The second overall draft pick looked a little jittery in his second appearance as a Washington Redskin, but performed well enough not to hurt his team. That said, his 17 yards rushing and 49 through the air weren't a huge help in a tight game lost to the Chicago Bears by an agonising score of 33-31.
The Redskins stuck 21 points on the board in the fourth quarter to run the result close, but it wasn't quite enough to take them past the Bears, whose two QBs - starter Jay Cutler and new back-up Jason Campbell - performed well, throwing for a combined 263 yards.
As solid as Chicago were, the game ball goes to rookie, Kirk Cousins out of Michigan State. Cousins was the architect of all Redskins success and, if he continues to play with such poise and presence, could give Mike Shannahan a bit of a headache.
Cousins threw for 264 yards, completed 18 of 23 passes and chucked in 3 TD scores. Wow. THAT is an arrival.
Might RGIII start his career on the bench behind another, far less heralded rookie? Unlikely, but stranger things have happened in the NFL.
The Chargers beat the Cowboys in a contest that could have been dubbed the: Are we there yet? game.
Both teams have been so highly thought of, and so ubiquitously talked-up prior to the commencement of most every season this decade, you'd be forgiven for thinking they'd faced-off in multiple Super Bowls, but neither team has made it to the big game since the mid nineties, when the Chargers lost their only appearance to the 49ers and the Cowboys won the last of their 3 Aikman-lead championships.
Charlie Whitehurst - one of those guys who has been on the cusp of being awesome for some time now - played well and threw for 2 second half touchdowns as the San Diego outfit rallied to win 28-20 after 21 points (14 rushing, 1 passing) in the fourth. Romo did play for the Cowboys and looked comfortable, but neither helped nor hurt his team with an under-the-radar performance. That's fine for the Pro bowl calibre signal caller. His counterpart, Phillip Rivers, had a similarly anonymous, but effective game. These guys just need to get a few snaps, shake the rust off and prep themselves for the regular season. They should both sleep well after a game that served their needs well.
But will either the San Diego Chargers or Dallas Cowboys make the play-offs? The Cowboys play in the gurelling NFC East, home to the World Champion Giants, the resurgent Redskins and the ever-threatening Eagles so that would be a tall order, though not impossible if they play to their potential and the RIGHT Romo turns up week in, week out. The Chargers have a slightly easier route, though the AFC West is no longer a one horse race. The Broncos have Peyton Manning under centre, the Chiefs are moving in the right direction under Romeo, and the Raiders have had the talent, just not the coaching, to make it to the next level for a while. I believe only one team will get out of either division, so it's going to be all or nothing for these two nearly teams.
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