(photo by Brian Murphy)

Sure, the Washington Redskins lost to the hated Dallas Cowboys and the 2011 season hasn’t exactly gone according to plan, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have a little fun.

With that in mind, back by popular demand, it’s time for another round of “caption this.”

The game is fairly simple, as you hopefully know by now. I supply the photo and you bring the witty reader-submitted captions. You might not win any cool prizes, but you’ll be formally recognized for being better than your peers and will get some love here on the blog.

Here’s my humble offering for this photo to help get folks started:

“It must be December, because Tony Romo looks like he’s screwed.”

Think you can do better? Leave a comment below with your best caption.

[Editor's note: The winner is michelle with a caption of, “If things don’t work out in Dallas, Jason Garrett is more than qualified to take over at Penn State.” Thanks to everyone who joined in the fun.]

(photo by Brian Murphy)

While most fans of the Washington Redskins settle for a view of their favorite team’s games from a recliner or the cheap seats, I’m fortunate enough to be on the sidelines each and every Sunday.

Even now, in my seventh season, I still get chills as I walk out onto the sidelines before a Redskins game. By the time the national anthem is finished, I’m so fired up I feel like I could take the field myself (which is a terrible idea).

During the course of a standard three-hour football game, I take roughly 1,500 photos. Out of those, I hope to walk away with 10-15 compelling images that best represent that particular contest.

I’m looking for action shots. I’m aiming for reaction shots. I’m trying to get portraits of the players on the sidelines.

Basically, I’m trying to tell a story with my photos. And if I’m lucky, I end up with a shot or two like the one at the top of this post — the one of Redskins running back Roy Helu getting absolutely drilled by Seattle Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor.

Capturing a photo like that — at the exact moment of impact  — with the rain coming down and everything is what photographers dream of. Trust me, I could shoot another seven years worth of games and not get anything close to that.

A lot of luck and a little bit of skill go a long way when it comes to sports photography. At any rate, I just wanted to share with fellow ‘Skins fans a few of my favorite shots from the Redskins 23-17 win over the Seahawks. Click here for the full gallery.

(photo by Brian Murphy)

I understand why the Washington Capitals opted to part ways with coach Bruce Boudreau, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the decision.

I’ve followed sports long enough to know that once a coach loses the locker room, the front office can either do nothing and watch things spiral out of control or management can make a bold move to try and salvage what’s left of the season.

And yet, I still can’t help but be bummed out that the man affectionately known as Gabby will no longer be calling the shots in Washington.

If I’m being honest with myself, I’d admit that this very well could have happened before the season even began. Lord knows there were plenty of people calling for the coach’s head after the Capitals were swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the playoffs.

But Caps general manager George McPhee essentially pointed the finger at his players after the team’s last playoff collapse – and he went about reshaping the bottom half of the roster to bring in players he believed were better equipped to excel in the postseason.

Had McPhee listened to the critics (and a vocal minority of Caps fans), he would have replaced Boudreau then. But GMGM opted to publicly support his coach and appeared to do anything and everything he could to upgrade the roster for one final chance at that elusive playoff run.

Boudreau had to know he very easily could have been let go then, which is why the Caps coach suddenly embraced a more disciplinarian mindset with his players this season.

If his words fell on deaf ears, players found themselves listed as a “healthy scratch.” If someone missed a meeting, they too were removed from the lineup.

Unfortunately for Boudreau, it’s tough to change a clubhouse’s culture overnight. When little stuff like that has been swept under the rug in the past, no one is going to be thrilled that Boudreau suddenly began holding players accountable to a tougher standard.

And honestly, that’s where things went south in Washington. For all the good things Boudreau did for the Capitals, he also allowed this franchise to lose its identity.

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(photo by Brian Murphy)

1. “Territorial Pissing” by Nirvana

The last time I was in Seattle, it was to cover the only playoff game I’ve been on the sidelines for.

After the shocking death of safety Sean Taylor, the Washington Redskins rallied to win their final four games of the 2007 regular season to sneak in the postseason.

Emotions were high as Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs and the Redskins traveled west to face the Seattle Seahawks, and everyone involved felt there was a destiny of sorts attached to that particular team as they headed into the wildcard weekend.

Unfortunately, real life doesn’t always play out like a Disney movie and the Redskins ultimately lost to the Seahawks 35-14. The game ended up being the last of Joe Gibbs 2.0 and paved the way for the Jim Zorn Era, but what I remember most from that fateful trip was just how shitty Seattle fans were.

Maybe it’s because they live in a dark and dreary place that sees rain far too often, but by kickoff it was already clear that Seahawks fans are a perfect blend of insecure little men and loudmouth douchebags. The fact that the “12th Man” schtick originated in Seattle only further encourages their unruly behavior.

Well, I probably could have lived with all of the obnoxious taunts and foul language, if they’d have left it at that. But alas, the Seahawks fans were in rare form that day and they apparently needed to make sure their presence was felt.

So one of them dumped a beer on me for no apparent reason other than the fact that I was wearing a Washington Nationals hat on the sidelines when receiver Santana Moss caught a touchdown pass from backup quarterback Todd “The Tasty Drink” Collins to give Washington the lead, 14-13.*

I wasn’t jumping up and down and acting like a fool. I wasn’t wearing burgundy and gold. No, I was simply taking photos on the sidelines and one of them wasted a perfectly good beer down my back.

*This is the photo I was able to capture before spinning around hoping to identify which coward got me. If nothing else, it is a pretty amazing shot of a special moment.

If you’d have bet me money which city I would have had my first incident in, I’d have probably guessed Philadelphia or New York. But no, that distinction goes to the land of Starbucks and crappy computer-operating systems.

