Week 13: Buffalo at Washington

It’s a sad and strange fact that, for many professional athletes, life doesn’t get appreciably easier or less dangerous off the field despite the money they earn through their excellence on it. For some NFL players – alcoholics like Koren Robinson, mentally ill people like former Raiders OT Barrett Robbins, incorrigibly dumb people like Pacman Jones – their stumbles are a result of individual problems, even though they may highlight certain societal issues, notably the coddling/infantilizing/dehumanizing of hero athletes by a culture in which even well-educated, otherwise sensible people get weak-kneed in the presence of people with sub-4.5 40 times.

But Sean Taylor – the Redskins safety who died on Tuesday after being shot in the early hours of Monday morning – seemed a victim of circumstance more than anything else. The circumstances of Taylor’s murder are still unclear – at press time, they remain both very strange and very murky – but for once, we’re going to try to stay on topic and leave the sociological delving to Bryant Gumbel and the HBO Real Sports posse. Our armchair speculations on the circumstances and context of Taylor’s death wouldn’t add much to the discourse – not as little as what Bill O’Reilly or our nation’s army of proudly, ostentatiously uninformed sports radio doofs will say, but that’s a pretty low standard – and we’ve got an uninspiring football game to preview, after all.

It’s a macabre storyline, but this match-up of two mediocre, injury-depleted squads – one of which saw TE Kevin Everett nearly paralyzed (he’s apparently progressing well in rehab) in the season opener, the other of which just lost one of its centerpiece stars – might be billed as a meeting of the NFL’s most traumatized teams. The Bills came together to forge an unlikely 5-1 stretch between Weeks 4 and 10. Their schedule has since stopped cooperating (those wins came against the ultra-moribund foursome of the Jets, Ravens, Bengals and Dolphins), though, and as the team’s injury report has sprawled to Dickensian lengths, the defense has become nearly depth-less.

After two lopsided losses in a row, the Bills are finally starting to look like what they are: a not-very-good team that’s down to second-stringers at almost every position. At running back, where star rookie Marshawn Lynch is doubtful and backup Anthony Thomas suffered an injury last week, the job rests in the clammy hands of third-stringer Fred Jackson, whom you might remember from his series of smooth R&B hits in the early ‘80s, and almost certainly don’t remember from his career at Iowa’s tiny Coe College. Only in the case of just-demoted future Real World/Road Rules Challenge contestant QB J.P. Losman – whose inconsistent play has made uninspiring rookie Trent Edwards a starter for a second time – have these moves been dictated by anything other than injury.

The Redskins have suffered plenty of injuries on both sides of the ball as well, but are better equipped to deal with that attrition thanks to owner Daniel Snyder’s tendency to sign Pro Bowlers from the late ‘90s to long-term contracts: even Washington’s defensive backups, especially, are recognizable names. An ill-fitting and generally underwhelming assemblage of talent on offense has been a large part of the team’s mediocrity – if you ever wondered how a batch of speedy, smurfy second- or third-option receivers would fare if they ran only short screen-y routes, now you know. The play-calling of half-embalmed head coach Joe Gibbs hasn’t helped, either, but Gibbs has loosened the reins on QB Jason Campbell significantly over the last two weeks: Campbell has thrown 53 and 49 passes in Weeks 11 and 12, topping 300 yards both times. That may work against the weak Bills secondary, but it also reduces the role of RB Clinton Portis, Washington’s best offensive player. A return to a more balanced attack may be in the offing against a Bills team that can’t stop the run or the pass, but it also might not. Gibbs seems to be getting his play-calls via coin flip or divine suggestion these days.

During the team’s three-game losing streak, the Redskins have been spectacularly mistake-prone; they lost four fumbles in 16 plays during Week 12’s loss to Tampa. Put simply, this is a team that can lose to anybody if they set their minds to it. But at home, against a Bills team that is far inferior in terms of talent on both sides of the ball, we’ll assume they’ll be able to manage a heavy-hearted win.

Redskins by 5