The Thin Burgundy and Gold Line

The Skins pulled off an overtime win against the Dolphins, and that is better than losing, but this game left Skins fans with much to fret about.

It should have been a slaughter: a home game season opener with loud fans against a team that went 6-10 last season and has a new coach and a new quarterback who is 37.

A couple passes that Santana Moss dropped could have changed the game. And Brandon Lloyd, in the end zone, did not want the ball as much as his defender did. Carlos Rogers again disappointed with missed tackles and a 15 yard penalty, and Fred Smoot played a good game overall but couldn't haul in the interception.

Kudos to Rocky McIntosh, who was always committing or near the tackle. Rookie LaRon Landry also had a good game, one of his tackles is pictured above.

The Fins couldn't run or throw the long ball but found a vulnerability on the ten yard pass and exploited it for most of their gains. If the Skins are going to play Cover-2 then Fletcher needs to channel Urlacher and get back quickly on the play action pass and cover the mid-middle. He covers the run great, but not so well the pass.

But the nightmare of all Skins fans, and what we had been worried about, was the fragile O line that has no depth. We tremored in the preseason when undrafted free agent Stephon Heyer took over at LT and Jason Campbell was alsmost out for the season as Heyer blew his coverage.

Today, early in the second quarter RG Jon Jansen was carted off the field. Cooley, the Skins number two catcher last year, then had to play the rest of the game blocking and only had one catch. That is like Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez being out of the passing picture. Nightmare.

J la C of the Wa Post flagged this vulnerability. So did the stats Gods at Pro Football Prospectus.