Helu Helps Redskins Hurdle the Seahawks

Rex and the Redskins got their swagger back on Sunday. Photograph by Brian Murphy

I think I speak for everyone out there when I say, Five more wins and the Redskins are right back in the playoff picture! Drink the Kool-Aid, people. It’s just like Mike Shanahan: tangy and unnaturally orange. Don’t stop drinking until we’re Super Bowl bound.

That’s right, it’s time to gas up the bandwagon, because the Redskins are winners once more. The interminable six-game losing streak is finally over, thanks to a pair of big fourth-quarter touchdowns.

The bandwagon? Isn’t that Tony Kornheiser’s thing?

Sure, but so is using italics to ask questions of yourself. He doesn’t write anymore, so I don’t think he’ll mind. Besides, he seems like the affable type.

No, that doesn’t sound right at all.

Who cares? The Redskins actually won a game. Let’s just talk about that for a while.

The team has found their answer at runningback, and his name is Roy Helu. If there was any doubt about his place on the depth chart, it was erased by his squeal-inducing touchdown run. Helu managed to hurdle one defender (that’s how it’s done, Mike Sellers) and plow through another on his way to the endzone.

Yep, he’s the guy now, and it’s not as if Shanahan is the kind of coach who would arbitrarily switch up his runningbacks. Nope, Helu is his guy, now and forever. Nothing will change that, unless he “sees something” in Ryan Torain at practice this week.

While Helu’s run brought the Skins to within striking distance, it was Anthony Armstrong’s touchdown that finally put them on top. AA was let out of the coach’s mysterious doghouse just long enough to haul in a bomb from Rex Grossman.

And man, how about Sexy Rexy? I’m not saying he committed the intentional grounding penalty just to make the eventual 50-yard pass more dramatic, but it would be a very Rex Grossman thing to do. We can live with him tossing hopeless balls into triple coverage as long as he makes up for it in the most dramatic way possible.

The schedule only gets tougher for the Redskins, but next week’s game against the Jets isn’t unwinnable. And if they do pull off the upset, who’s to say they can’t beat the Patriots? After that, all they have to do is beat the Giants, the Vikings, and the Eagles. Once they do that, it’s only a few more wins to the Super Bowl. Totally doable. Assuming they figure out how to execute an extra point at some point along the way.

Jack Kogod