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After starting the season with consecutive losses, the Washington Redskins put together a highly-enjoyable four-game winning streak thanks to a productive offense and a much-improved defense. Although their games continued to come down to the wire each week, the Redskins continually found a way to emerge victorious.

In Detroit Sunday, Washington once again found itself in a tightly-contested battle that wasn’t decided until the final possession. This time around though, their magic appeared to run out and the fortuitous bounces didn’t go their way. The Redskins rushing attack twice fumbled the ball away and the usually clutch Dustin Hopkins had a rare miss on a 45-yard field goal attempt. Failing to put points on the board on those three drives ultimately proved to be the difference as the Lions rallied to win 20-17.

After dominating the Lions for 40 years, winning 22 out of 24 games against Detroit from 1968-2008, the Redskins have now lost four-straight games to Matthew Stafford and friends. The 4-3 Redskins must now travel to London, where they’ll try to bounce back against the Cincinnati Bengals next Sunday.

Considering how infrequently the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns play one another, it’s amazing how similar the two franchises are.

For starters, both teams have struggled with constant turnover at football’s most important positions — head coach and quarterback — which ultimately leads to disfunction and turmoil. As the losing seasons have piled up over the last decade and a half, the Redskins and Browns have both become a punchline to the rest of the NFL.

And then you’ve got the quarterback looking for a shot at redemption against his former team. Of course I’m talking about Colt McCoy, who played for Cleveland for three seasons before he was traded to San Francisco. Oh, and I guess the same could be said about Robert Griffin III, who might have spent some time in Washington as well. Sadly, for both guys, McCoy and Griffin were nothing more than spectators Week 4.

But Griffin wasn’t the only player making a return to FedEx Field. Defensive lineman Stephen Paea, center Austin Reiter (who apparently tore his ACL in his NFL debut Sunday) and former Redskins offensive coordinator Al Saunders (and his 700-page playbook) also returned to our nation’s capital Sunday. Even the Browns current head coach, Hue Jackson, spent two seasons in Washington — serving as a running backs coach under Marty Schottenheimer and Steve Spurrier.

And yet, with all of those similarities, the Redskins defeated the Browns 31-20 in a very different fashion. For three weeks, Washington has lacked a consistent ground game and struggled to score in the red zone. The Redskins excelled in both areas against Cleveland — with touchdowns on four trips to the red zone and Matt Jones finishing with 117 yards on the ground.

The Redskins defense hasn’t been very good in 2016, allowing tons of yards and points while failing to create many turnovers. With injuries mounting Sunday, Washington’s defense limited the Browns to just three second-half points while creating three turnovers when the outcome of the game was still very much in the balance. There’s still plenty of room left for improvement, but things look way better than they did two weeks ago when the 2016 season was on the verge of disaster.

Coming into the season opener, continuity has become the norm with the Washington Redskins, which hasn’t really ever been the case since Daniel Snyder bought the franchise. While it’s been a jarring adjustment for some, the roster is no longer in a state of constant turnover, the coaching staff hasn’t been radically redone and the foundation of a respectable franchise are evident. In short, the Redskins don’t really resemble the punching bag the rest of the NFL lovin’ world has come to know and mock.

That being said, the home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers went about as poorly as possible. The Redskins once again lost to a Pittsburgh team they have not beaten since 1991 and dropped to a pitiful 2-15 at FedEx Field during Monday Night Football games. All of the excitement and good will the quiet offseason ushered in quickly evaporated as the Redskins were drubbed 38-16, and now panic has set in as Washington attempts to start the season with back-to-back home losses.

As I drove out to Redskins Park to cover this year’s rookie camp, it dawned on me that this is my 12th season covering the burgundy and gold for ExtremeSkins. Had someone told me back in 2005 when I was first given this amazing access that I would last longer than any of the players on the roster that season, I would have called them crazy.

And yet, here I am.

Rookie camp is always a time for unabashed optimism. It’s the first chance to see the team’s newest toys — to see if the front office swung and missed during the NFL draft or possibly unearthed a hidden gem. On this day, I was particularly excited to see USC standout Su’a Cravens and Virginia Tech defensive back Kendall Fuller.

Unfortunately, Cravens was participating in drills on the field furthest from the location where the media was allowed to stand and Fuller was recovering from injury. So I settled for a morning with the team’s surprising first-round pick, TCU wide out Josh Doctson, and sixth-round pick Indiana quarterback Nate Sudfeld.

The Washington Redskins hosted a playoff game at FedEx Field for just the third time since the stadium opened in 1997. Unfortunately for the home team, this one played out similarly to the ’12 game against Seattle — with the Redskins jumping out to an early lead that they were unable to hold onto. Thankfully, no one appears to have suffered a horrible injury this time around. In the end though, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Redskins 35-18, Jan. 10. Here is a selection of my favorite images I was able to capture from Wild Card weekend. The full gallery of my photos can be found here.