QUICK REDSKINS WRAPUP

Offense:Â The offensive line continued its preseason malaise and struggled to consistently make room for the backs and to provide Brunell a pocket in which to set up. They didnâ€™t give up any sacks, which is good, but Brunell had, I believe, 5 throw aways.Â Brunell wasnâ€™t real sharp, but you canâ€™t pin the blame entirely on him.Â Portis had some nice carries, but he only got 10.Â Antwaan Randle-El was by far the bright spot on offense as he and Santana Moss made some plays. Playing Waldo was Brandon Lloyd, who was stoned by Fred Smoot all game long.

Defense:Â No pressure what-so-ever from the front four which conspired to make the defensive backs look bad. Actually, Archuleta and Rogers looked bad all by themselves.Â If it werenâ€™t for two drops, the Vikes would have won in a blowout.Â No one on defense could stop the Vikings on third down. That was the killer. Linebackers canâ€™t take any blame here. They were good.

Special Teams:Â Up and Down. Missed FG to tie the game in the waning minutes is, well, pretty lousy.Â Sure, Hall made three previous kicks, all from 27 yards and less, but the first two I bet would have missed from 37. Frost, the punter and kickoff â€œspecialistâ€ continues to defy logic. And by that I mean itâ€™s illogical that he has a job in the National Football League.Â One punt was downed inside the two yard line, but one kickoff was handled at the 18. Just canâ€™t have that inconsistency.

Coaching:Â If anyone wants to make the argument that Joe Gibbs can no longer game coach, all you need to do is look at the last two and a half minutes of the game (right now millions of Redskins fans are doing their Fred Sanford imitation by holding their heart looking toward the sky in anticipation ofÂ a heart attack at the mere notion someone could question Joe Gibbs).Â With three timeouts remaining, the Vikings in FG range, and the clock under 2:30, the Redskins called time out (it was second down and very short).Â First mistake. If you keep your timeouts, you will save clock when you get the ball back after the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout (in some circles, this is still refered to as the 2 Minute Warning).

Second mistake then was in not taking the other two time outs before the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout! If you take the first one, you HAVE to take the next two. By simply using all three time outs before the 2 Minute Commercial Timeout, the Redskins would have saved about 10 seconds.Â That would have been enough time to throw one more ball in the middle of the field.Â Instead, Gibbs allowed the clock to wind downÂ and the chances of successÂ dwindled with each tick of the clock.

Of all the mistakes, the time management issue at the end of the game was the biggest blunder. You simply cannot make those mistakes with the game on the line.Â

Blame Hall if you want, but the person deserving of most of the blame is Hall of Fame Coach Joe Gibbs.