Skins Squeak by Steelers, 17-13
The Redskins beat the Steelers 17-13 in FedEx Field’s 2009 opener (not counting that raging Paul McCartney concert a few weeks back) with very little help from the starting offense. Game ball? Fourth string rookie Chase Daniel from Missouri.
Jason Campbell stumbled out of the gate early against Pittsburgh, completing only 1 pass (out of 7 tries) to Chris Cooley for 10 yards. It wasn’t all bad for the starting offense, as they drove to a field goal on their opening drive against the Super Bowl champs, however; they faced 2nd and 2 at the Steelers’ 3-yard line before getting stuffed twice and settling for a field goal.
Without starting QB Ben Roethlisberger, who was being held out after suffering a foot injury in practice this week, backup QB Charlie Batch led Pittsburgh on a courageous comeback, taking a 13-10 lead into the start of the fourth quarter. Batch played not much better than Campbell, completing only five of 14 passes for 63 yards.
Then, Chase Daniel’s heroics took over. He led the game-winning scoring drive with barely a minute expired in the fourth quarter, and the Redskins ran the clock out from there.
Overall, the Redskins put up some frighteningly paltry passing statistics (thanks to ESPN’s box score):
Washington QBs against Pittsburgh, 8/22/09:
C/A YDS YPA TD INT
C. Daniel 6/8 58 7.3 2 0
C. Brennan 3/5 42 8.4 0 1
T. Collins 5/9 39 4.3 0 1
J. Campbell 1/7 10 1.4 0 0
Team 15/29 137 4.7 2 2
