By Mark Bacon
The Washington Redskin’s goal was to show that last season’s success was no fluke — that the Redskins hadn’t lucked their way to the top of a division that imploded around them. Their mission against the favored Pittsburgh Steelers was to prove they were a team to be feared, led by franchise-tagged quarterback Kirk Cousins and a defense that included newly signed Josh Norman.
They fell short of their goal. And they fell hard, trounced, 38-16, before 79,124 fans of both teams.
The Redskins couldn’t run the ball. They couldn’t stop the run. While the pass-heavy offense managed drives, it sputtered when it mattered, settling for field goals on their first three scoring drives. And the highly touted defensive backfield was simply no match for Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and his favorite receiver, Antonio Brown, who combined for two touchdowns.
Cousins completed 30 of 43 throws for 329 yards but was held without a touchdown pass and threw two interceptions, the second coming with 18 seconds left in a hopeless cause.
Roethlisberger was 27 of 37 for 300 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception. He led a relentless Steelers offense that converted 64 percent of its third downs (9 of 14), while the Redskins converted just 3 of 10.
“The money downs is a big difference in the game,” Redskins Coach Jay Grudensaid, “but overall they just outcoached us and outplayed us.”
The Redskins rushed for just 55 yards to Pittsburgh’s 147.
In the bleak aftermath, it was clear that the Redskins’ journey for league-wide respect will be a season-long affair. It certainly wasn’t achieved on a night in which the offense was painfully one-dimensional, the defense was overwhelmed (weary, no doubt, from being on the field nearly seven minutes longer than the Steelers’ defense) and the gulf between the Redskins’ aspirations and present-day reality was glaring.
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