Redskins Reality Check: Realistic predictions for the team in Week 5 vs. Saints

The Redskins face a true test going into New Orleans for Monday Night Football.  This is the week the Redskins Reality Checks were made for.

It’s games like these that make the Redskins Reality Checks a necessary part of your Redskins fandom. It’s games like this that require realistic expectations, realistic evaluations, and realistic predictions to keep all true Redskins fans on track.

Coming off an impressive, albeit surprising, beatdown of the Packers, the Redskins went into the insanely early bye-week feeling pretty good about themselves through three weeks. Subsequently, they won the bye-week by watching the Eagles and Giants lose and taking over first place in the NFC East. The only possible improvement to the week off would have been to have the Cowboys’ kicker miss that field goal as time expired to make the division 0-3 while the Redskins rested.

But as we saw in Week 2, the Redskins don’t usually hold up too well under the pressure of success and positive circumstances. Typically, they have struggled to stack success upon success, which goes a long way toward explaining how they have ended up with a record of 24-23-1 over the last three seasons. They have also wilted under the bright lights of prime time much more often than not in the last 20 years.

Is this Redskins team for real? Do they belong in the playoff picture? Will they manage to come in hungry against the Saints on Monday night? Will they find a way to string back-to-back strong performances together against quality opponents? Or will their early bye week sap any momentum they might have gained from the win against Green Bay, leaving them flat in prime time once again?

We’ll have to watch the game to find out the answers to these questions, but here are some specific factors to be keyed in on as you watch.