the ball 244 times for 945 yards this season.
Fans have harped on Portis’s yards per carry average – 3.9, a yard less than he averaged his two previous seasons – and the fact that’s he’s scored only two touchdowns. But it’s hard to rack up big yardage when opposing teams have five- and even six-man fronts keying on you (as Pittsburgh sometimes did yesterday), and it’s tough to score rushing touchdowns when you can’t get inside your opponent’s 20-yard line.
Portis was hurting yesterday and carried only six times, while Ladell Betts carried eight. But it didn’t matter who got the carries; as good as Pittsburgh’s rushing defense is and as bad as Washington’s passing offense is, not even Jim Brown and Gale Sayers could have rushed for 50 yards yesterday.
What the Redskins should have recognized from the beginning is that any trade bait or cap money they had to spare should have gone for a better passer than either Mark Brunell (who, at age 33, moves in the pocket with the agility of a tackle dummy) or Patrick Ramsey (who is now in this third NFL season and has thrown as many interceptions as TD passes).Together Brunell and Ramsey have combined to give the Redskins the lowest team passer rating in the NFL.
What made Gibbs think he could win with these two? Arrogance, perhaps? Having won three Super Bowls with three different quarterbacks? Did Gibbs think that it didn’t matter who was taking snaps so long as he was calling the plays?
When you can’t pass and opposing defenses know it, they will assign single coverage to your wideouts and put everyone else up on the line, first plugging the running lanes and then pouring into your backfield on virtually every down. That’s what happened to the Redskins yesterday.
The closest thing Washington has to a deep threat at receiver is Rod Gardner, who came into the game with five touchdowns and an average of 13.6 yards per catch. The Steelers alternated with veteran cornerback Deshea Townsend on first and second down and then super fast rookie Ricardo Colclough on third-and-long. This tactic effectively took Gardner out of the game, holding him to one catch for 11 yards.
Pittsburgh’s other corner, Chad Scott, was not thought to be fast enough to contain the Redskins’ most prolific receiver, Laveranues Coles, but Scott did a fine job of keeping Coles in front of him. Aside from one desperation 17-yard completion in the third quarter, Coles got nothing but short “gimmees.”
The Washington offense never came close to completing a long pass or breaking a long run all day. By the fourth quarter, the Steelers seemed to have almost the entire defense up on the line of scrimmage; they sacked Ramsey five times and deflected four passes at the line. It would be easy to write this off as a strong performance against a weak offense, but the Steelers did almost exactly the same thing against the NFC’s best offensive team, the Eagles, in Week 9. In fact, the Redskins had one more net yard passing against the Steelers than the Eagles did (105 to 104).
The Skins’ defense, for their part, played a gutsier game than one might expect from a team with no playoff hopes. Blitzing recklessly, sometimes with the safeties, Washington came closer than anyone else all season to containing Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. But the rookie was able to hit on five passes for 79 yards to wide receivers Hines Ward and Antwaan Randall El, building a 13-0 lead at halftime. After that the Steelers could afford to play it close to the vest, and running back Jerome Bettis racked up 31 carries on the day.
By the fourth quarter, you could see the Skins’ defensive backs and linebackers starting to sag from exhaustion, and with good reason, as they had been out on the field for just under 35 minutes. This was no exception: Going into yesterday’s game, the Redskins were dead last in the league in time of possession on offense, averaging 25 minutes per game. The Steelers, on the other hand, are fifth in the league in time of possession at around 34 minutes.
When you boil it down, the Redskins’ defenders have had to spend nearly nine more minutes on the field per game than the Steelers and had only given up 26 more yards per game. If defense really won championships, the Redskins would currently be top-seeded in the race for the Super Bowl. As it stands, their defense would have good case to sue their offense for non-support.