LANDOVER, Md. — The Washington Redskins are approaching the halfway mark of the NFL’s Lousy Team Tour. To their dismay, they’ve become one of the feature attractions themselves.

After getting booed at home while barely beating a St. Louis Rams team that had lost 11 straight, the Redskins last week became the infamous answer to a trivia question when they ended the 19-game skid of the Detroit Lions.
On Sunday, they host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are riding a seven-game schneid and have a quarterback making his first NFL start.
After that? The Carolina Panthers, who will be 0-3 after their bye. Then it’s the Kansas City Chiefs, who are 0-3 with the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys coming up before the Redskins.
So, to recap: It’s very possible the Redskins will make it all the way to Week 7 before playing an opponent that enters the game with a victory.
“These are the worst teams to play,” fullback Mike Sellers said. “Because you don’t know what you’re going to get. But we’re starting to be that same team. You don’t know what’s you’re going to get from us, either.”
If the Redskins (1-2) were anywhere close to as good as they thought they were going to be, they would be set to roll into late October with one of the best records in the league. Instead, three weak performances — particularly the embarrassing Lions loss — have created a fragile team psyche and loads of serious introspection.
“It’s still early, but we can’t allow a snowball effect to take place where one loss ends up being two and three and then the next thing you know everything is all out of control,” linebacker London Fletcher said.
That’s why Sunday’s game hardly looks like a cakewalk, even though the Buccaneers (0-3) look even worse than the Lions.
Tampa Bay had only five first downs last week in a 24-0 loss to the New York Giants and have yet to score in the first quarter this season. New coach Raheem Morris has replaced Byron Leftwich with second-year quarterback Josh Johnson, who threw his first NFL passes in relief against the Giants.
“We’ve just got to find a way to get a win; I’m sure they’re thinking the same thing,” Tampa Bay veteran cornerback Ronde Barber said.
It’s not a big surprise to see the Buccaneers struggling, but the Redskins were expected to look something like a .500 team at the very least. Yet Washington has scored only four touchdowns, and its defense can’t get off the field, ranking last in allowing third-down conversions.
So which team should be looked at as easy pickings? Answer: both of the above.
“They’re coming with in a lot of confidence, thinking they can beat us — after what Detroit did to us,” Washington cornerback Carlos Rogers said.
Redskins coach Jim Zorn has kept a medium, stay-the-course mantra this week, but his defensive coordinator Greg Blache is in a shake-things-up mood, promising a more “riverboat gambler” approach. Tampa Bay coach Morris’ shake-up was the switch to Johnson, a more mobile quarterback who was a fifth-round draft pick out of San Diego in 2008 and entered this year’s training camp fourth string on the depth chart.
“He gets his shot, and I hope that he runs with it,” Barber said. “I hope that he takes this opportunity and shows everybody that, small school or whatnot, this is the NFL and when you get a chance, you’ve got to take advantage of it.”