Upper Crust No More : Any Way You Slice It, the Redskins Have Plummeted From the NFL’s Elite

Monte Coleman, a linebacker with the Washington Redskins for the last 15 years, was driving home from practice the other day when he decided it would be a really good time for a pizza.

It was a weeknight in suburban Washington--leaves rustling across the sidewalks, smell of burning wood in the air, a moment of serenity for a man whose days are filled with athletic violence.

“Medium pepperoni pan pizza,” he recalls saying to the cook.

He remembers his order because he remembers what the cook said next.

“I’m a New York Giants fan,” the cook shouted. “And I can’t wait for us to beat you on Sunday! Your team is terrible. We’re going to kill you and. . . . “

For fifteen minutes, or as long as it takes to bake a medium pepperoni pan pizza, the badgering continued.

There was a time when people lined up at restaurants like this merely to watch Monte Coleman autograph their stained napkins. Coleman quietly listened to the cook and thought about how things change.

As prepared to leave, he said to the cook: “We’re going to win that game on Sunday. And then I’ll be back.”

They didn’t. And he won’t.

This is the season that this powerful franchise, once as majestic as the Lincoln Memorial, has become merely another monument badly in need of repair.

The Redskins, who won the Super Bowl only two seasons ago, are 2-7. And nothing is right in their world.

Ask Michael Torbert, 48, an engineer and one of 10 men who attend Redskin home games dressed as cheerleader pigs. Even the Hogettes are bewildered.

“We would change our outfits to change our luck, but we are all color coordinated,” Torbert said. “Of course, I could buy a new black and white polka-dot dress. But I haven’t found one that fits.”

Can you blame Coach Richie Petitbon when he says: “Let me say this . . . it cannot get any worse.”

The Redskins, who will play the Rams in Anaheim on Sunday, haven’t started as poorly as 2-7 in 30 years.

The last time this happened, in 1963, their star receiver was Bobby Mitchell. Mitchell, 58, now is the team’s assistant general manager.

“You really try to explain this . . . and you can’t,” said center Jeff Bostic, the last remaining lineman from the days when that group was called “the hogs.”

But as he said, you can try.

For 13 seasons under former coach Joe Gibbs, who led them to three Super Bowl victories, the Redskins were the epitome of what was considered the modern football team--big, smart, aggressive.

Then along came the start of new era, in which teams are built not only in training camp, but in district court. In which the game’s leading menace is not steroids, but artificial turf.

In a terrible twist of fate, the Redskins are still the epitome of the modern team--torn apart by injuries, weakened by free agency and the impending salary cap.

Throw in a coaching change when the team desperately needed stability, and you get 2-7.

Of course, you could ignore all that other stuff and just blame the quarterback. That’s what one notable former Redskin quarterback is doing.

“You would like to sugar-coat this, say it is injuries and things like that . . . but their quarterbacks have played like crap,” said Joe Theismann, an ESPN analyst. “That’s the bottom line. . . . The Redskins are in dire need of a quarterback.

“Mark Rypien is having one of the worst years I’ve seen a quarterback have. I thought last year was bad. This year is worse. He is in a slump, except the slump has lasted two years.”

Rypien does indeed rank 14th in a 14-team conference. Two Dallas Cowboy quarterbacks are ahead of him and only Jim Everett of the Rams is behind him.

In the two seasons since his Super Bowl MVP year of 1991, Rypien has thrown seven more interceptions, 24, than touchdowns, 17.

In 1991, his quarterback rating was 97.9. It dropped 26 points last season, and has dropped another 20 points this season, to 51.8.

But the misfortune that has befallen the Redskins is not all his fault. He only reflects the misfortune that has struck the team.

--Like many Redskins, Rypien has been playing injured.

After throwing three touchdown passes and no interceptions in their opening victory over Dallas, Rypien suffered a torn ligament in his left knee.

He hurried back after sitting out only two games, and has since scored two touchdowns rushing, one more than he has passed for, and thrown seven interceptions.

“Suddenly, things you take for granted, you just can’t do,” Rypien said of his labored comeback. “You go to duck underneath a rush, and you hesitate. You aren’t sure how the knee will react.

“So you aren’t as quick, and a guy is around your ankles, and you make a bad throw. Happened just the other game.”

Rypien probably will be benched Sunday for Rich Gannon, allowing Rypien’s knee to rest. Gannon has been sidelined with a broken foot.

Whoever starts must work behind an offensive line whose best player, tackle Jim Lachey, suffered a season-ending knee injury in training camp.

Four other offensive linemen have sat out because of injuries, including guard Mark Schlereth, who was counted out for the season this week while battling numerous injuries compounded by a serious infection.

When Joe Jacoby was sidelined because of a back injury that will probably cause him to sit out the rest of the season, Bostic shook his head.

“There were times on that old offensive line when you didn’t have to say a word to each other,” he said. “Everybody was seeing the same things. Now, you have to do a lot more explaining.”

--Rypien’s offense has often had to play catch-up because the defense has been even more torn up than the offense.

Three of the four defensive linemen who started the opening game are sidelined because of injuries. One of them is Charles Mann, who has averaged 8.6 sacks in his nine seasons as a regular. He hasn’t played regularly for five games and has yet to get his first sack of the season.

Is it any wonder the Redskins rank 27th in the 28-team league in defense? And have only 17 sacks?

“We are experiencing reality around here,” cornerback Darrell Green said. “I mean, I have never walked into six losing locker rooms in a row before. That kind of stuff just never happens here.”

--Rypien has been forced to adjust--some say not very well--to an offense that was was put together after Joe Gibbs retired last spring.

With Petitbon specializing in defense, Rod Dowhower has taken over the offense and put in a shorter passing game, closer to the San Francisco 49ers’ attack than to the bombs-away approach of previous Redskin teams.

“What they have tried to do offensively is not what Rypien does well,” Theismann said.

Although most agree that even Gibbs could not make this much better than a .500 team, the offensive struggles make them wonder if the team isn’t suffering more from the coaching transition than it will acknowledge.

Through a publicist, Gibbs declined to answer questions about the Redskins. He always was a smart coach.

--Rypien might not even be the quarterback if the Redskins had had the monetary flexibility to sign the Giants’ Phil Simms last winter. They were also unable to match the Green Bay Packers’ bid for defensive star Reggie White.

Those same money problems caused them to lose pass rushers Wilber Marshall, Jumpy Geathers and Fred Stokes.

Although Redskin management puts most of the blame for the season on injuries, perhaps no other team has been hurt as severely by the new salary rules.

“Did we lose players that, without an impending salary cap, we would not have lost?” Charley Casserly said. “Without a doubt.”

With a league-high $44-million payroll that will need to be cut by at least $10 million this spring, the Redskins know it will not get better soon. Because they have 18 players 30 or older, more than any other team, the off-season could get downright ugly.

Not that anything could be worse than right now.

“Imagine that,” Monte Coleman said, shaking his head. “Taking grief from the pizza man.”