Is this team any good?

To ask that of the Washington Redskins is to ask the wrong question. Look at it this way instead:

Last fall, the Redskins bottomed out as an organization with the loss to Detroit. A team the Skins owned for years, a team on a 19-game losing streak, a team that went an entire season without a victory, the worst finish in NFL history – they broke their skid on the Skins, famously. At that point, with the hapless Jim Zorn at the helm and the clueless Vinny Cerrato running the front office, it was easy to think that there was no reason not to expect forty more years of mediocrity.

Bruce Allen was hired as the new GM in December – but that meant nothing. Mike Shanahan took over as head coach – veteran NFL commodity with a proven playoff record – but again, meaningless until the rubber hits the road. Between them, they brought in Donovan McNabb and settled the QB question with an unequivocal known good #1 for the first time in two decades. They drafted a tackle with the first pick, filling the most desperate and neglected need the franchise had. But that still meant nothing until games started.

Now – have they been lucky? Tremendously. They have exploited bad decisions by Dallas and Green Bay, they’ve taken full advantage of key injuries to opponents (thinking specifically of Mike Vick and Clay Matthews), they’ve gotten the best of the officiating. Hell, when you have given up three more points than you’ve scored, 3-2 is obviously a bit of an overachievement. But the fact is, they’ve taken advantage of the breaks, which is something they never seemed to do before. They’ve made the best of the personnel – is the 3-4 a bad fit for Haynesworth? Sure, but it’s a hell of a good fit for Brian Orakpo, who is turning into a QB killer. It’s a great fit for LaRon Landry, who has gone from knucklehead to Pro Bowler in five games, and you can see the spirit of Sean Taylor riding with him on every spine-rattling hit. It’s made DeAngelo Hall into a tackling machine, it’s transformed Lorenzo Alexander from a backup O-lineman to an effective linebacker in run or pass coverage, and it’s turned the defense as a whole from bend-don’t-break into an opportunistic gang that makes its own luck.

And the offense? Clearly in transition. It’s going to take time to gel, and the loss of Clinton Portis – on paper – looks like a dealbreaker. But Joey Galloway is still a capable receiver, and Anthony Armstrong is becoming a legit option to throw to, and Ryan Torrain is showing flashes of Portis-in-his-prime potential, and the newly promoted Brandon Banks – despite being a Shetland human and damn near a smurf – has given the Redskins a potentially electrifying kick returner in the mold of DeSean Jackson or Devin Hester. McNabb is clearly not the quarterback of the future for this franchise, and depth is a concern, but the pieces are starting to shape up.

So the real question to ask is “Are the Redskins a team headed in the right direction?” And for the time being, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

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