...was won by the Redskins. This is about as close as one can get to daylight robbery. The Redskins put up less than 130 yards of total offense, could barely move the ball, and yet walked away with a 17-10 victory.
The story of the game was that Tampa Bay dominated the second half, but could not generate enough points to dig themselves out of the hole they had created for themselves in the first half, where an interception and then a fumble return handed Washington 14 points. Without those two crucial mistakes, the Bucs might have won the game by 10-3.
Chris Simms looked very good for the Bucs; he threw the ball well both in the pocket and on the run, showed that he can throw a very accurate deep ball, and even ran for a touchdown (very shrewdly flipping across the line in the air backwards to ensure that the ball was on his inside and crossed the end-zone line). Unfortunately his receivers let him down at crucial moments. He was also handicapped by the fact that Washington schemed to shut down Joey Galloway on deep routes, forcing Simms to use Galloway instead as an underneath short-pass receiver for much of the game.
Ultimately, this was a game decided by Tampa Bay errors in the first quarter. The hole dug by those errors was too deep to climb out of. Tampa Bay beat themselves; the Redskins offense never showed up all game, and several crucial 3rd and 4th down conversion attempts failed, handing the ball back to the Redskins too many times in the fourth quarter.