Redskin Recovery Lies in Sense of Insecurity

The way to keep Gerald Riggs fumble-free this week is as simple as a Dexter Manley introduction. Here’s how it works:

During warm-ups before the best 0-2 teams in football collide Sunday in Texas Stadium, Manley grabs Riggs and walks him over to meet only the second coach the Dallas Cowboys have ever known, Jimmy Johnson.

“My college coach at Oklahoma State,” Manley tells Riggs as handshakes are being exchanged. As the chitchat ends, Riggs places his right hand atop Johnson’s head and gets it gooed up with industrial-strength hair spray. He could palm a wrecking ball for two weeks after that.

Just a suggestion.

As to whether the Redskins can bounce back and the Cowboys can bounce up, the answers are: yes and yes.

Washingtonians, Terry Bradshaw and other deep football thinkers are concerned about how the Redskins will react to Stupefacient Sunday. Popular wisdom says the depression from such a sudden and crushing defeat will cling for quite some time, perhaps through the entire season.

It had better not.

The down period from losing so late and so bizarrely to the Eagles should last about as long as did the down period from losing so late and so bizarrely six days earlier to the Giants.

All the Redskins did Sunday was run up a 13-0 lead before the Eagles ran their fifth play from scrimmage. So much for lingering gloom. And that early binge begs the question: Has a team ever scored touchdowns on its first two plays and lost fumbles on its last two plays?

Most players and coaches are smarter than most fans. And the Redskins know three truths: that an eighth of their livelihood for the year already is over, that they can be replaced more quickly than most manual laborers and that the billionaire who pays them is nearly as impatient as he is rich.

That sense-of-urgency reality tends to inspire. And in a hurry. Which means that the Redskins are more likely to play harder after losing to the Giants and Eagles than if they’d beaten them.

“So much good gets lost in a loss,” Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs said. Such as the fact that the winless Redskins have scored more points than the lossless Giants, Cardinals and 49ers.

Anyone not obsessed with sport’s bottom line has to be enthralled with the Redskins so far. Who possibly could offer more -- and such a variety of -- entertainment? Treason proceedings can begin immediately, but I would rather watch the Redskins lose as they did against the Giants and Eagles than win by the likes of 6-3 and 10-7.

How anyone can gain 949 yards in two games and fail to win is compelling.

How one of the steadiest and most productive runners for so long can fumble his reputation so quickly is staggering.

Also, how one of the superior passing performances in NFL history, by Randall Cunningham, could go largely unappreciated is embarrassing.

“If you stay around long enough,” said Gibbs, who has, “some things like (the amazing unraveling of the Eagles game) are going to happen. That was the first time for me.”

Gibbs says he is “not a destiny guy.” For him, there is a reason -- and blame -- for what at times defies belief. The rest of us are bedazzled by style; the coach is angry over those nine turnovers in two games (six lost fumbles and three interceptions).

The coach also must wonder if now and then defense for the Redskins is a misnomer. Phil Simms, Mark Bavaro and Odessa Turner of the Giants and Cunningham, Cris Carter, Mike Quick and Keith Jackson of the Eagles are big-time players. Still, shouldn’t a big-time defense surrender less than 864 yards in two games?

It can’t be too brain-draining to coach in the NFL, because the Eagles’ Buddy Ryan sees the same problems with the Redskins that lots of Washington fans do: the safeties and the interior defensive line.

The cheery news for the Redskins was that the Eagles gained only 65 yards rushing on 28 carries; the sobering news was that a couple of Keiths, tight end Jackson and running back Byars, caught a total of 20 passes, most of them after running very free fairly close to the line of scrimmage.

If a short pass guarantees eight to 12 yards, who cares about runs routinely stuffed?

When wide receiver Ricky Sanders pushed Wes Hopkins out of bounds with 57 seconds left, it put him one tackle ahead of Manley for the game, in-the-grasp sack excluded. But Manley often was split way outside a linebacker against the Eagles, the better to get his sack sights trained on Cunningham.

“Hopefully,” said middle linebacker Neal Olkewicz, “we’ve used up our freak play allotment (against the Giants and Eagles). The worst possible thing you can think can happen Sunday actually does. But freak plays aside, we had lots of chances to put it away.”

For different reasons, the Cowboys are even more mysterious. Veterans such as Olkewicz and Manley will not have time in Dallas to think much about a familiar opponent who looks so strange.

New ownership. New front office. New coaches. New arrogance. But Johnson in his first season only has to win once to improve on Tom Landry’s opening act. That expansion team in 1960 was 0-11-1, the tie coming against the Giants in the next-to-last game.

Gibbs surely will try to portray Johnson’s young and talent-thin Cowboys as being as awesome as some of Landry’s experienced and superbly stocked Cowboys. The porous offensive line to Gibbs will seem Hog mean, those phantom linebackers as mobile and nasty as Butkus and Bell in their prime.

For a change, even veterans weary of such Gibbs sermons will pay attention this time. Like Riggs, they need to get a better grip on things.