LANDOVER — Unanswered questions for the Redskins are dwindling, but here’s one that remains: What if there was no end-game tension?
Would Washington know what to do? Would it fold? Or calmly walk onto the field after the final horn to shake hands and pat backs, then enjoy the remainder of a Sunday with family? Could they handle being free of a nerve-rattling end, easing into a win?
Maybe next week they can have a chance to address that. Not now. Not after another cliff-walking to close a game. For the seventh time this season, the Redskins’ postgame mood was determined by seven points or fewer. They have won four of those blood-pressure boosters and tied another.
Sunday, a final sack from Preston Smith released the joy in a 26-20 win against the tumbling Minnesota Vikings. Washington is 5-3-1, churning into the jumbled NFC playoff picture in nail-biting fashion.
The Redskins are aware of the deep breaths needed on a weekly basis. Defensive coordinator Joe Barry flashed a stat this week to his on-again, off-again crew that showed three-quarters of NFL games come down to the final two minutes each week. Such information should be redundant for a team that seems to quake in the knees when well in front then pulls something out when the game is again tight. The Redskins took a 14-0 lead against the Vikings. By halftime, they trailed, 20-16.
“It’s like we just have a mental block,” defensive lineman Ricky Jean Francois said. “When it hit 14, it’s about to get real close for some reason. We just got to get past that. I don’t know what we got to do as players. I don’t know … we got to change the playbook, anything. We’ve got to get past that mental point. Cause next week, I don’t care if Green Bay just lost this game this week, you have a quarterback in the back that can sling that ball every which way across this field.”
A name that quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, will be hearing before next week is “Preston Smith.” Smith walks around framed by the angles of what could be a big deal in the NFL. Stacked in the shoulders, lean in the waist and long in the arms, Smith makes talent assessors salivate. When Junior Galette tore his Achilles tendon in the offseason, it was Smith who appeared positioned to benefit most. Even with Galette, Smith was expected to be pushing toward stardom in his second pro season. Instead, he has slipped silently through the first half of the season with just 1.5 sacks and truncated playing time.
Sunday, when the pressure of the day was mounting and the Vikings were driving in the latter part of the fourth quarter, Smith stuck his black-gloved hand out. He tipped the pass from Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford after dropping into coverage, pulled the ball into his 6-foot-5, 268-pound frame and began heading up the field with his first career interception. He made it 22 yards, then endured joyous screaming in his face on the sideline when he sat down gasping and elated.
“Preston got rock hands,” Redskins linebacker Su’a Craven said. “He one-handed that thing, he hit the quarterback with a little euro-switch-the-ball-up, so he was feeling himself a little too much!”
Smith was not done. He stifled the final tumult of the day with a sack. The Vikings trailed by six points with 11 seconds to play. They lined up for fourth-and-17 at the Redskins’ 28-yard line. One more chance to be nervous, one more opportunity to conclude an oh-so-close afternoon. Smith rumbled in from the right side to take down Bradford. That sent Cravens zooming down the sideline. He celebrated like a man who had lost his mind.
“Hey, man, I’m flipping, I’m falling, I’m getting up screaming, my helmet’s coming off,” Cravens said.
The performance exonerated Smith for a week. Redskins coach Jay Gruden had been riding him in each drill to do better. Every practice, every Sunday, he asked Smith for more. Smith compared the ongoing prodding to Gruden being a jockey and Smith a thoroughbred trying to win a race.
“He’s making sure I’m maximizing my potential,” Smith said.
For a day, he had. It was necessary after the Redskins allowed a 20-0 Minnesota run before halftime. The Vikings did not score again. Four second-half field goals from Washington kicker Dustin Hopkins were sufficient to regain and hold the lead. Two weeks after botching a field-goal attempt for the win in London, Hopkins made all six of his kicks — two extra points and four field goals, including a 50-yard kick to break the 20-20 tie — against Minnesota.
Week after week has been like this. Week 3, Week 5, Week 6, Week 7, Week 8, Sunday. The Redskins have conjured just enough to make their way to five wins. They are starting to look at playoff positioning, which was such a distant thought in the season’s third week, when they stood 0-2 with a road trip to New York on the horizon. Each week is taut. They know nor expect anything else.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.