The Guiding Light and a Long, Dark Night

"This is a soap opera to its fullest!" New York Giants linebacker Antonio Pierce proclaimed about teammate Tiki Barber's powerhouse performance Saturday night.

Tiki singlehandedly carried his team to a 34-28 victory over the hapless Washington Redskins.

Barber, postponing his broadcasting career by at least one week, carried 23 times for 234 yards and three touchdowns.

"There are certain things that motivate you, push you," Barber said. "It's partly because of the circumstances of this game, my last one. Most important, we had to win to keep playing."

Absent an unlikely confluence of events, the win gets the Giants a post-season playoff berth.

After the game,Giants head coach Tom Coughlin was his usual gracious self. When asked whether he was coaching for his job, Coughlin said, "We won a game, and we got into the playoffs. Is that good enough?" He then slammed a locker door on Eli Manning's hand and retreated into a bathroom stall where he could be heard repeatedly head-butting the toilet seat and screaming, "Respect my authoritah!!!"

Okay, this is the part where we are supposed to dryly recite some statistics about what the Washington Redskins did in the game.

Maybe we can, but dammit, I can't!

This is my team, and they killed me slowly this year.

They weren't even horrible enough to be memorable. When I try to remember this season, one craptastically mediocre game melds into the next and I'm left with a nagging headache and an unexplained urge to wage war on a small, defenseless country. (Note to NFL: consider moving Redskins out of our Nation's Capitol.)

For me, the Redskins are the football equivalent of a really crummy relationship you just can't quite end. You know, one where the the guy's okay, sorta, and you're having a reasonably decent time the first few dates, though he keeps picking kinda cheap restaurants and the conversation's never that interesting but you stick with it cuz all your friends say "he has lots of potential" and then one night when you're out he suddenly doubles over with food poisoning from a bad all-you-can-eat popcorn shrimp and your place is close by and he looks at you with those puppy-dog eyes and next thing you know you you're applying cold compresses to his head while he's puking into your new Pottery Barn leather wastebasket and you leave the room for a minute only to return and discover he's found the remote and is watching "Hitler's Last Days" on The History Channel and sipping ginger ale REALLY loud and belching and you find yourself fantasizing about ways to off him -

(shake it off, Panger, shake it off....)

Late in the fourth quarter, the Redskins rallied. Thanks to Jason Campbell's second touchdown pass of the game with 3:22 to play, they came within six tantalizing points of taking the lead.

When the Giants obliged by squandering three consecutive downs, the Skins regained possession and the chance to win.

We dared to hope.

Silly, silly us.

Campbell proceeded to quickly muff four passes and the Giants took over on downs. Game over.

And with that, Washington ended its season with a 5-11 record.

5-11. Inconceivable.


Joe Gibbs was reflective about his annus horribilis, the worst of his career:

"A long, hard, tough year for us. [Washington Redskins owner] Dan [Snider] and I were in there talking right now. We're going to start with me and him, and spend quite a bit of time together, starting tomorrow. I think I know quite a bit about some of the things I want to do, and some of the things we want to try to
fix."

You know I love you, Joe, but ya think you might have had that discussion, I don't know, three friggin' months ago?

Oh and by the way, that trick play by Randle El... Sweet. Worth every penny of the $8 million signing bonus.

And while we're on the subject, spending a cool two million on Al Saunders and handing him the offensive binder? Man, it sure paid off. Redskins, ranked 15th on offense! Nice work, Al!

And let's not forget, sticking with Mark Brunell weeks after you should have pulled him....Adam Archuleta and Andre Carter... yeah, that helped... helped us rank 30th in the league in defense...

Here. Have some more ginger ale.

What's that, Joe? It tastes bitter, you say?

Just drink it all up.