Redskins Planted Seeds Of Hope In Seattle
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By DERON SNYDER
A patron behind me said aloud what most folks in the place surely were thinking — self included — as Rex Grossman leaned back and went long: “Why is he doing that?”
Yes, it was third-and-19 from midfield, but still. An underneath route with a little yardage after the catch was safer than going deep. We feared that “Rex Havoc” had another pick in him Sunday, which would’ve been his third, and we couldn’t escape visions of a defensive back cradling that bomb whenever it came down.
Surprise, surprise. For the second consecutive week Grossman was on target during a gotta-have-it drive in the fourth quarter.
The 50-yard touchdown to Anthony Armstrong with 6:18 left against Seattle wasn’t as dramatic as the 4-yard fade to Donte Stallworth with 14 seconds left against Dallas. But the latter merely forced overtime in what became the sixth consecutive loss; Armstrong’s emergence from witness protection produced the go-ahead score in the streak-snapping victory.
With it came shouts of joy and sighs of relief. Both had been scarce since Oct. 2, when the Redskins beat St. Louis and improved to 3-1, lamenting a late-game collapse at Dallas that kept them from a perfect record.
Going 1-6 in your past seven games is nothing to brag about. But the Seattle game was one of two left — Minnesota is the other — that looked fairly winnable. The Redskins easily could have flown across the country and fallen flat coming off the emotional overtime defeat a week earlier against the Cowboys.
