Skins Beat Bucs?!

You know you found every bit of luck you needed to win an NFL playoff game when:

• You set a new record for fewest yards of offense ever by a playoff winning team (120)
• Your opponent's yards per rush (3.0) are more than double your yards per pass (1.4)
• The other team gains over twice as many yards of offense (120 versus 243)
• Your quarterback's total passing yards (41) are barely more than your average yards per punt (38)
• Your total net passing yards (25) are less than the receiving yards of your opponent's backup tight end (Anthony Becht, 26 yards)
• You fumble three times and get them all back
• The other team fumbles three times and you run one of them back 58 yards for a touchdown (fumble returns are rare and fumble recoveries are considered about 1/3 as valuable as interceptions for this reason)
• Your star safety who's shutting down the other team's star receiver is booted from the game just after halftime for spitting in the face of another player while the referee is pushing him away (expect more stuff like this from Taylor)

That sure was one ugly offensive performance! Early in the season team followers fretted over the Skins' turnover deficit. Some of that was due to Washington's poor fumble recovery luck as I've often written, but the team wasn't picking off interceptions either.In case you haven't been paying attention to how dramatically those trends have reversed, consider these numbers: In the first eight games Washington took balls away from their opponents just six times; over the past nine games including today's win over Tampa Bay Washington has 25 takeaways. That's a change from .75 per game to 2.77 per game!

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Washington Post Redskins stories: Who Needs Offense?; Springs to Return Next Week; Brown Still Alive; Seattle Up Next; Defense Scores KO; Good and Ugly; Shepherd Made Catch