Game Girl

Guess he finally knocked the rust off, huh? Looks like RGIII is back to form, thankfully, because it turns out that as RGIII goes, so goes the Redskins season. For real.

Yesterday, he certainly looked like the mobile, agile, quick-thinking, accurate, monster athlete we got to know well last season, didn't he? And the team definitely responded to his renewed energy and enthusiasm. It's infectious. (Just ask TE Jordan Reed...)

Gone were the wobbly throws, the sacks, and the pronounced limping (which was really starting to make me uncomfortable). In their place came record-setting rushing yards, one incredible bomb of a pass to Aldrick Robinson for a touchdown in the end zone, and lots of offense. LOTS of offense.

Yesterday's team looked ready to play. They looked intense and fired-up. They looked sharp and efficient. They looked, finally, like the team we expected to see coming off a play-off run last season. OK, there are still issues to be fixed, namely, the special teams, which I couldn't even bring myself to blog about last week after that atrocious loss to Dallas. And the defense is still pretty inconsistent. AND Brandon Merriweather has GOT to get a clue.

But compared to the team we were watching in early September, this one looks legit. Thanks to RGIII's ability to heal both his body and his mind so he isn't afraid to get hit anymore, our team might just be able to turn things around. And with Philly's season starting to unravel and the Giants in the basement of the NFC East, our chances of making the playoffs don't look quite as remote as they did a few weeks back.

The growing pains from the first few weeks were painful, but necessary. There probably wasn't any way around it - RGIII was going to have to get out on that field and test the knee at game-speed for a few weeks before he could really begin to get back into game shape. Losing a few games in the process was the price we had to pay, unfortunately, but with the way our division is shaping up, this probably wasn't the worst year for him to have to learn on the job.

Let's see what we can do against those Broncos...