As someone on Extreme Skins pointed out, last night marked the first time in 15 years that our Redskins got swept by the entire division. 0-6 in the NFC East. And we did so by getting shut-out by Dallas at home, on national television. It doesn’t get much worse. Fortunately having been completely resigned to the fact that we’re awful this year for so many weeks now, the blow was softened a bit and I find myself not nearly as devastated as I should be given these grim circumstances.

I’m actually sitting in a hotel out in Pittsburgh at the moment. I had a family event I was compelled to attend so I ended up giving my tickets to last night’s game away to another ‘Skins fan (who I now feel obligated to apologize to). I was the only Washington fan in the hotel bar, standing there in my Orakpo jersey; shaking my head and killing my beer a quite a bit quicker than I should have been. A few people over the course of the game patted me on the back, offering meager consolation and throwing out their opinions on whats gone wrong with the team (one vote for Campbell, one for Zorn, and two for Randle El; apparently they still can’t believe that he’s not running back a kick for a TD every week in D.C.).

I thought about it for a bit though; trying to, if I could, put my finger on one aspect of the team that most contributed to the failures of the 2009 season. It’s tough because there are so many weaknesses. The departed Vinny Cerrato cutting out Zorn’s legs from under him. Campbell and his poor decision making and hesitation. Landry and his inability to tackle. Poor run defense in general. If I had to settle on one thing though, it would have to be our offensive line play. Shocking, I know.

Using the most precise possible scientific method of measurement possible, I counted in my head between swigs of beer the number of seconds that Jason had from snap to when he was getting hit, hurried, harassed, harangued, and other H words last night. I ended up in the neighborhood of around 2.6. Now, I’m no expert but that doesn’t seem to me to be nearly enough time to let any sort of play short of a quick screen or dump-off to occur. How can routes develop or patterns emerge when your QB is being forced to get rid of the ball or take a sack in less than 3 ticks? The single most common random comment I heard in the bar last night regarding our offense was, “Wow, he has no time”. And they were right, he doesn’t.

Now is it all the players’ faults on that unit? No. They were sort of thrown together haphazardly out of necessity because of injuries and poor planning. The late Cerrato, whether taking direction from on-high or not, largely ignored the offensive line in the draft. An inordinate amount of picks traded away over the years meant we had very little in the way of quality depth or young talent to develop. While several of the guys on the line could be really good players, they were driven into a no-win situation by force of circumstance. No continuity, very little time in together. Being shifted around constantly with no chance to build cohesion with their linemates at their positions. All resulting in a nightmare for Jason Campbell specifically and Redskins fans in general.

So now what? The season is lost and it’s time to look ahead to next season, right? What do we do? Do we use our first round pick (now higher than ever!) on a top-tier offensive lineman? A tackle to replace Samuels, maybe? Or do we snag a new QB to replace the one that we ruined? I personally say the former. We need to build a line with quality young players and we need to give them a chance to develop together as a unit. We need to let them win together and we need to let them fail together, having faith and not shuffling them around whenever poor streaks of play occur. Build the line, let it gel. Sign developmental players with potential and allow them to work with and behind your core unit so that a random injury doesn’t tank your entire season.

Until our neglected line is built back up into a respectable unit, we’ll continue to struggle and we will ruin any quarterback that we throw behind it. We can lose with a QB on the roster or a first rounder that we overpay for, it makes little difference. What we can’t do is win without quality play within the most important unit on the field. Build it, give it time to come together, then decide on what QB you are going to entrust to it’s care, whether that be a shiny new first rounder or someone already on your roster who turns out to be not quite as bad as everyone wants to think when protected properly. Otherwise we’re just going to continue to be mediocre and continue to be the joke of the NFC East.

- Rick