The Redskins at Bunker Hill

Once again, the Patriots showed what they do to interlopers in red clothes who attack them at home.

52-7 is a stunning loss and it took awhile for the fan in me to recover.

Cleverest headline from the game: 'Skinned alive at thesunchronical.com.

The my meek mild-mannered alter ego wrote Speechless at Hog Heaven on Monday. It was some of his best stuff, but no one saw it because Greg Trippiedi posted an even better piece about an hour later. See Did Pats run up the score?

Joseph White is often overlooked by bloggers as a Redskins writer because he is not part of the Post, Times or Examiner stable. But, as the Associated Press beat reporter, it's his recaps that shows up on nfl.com, espn and outside newspapers like USA TODAY.

White did a "morning after" story for Monday's USA TODAY that asks Following 52-7 blowout loss to Patriots, Redskins wondering how it happened.

So are we.

White wrote this post mortem on the Skins:

"New England showed the rest of the league how to attack Washington's deep zone: Run the ball and dump short passes to the running backs in the flat and the slot receiver over the middle. The Patriots' 486 yards sent the Redskins plummeting from No. 1 to No. 6 in the NFC in yards allowed, and cornerback Carlos Rogers was lost for the season with a knee injury.

"That's nothing compared to the offensive problems. The Redskins are now the only team in the NFL without a touchdown pass to a wide receiver. Clinton Portis is averaging 2.7 yards per carry in his last three games. Moss has 49 yards receiving in his last three games."

I don't agree with White's assessment on attacking the defense. What the Patriots showed was how they could attack the Redskins defense. The Jets, the Eagles, the Bears, most of the teams on the schedule do not have the wide receivers who can lure Sean Taylor and LaRon Landry out of the way by running deep patterns. Some that do, like the Cowboys maybe, don't have the talent to exploit it the way the Pats did. Marvelous team.

Busted Illusions

New England showed how far the Redskins have to go to be a Super Bowl competitive team. Our biggest loss was the loss of illusion, and that's not all bad.

The Redskins are a pretty good team, even very good when everyone is healthy. They are sitting pretty for a 9-7 or 10-6 record. They might even make the playoffs. They are unlikely to win a playoff game unless a lot of things improve.

This is football. Teams are never healthy. The teams who make the playoffs and thrive are the ones who manage for that with roster resiliency through depth, the ones who survive attrition. The Redskins don't have that. With the way they assess and source their talent, it's unlikely they will get it.

Carlos Rogers strained the tendons in his knee and he is out for the season. Now the team is thin at that position again. They will have to go out and get someone. That's how we got Mike Rumph.

You can't take shortcuts to building a championship, not and compete with the likes of the Patriots and the Colts who have championship front offices that build winning teams for the long haul. Like the Redskins used to do.

Everybody knows your name

That line comes from the CHEERS theme song. Right now Boston is on everybody's lips. The Sox won the Series. The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl. Boston College is No. 2 in the BCS poll. The Celtics, with Kevin Garnett, are looking up. It's great to be a Boston sports fan.

As a Democrat, I shudder at what that could say about Mitt Romney.

Mitt is the son of George Romney who was Governor of Michigan when I was a college student at Michigan State. I admired George Romney. He was one of the few Republicans I considered voting for. The elder Romney was moderately conservative. That's not red enough for today's Republicans.

As Secretary of HUD, Romney enticed Richard Nixon to visit a Washington, DC housing project to give the president a feel for the struggles of living in a slum and what Romney, as HUD Secretary hoped to do about it.

Even in the news reel, you could see that Nixon was about as comfortable in that environment as "W" was in New Orleans. But, I digress.

In sports, it's a good time to be from Boston.