Monday Night’s Football against the Bears is a must win for the Redskins

The Redskins are facing a crossroads early in the season and have to win against the Bears on Monday Night Football.

The Redskins 2019 season is already staring at its turning point. For Jay Gruden and his staff, its a crossroads that came much earlier than even fans expected.  But for now, one thing is clear. Week 3’s Monday Night Football against the Chicago Bears is a must-win, or this season could take a wild turn for the worst.

Washington’s 31-21 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2 was a peek at the ugly reality behind the Redskins flaws. But how the Redskins respond will tell us just what direction this franchise is heading in.

The loss to Dallas was a confirmation of the worst fears Redskins fans had in mind leaving Philidelphia after Week 1. The offense against the Eagles showed it flashes of real productivity. The defense, however, did just about everything it could to make Carson Wentz and the Eagles offense comfortable. Blowing a 17-point lead is painful enough. Watching your former star receiver torch you twice deep was even worse.

Of course, going into the season, we all touted the strength of the new and improved defense that would carry this team. Rookie star and first-round pick Montez Sweat was paired up with Ryan Kerrigan. A healthy Jon Allen, Daron Payne and Matt Ioannidis were locked and loaded. Free agent safety and three-time Pro Bowl star Landon Collins was also in burgundy and gold. They were the ones that would carry this team, right?

Everyone knew the offense would struggle. Young and inexperienced receivers, a new quarterback under center, and who can forget that the Redskins best player, Trent Williams, isn’t even in the state of Virginia. The last we saw of him, he was boarding a private jet presumably somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

But two weeks into the season, it’s clear that the scripts have flipped.

The offense has shown some real flashes of productivity, and have well exceeded the offensive spark of last season. Case Keenum has proven to be more than capable of moving the ball downfield. Rookie receiver Terry McLaurin is quickly becoming a star for this team, and a reshuffled left side of the offensive line has held its own, thanks to the play of tackle Donald Penn and, I’m not kidding, guard Erek Flowers.

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The defense for this team, however, has been abysmal.

You can cut the blame anyway that you want, but this Redskins defense has largely been responsible for this 0-2 start. Big plays downfield have killed the Redskins in the first two weeks, and an inability to get off the field on third-downs makes whatever Keenum is doing largely meaningless.

Kerrigan, who has been the model for consistent play, has been largely a non-factor in the pass rush to start this year. The entire defense has registered two sacks in as many games, one of those essentially being a quarterback rush for no yards against the Eagles. Rookie Sweat has also been invisible in the backfield. The Redskins are simply not getting any pressure to opposing quarterbacks. Both Dak Prescot and Wentz had enough time to set up a yard sale in the backfield, and both made easy work of the Washington secondary. Which leads me to my next point.

Josh Norman has been terrible.

Over the last two weeks, Josh Norman has been exposed deep on multiple occasions against multiple receivers. When you are paying a player star money to play like a star, you have to be elite. Norman hasn’t been elite for a number of years. But forget elite, or great, or even good. Norman has been bad so far, and it is hurting the Redskins big time. But Norman isn’t the only one.

Veterans across the board are not playing well. Morgan Moses continues to be guilty of holding calls. Pro Bowl guard Brandon Scherff was called for multiple holding calls. Of the 18 penalties that the Redskins have been called on this season, eight of them have been holding calls. They are second behind Jacksonville in the league lead for holding calls.

This would be a much different conversation if we were consistently pointing to the struggles of first-year players, or rookies learning the ropes. But it has been the underperformance of players that the Redskins need to rely on that has brought us to this point.

It is Week 3, is any game in Week 3 ever a must-win? Who knows. But this much we know. The Redskins have to win on Monday night against the Bears, there isn’t any way around it. The Bears offense has struggled to do much of anything this year, and it could be just the break the Redskins defense needs to get back on track.

The Redskins have the players in place to make plays. No one is saying that this team is Super Bowl bound, or for that matter, even playoff bound. But they are a much better team than the one they’ve shown in the past two weeks. With a struggling quarterback in Mitch Trubisky coming to town, this is Greg Manusky‘s chance to smooth over the terribly rough start to his defenses year.

The Redskins have time to right the ship of a season that so far hasn’t gone as planned. But it starts on Monday Night Football, and it has to be a victory over the Bears.