And for that, I will always despise all Seattle sports fans.

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(photo by Brian Murphy)

This photo is one that I’ve never shared with anyone before. It’s a shot I took of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor in the moments after his team emerged victorious 35-20 over the New York Giants, Dec. 24, 2005.

That was my first year covering the Redskins and also happened to be the first time Washington made the playoffs in seven years. The win over New York on Christmas eve was the team’s fourth win in a row and the Redskins followed it up the following week by beating Philadelphia — thanks largely to Taylor’s 39-yard fumble return for a touchdown.

Two weeks after this photo was taken, the Redskins traveled to Tampa Bay to face the Buccaneers in a wild card match-up. I didn’t cover that game. Instead, my wife and I bought tickets and enjoyed the game from the stands.

That day, I opted to sport my Taylor jersey. Needless to say, I was thrilled when he gave Washington a 14-0 lead after recovering a fumble and returning it 51 yards.

At that point, I turned around to the few obnoxious Buccaneers fans who were giving me a hard time and said the following:

“Hey, do you mind if we fire off your cannons since you’re not using them?”

Looking back now, I fully admit that’s a completely ballsy thing to say to the hometown faithful. But let’s be honest – 1.) it’s funny and 2.) any stadium with a built-in pirate ship deserves to be mocked from time to time.

Now, everything was going according to plan that day until Taylor was ejected from the game for spitting in the face of Buccaneers running back Michael Pittman. Once that happened, it paved the way for seemingly every Tampa fan within two sections of me to start chanting and heckling me. Thankfully, most of it was lighthearted and good natured. There were a few jerks, but that’s to be expected.

Buccaneers fans couldn’t stop giving me grief for wearing the jersey of the guy who was just booted from a playoff game, and that play was also a sort of a turning point for Tampa Bay as they began to claw their way back into the game.

Ultimately though, the Redskins somehow managed to hold on and win the game, 17-10. And I got to walk away with a fun little story to tell about how simply wearing a Sean Taylor jersey to a playoff game nearly caused riot in the stands.

This weekend marks the fourth anniversary of his death and rather than sitting around being bummed out that he’s gone, I figured I’d rather remember one of my favorite moments involving one of the most exciting players to ever play for the burgundy and gold.

Hail.

(photo by Brian Murphy)

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Hall of Famer Joe Gibbs couldn’t coach the Washington Redskins forever.

When he walked away from football back in 1992, the three-time Super Bowl winning coach inadvertently started a two-decade long downward spiral for the burgundy and gold.

A franchise that had made the playoffs eight of the last 11 seasons qualified for the postseason just three out of the next 18* years after Grandpa Gibbs headed off into the sunset.

*While Washington still has six games left in the 2011 season, it’s safe to say the Redskins are going to miss the playoffs for the 16th time in 19 seasons. That sentence alone makes me wonder why anyone under the age of 21 willingly roots for this team.

Amazingly, two of those three post-Gibbs playoff trips were manufactured by … well … Gibbs. Basically, every other season since ’92 has been completely forgettable as the Redskins have slipped further and further into mediocrity.

When Gibbs 2.0 decided to once again embrace retirement, the keys to the franchise were turned over to an unknown (and, as it turns out, underqualified) gentleman named Jim Zorn.

Zorn was quirky. Zorn was amusing. But most of all, Zorn was a bad head coach.

In his two seasons in Washington, the former Seattle Seahawks quarterback took a playoff-caliber roster and essentially ran it into the ground – winning just 12 of 32 games with an overpaid and under-performing roster.

Mercifully, Zorn was let go after the 2009 season and owner Daniel Snyder brought in Mike Shanahan – a head coach with a proven track record and two Super Bowl victories of his own.

Unlike his predecessor, Shanahan did not inherit a playoff-ready roster. He took over the oldest team in football and, for better or for worse, opted to shy away from any talk of rebuilding.

Instead, Shanahan pulled the trigger on a deal that brought in Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb and crossed his fingers that the aging veteran could adequately play the role of John Elway.

Two months into the 2010 season, Shanahan had seen enough to know the McNabb experiment wasn’t going to work. The 12-year pro was benched in favor of Rex Grossman, and a season that started with plenty of hope and promise ended with just six wins and more new questions than answers.

Since the McNabb incident in Detroit, the Redskins have gone just 5-13.

The quarterback position, led by Grossman and John Beck, has been inconsistent at best, and dreadful at worst. Statistically, the rushing attack – the one area of football Shanahan has always been able to excel at – has somehow been worse.

The offense has no identity and lacks anything resembling a true playmaker. There isn’t a player on the offensive side of the ball that opposing teams lose sleep over while game-planning. There isn’t a player who can put the rest of the team on his back and will his squad to victory.

Basically, the Redskins only hope of winning on Sundays involves dinking and dunking an opponent to death. That might work in water boarding, but it’s not a way to win football games.

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(photo by Brian Murphy)

The Washington Redskins haven’t won a game in nearly two months, seemingly lose at least one starter a week due to injury and give fans little hope that things will get better any time soon.

So basically, ‘Skins fans are left with the following choices — embrace the losing in hopes that it lands a top five pick in the 2012 NFL Draft or find other ways to pass the time on Sundays.

Because I am a man of the people, I figured it was time to do my part and help make gameday more manageable for the burgundy and gold faithful. With that in mind, I humbly present to you a gallery of my photos spotlighting Redskins cheerleaders.

There might not be much to cheer for during the actual games, but at least the First Ladies of Football are still bringing their “A game.”