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Week 16 Schedule
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| Friday
• Green Bay at Minn., 3 p.m.
Saturday
• Oakland at K.C., 5 p.m.
• Denver at Tenn., 8:30 p.m.
Sunday
• Washington at Dallas, 4:15 p.m.
• Baltimore at Pitt., 1 p.m.
• Atlanta at N.O., 1 p.m.
• Houston at Jackson., 1 p.m.
• San Diego at Indiana., 1 p.m.
• Chicago at Detroit, 1 p.m.
• N.Y. Giants at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
• New England at N.Y. Jets, 4:05 p.m.
• Buffalo at San Fran., 4:05 p.m.
• Carolina at Tampa Bay, 4:15 p.m.
• Arizona at Seattle, 4:15 p.m.
• Cleveland at Miami, 8:30 p.m.
Monday
• Philadelphia at St. Louis, 9 p.m.
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The Redskins continue to be plagued by penalties. After committing 12 penalties for over 100 yards in a tough defeat to Philadelphia two weeks ago, the Redskins till committed 90 yards in penalties in San Francisco and cannot avoid maddening mental mistakes. They are regularly called for false starts and personal fouls and continue to make routine miscues on special teams that are allowing the opposition to get better field position.
Coach Joe Gibbs praises the work done by special teams coach Danny Smith, but the hard-working and enthusiastic teacher has not been able to eradicate the tendency for errors. If the Redskins want to be a truly competitive team next season they must do so.
"This time most of them were on [special] teams," Gibbs said, "and we had one or two on offense and one or two on defense. Those are the kind of things we as a football team need to be smart enough to say we're going to fix this. We had four movement penalties [against the Eagles] and this game we had one."
The Redskins are on pace to easily surpass 1,000 penalty yards, something no team coached by Gibbs has ever done. Oftentimes the penalties have come away from the ball with seemingly little provocation.
Jones Emerges for Cowboys
The biggest change between the Dallas team the Washington Redskins faced in September and the one they will meet on Sunday is the emergence of rookie running back Julius Jones. Jones missed the first half of the season because of injuries, but has started the last five games and gained at least 80 yards in all of those contests.
Before Jones's return, the Cowboys had only one 80-yard game from a running back this season and no runner gained more than 20 yards when Dallas beat Washington, 21-18, on Sept. 27. Jones has already scored six rushing touchdowns -- Redskins running back Clinton Portis has only five rushing touchdowns all season -- and he ran for 150 yards against Chicago and 198 yards against Seattle.
"He's a tough, hard-nosed runner who can really hit the hole," Redskins Pro Bowl linebacker Marcus Washington. "He runs guys over, he breaks tackles. He's really having a great year. I think he's taken the Dallas Cowboys to another level when he's on the field."
-- Jason La Canfora
