Sting lingers as Redskins lose to underdog Rams

LANDOVER, Md.

NFL games should come with a consumer warning: For the iron-stomached only. Sunday's early slate of eight games featured four that were clinched in the final 10 seconds. Three home teams - Minnesota, Houston and Atlanta - won.

The fourth, the Washington Redskins, did not.

Fate finally found the Team That Turnovers Forgot. Reality rattled the Redskins' locker room. On an end-of-the-innocence afternoon, defeat burned again in their gut.

For the first time in five weeks, coach Jim Zorn's Hip-Hip-Hooray Redskins - Zorn's old-school victory chant - produced a Hi-Hi-Hideous effort. Washington, Sunday's second-biggest Vegas favorite, bumbled early, fumbled often and lost what should have been a FedEx Field gimme 19-17 to the St. Louis Rams, who are so lousy they're already on their second coach of the season.

"Any certain combination (of issues) put together could explain why we lost the game on that last-second field goal," Zorn said not long after Josh Brown's fourth kick, a 49-yarder, clinched victory No. 1 for the Rams.

Any combo could, but one demands the most attention, those turnovers you knew were coming. Washington (4-2) had zero offensive giveaways on its resume coming in, such a complete quirk that no team had ever gone five games into a season unblemished.

Done with that. Zorn's offense has three pock marks now - all fumbles, all coming inside the Rams' 40-yard line, all bunched within four possessions in the first half.

The first two, by tight end Chris Cooley after a catch and center Casey Rabach on a sloppy shotgun snap, merely stalled drives. The third, by offensive guard Pete Kendall of all people, produced seven points and a 10-7 halftime lead for the Rams (1-4).

Kendall reflexively caught the ricochet of a deflected Jason Campbell pass at the Rams' 20 and attempted to rumble through the crowd. So much for good intentions. Kendall had the ball knocked from his grasp and, 75 yards later, St. Louis safety Oshiomogho Atogwe was standing in the end zone with his second career touchdown.

"My first instinct was to knock it down, then I just got thinking," said Kendall, who verbally flogged himself at his locker long after FedEx Field had emptied. "Time sort of stands still when you're in an instance like that.

"It's hard to explain, because I'm sure it took less than a second on TV. And yet I had three or four thoughts, and I should've just knocked it down, which was my first thought. I didn't, and it cost us a ballgame today."

Kendall's a stand-up guy, but his teammates weren't piling on - "Pete can't blame the game on himself. We all had something to do with this game," said Campbell, who wasn't lying.

Goat horns to rookie punter Durant Brooks, who's flirting with unemployment. He was terrible again; five punts for a net average of 34 yards and a dud that quacked just 26 yards late in the third quarter and led to three more gift points.

Pointer-fingers directed as well to a Washington defense that, despite not allowing a touchdown, couldn't stop the Rams from moving into position for the sure-footed Brown in the final three minutes.

That wasted what looked to be Washington's timely salvage effort. Working with urgency, Campbell marched the Redskins 73 yards for what should have been the decisive TD. Clinton Portis covered the final 2 yards of another manly day - two touchdowns, 129 yards on 21 carries, his third straight 100-plus game.

Soon enough, though, all the giddiness just turned to gloom.

The Rams, who managed just eight first downs, collected their last one on a 43-yard heave by Marc Bulger that Donnie Avery caught against Leigh Torrence at the 16 with 39 seconds left.

These still are the dysfunctional Rams, though; seconds later, during a timeout, lineman Richie Incognito inexplicably drew an unsportsmanlike-conduct flag for jawing at an official.

Turns out, that made Brown the hero from 49 yards rather than 34 - with a kick that trumped a team that had collected scalps in Dallas and Philadelphia in consecutive weeks.

Go figure, as some losing NFL gambler once said.

"We know how good we can be," Redskins offensive tackle Jon Jansen said. "But we went out there today and we proved how easy it is to lose football games."

Not that it makes it any easier to understand.

Tom Robinson, (757) 446-2518, tom.robinson@pilotonline.com