When your top performer is a quarterback who goes 17-28 for 167 yards and one touchdown, two things are immediately obvious: first, and pretty much most important, you're not getting the effort you need from the rest of your team; and two, unless you have the Baltimore Ravens' defense circa 2001, you're not winning more than you're losing.

Which is precisely where the Redskins find themselves with only two games left in the season: 7-7. The burgundy and gold, after an inspiring, can-I-really-believe-what-I'm-seeing sprint to 6-2 to start the season, have sputtered to a 1-5 record over their last six games. Even more heartbreaking is the fact that two of those seven losses have come at the hands of the lowliest of the lowly, the Bengals and Rams.

Even with their brutally tough mid-season schedule, had this Skins team had its head screwed on right they could be looking at a record of 9-5 and a real shot at the playoffs.

Ugh.

But what does it all mean?

First, and maybe most important, is what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean, I repeat, it DOESN'T mean fire the head coach. A 9-7 record (still possible) or an 8-8 record (likely) in your first season as a head coach does not get you fired; even a 7-9 record (still, sadly, possible) does not get you fired. If it does get you fired, it proves only this; the person, or people, who hired you in the first place, in this case Mssrs. Snyder and Cerrato, are absolutely god-awful judges of talent and are tacitly admitting as much by bailing on the guy they personally tapped to get this thing off the ground. It further proves that those aforementioned hirers thought the team they had personally put together was a much better one than it actually turned out to be, yet another example of their utterly wretched eyes for talent.

As has been noted in this very space previously, this Redskins team was never a playoff team, contrary to whatever magic beans Cerrato and Snyder were peddling during the off-season and those halcyon first eight weeks of the regular season.

Last year's playoff squad squeaked in only by the hair of its chinny-chin-chin and crashed and burned right off the bat. This year's squad is no better than last year's, largely due to the coaching overhaul that took place after the season. The jerseys you see on the field in 2008 are remarkably similar to the ones you saw in 2007. The players wearing those jerseys need time to figure out their new coaches and responsibilities, and the new staff needs time to learn what it means to get the most out of their players; heck, the staff needs time just to learn how to do the basic job! That's what you get with a rookie head coach and a first-time defensive coordinator.

Somebody needs to take a long, hard look at the makeup of the current team and make sure Vinny Cerrato is nowhere near the war-room when next year's draft roles around. The 'Skins have gotten exactly squat from Vinny's draft last year (and it WAS, most certainly, Vinny's draft); that's what happens when you go on some mad, one position spree. The two receivers and one tight end that were all supposed to spread the field and give Moss, Randle El and Cooley more breathing room have been, for all intents and purposes, invisible. They're ghosts, wraiths, myths. Seriously, half the time I've got an easier time accepting the existence of the Wendigo. The Redskins absolutely MUST start doing a better job on draft day.

Management (read, ownership) needs to recognize that when Clinton Portis, or any other petulant prima donna in the locker room, decides to mouth off about the coaching staff on local radio, whining and complaining about their role or lack thereof, the right thing to do is NOT shrug and say, "That's just BLANK being BLANK." Management and ownership need to back the people they've handpicked to steer this barge, rather than backing a mutinous crew.

There are some spectacular athletes on this Redskins squad, and there are some guys that give it all they've got and then some during the season. But those guys have to all understand, each and every one of them, that athleticism and effort aren't enough. There needs to be something approaching professionalism. Whining about respect, preening for the cameras, hamming it up in the endzone in a game you're losing (to a cellar dweller, no less), all of it points to players whose childish behavior has too long gone unchecked. Having fun is important, but having fun is even better when you do it after accomplishing your penultimate goal; in this case, I'd assume that penultimate goal is winning a Super Bowl.

Bottom line? The Redskins need to grow up in the off-season, both players and ownership. Allow the man you chose to grow into the role he, in all honesty, probably wasn't quite ready for. Do your job, and accept criticism for what it is: an opportunity for improvement. Resist the temptation to point fingers, and spend a little more time in front of the mirror.

And, Santana, if someone tries to recruit you into that time-honored profession of shoeshining during the off-season? Don't quit your day job.