Published: December 02, 2007 11:31 pm      

BILLS: Late field goal lifts Buffalo over Washington

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Washington Redskins found no relief from a crushing week of tragedy and sorrow.

They remembered Sean Taylor but forgot so much else - the rules of the game, how to close out an opponent, how to score a touchdown at the end of a long drive.

They lost after leading at halftime, for the fifth time in seven defeats. They lost without allowing a touchdown. They lost when they needed that bit of comfort after the death of Taylor, their Pro Bowl safety, Tuesday after his shooting during a burglary at his home in Florida.

They lost 17-16 to the Buffalo Bills on Rian Lindell’s 36-yard field goal with four seconds to play. The kick followed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty against Redskins coach Joe Gibbs for calling a second consecutive timeout to ice the kicker. They lost after leading by 11 points, they lost after giving up big plays to the Bills (6-6) on their last scoring drives and they lost by gaining only 33 yards in the fourth quarter. They lost to a rookie quarterback (Trent Edwards) and an unknown running back, Fred Jackson, making his first start.

They lost in part because Gibbs did not know the rules. He also acknowledge being unaware that Gregg Williams, who runs the Washington defense, started the game with only 10 players, keeping Reed Doughty, Taylor’s replacement, on the sideline for one play, a 22-yard run by Jackson.

“That was a last tribute to Sean and a symbol of how important he was to the team,” Doughty said.

Gibbs said he would discuss the personnel gambit with Williams but it was the least of the Redskins’ problems as they slipped to 5-7 and lost their fourth consecutive game. They had one drive of 14 plays and two of 13 that yielded only field goals and quarterback Jason Campbell was sacked in the end zone for safety.

The final seconds only underscored the scope of the disaster.

“I made a decision there at the end of the game that likely cost us the game,” Gibbs said. “I told the team that. I want to tell everyone that.”

Lindell made a 51-yarder that did not count when the Redskins called a timeout before the snap. Gibbs said he talked to an official about calling another.

“I asked the official. I felt like he said yes but I’m not laying it on him,” he said.

Referee Tony Corrente, talking to a pool reporter, did not address that.

“First off, we can’t have consecutive timeouts. That’s No. 1,” Corrente said. “No. 2, if that timeout is called to freeze the kicker, by rule it becomes unsportsmanlike conduct.”

Gibbs: “I should have known the rule.”

The Redskins’ mourning of their lost teammate continues Monday when the team leaves early in the morning for a memorial service in Miami.

Not many players lingered to relive the recent past. Much of the sympathy now was for Gibbs, 67 and in the fourth season of his second tenure as the Redskins coach.

“I know Coach Gibbs said that was on him but it is really not on him,” Campbell said. “There were a lot of plays that lost us the game. You count the two turnovers by me.”

No one knows if Lindell would have made another successful kick from a distance greater than 36 yards.

“Everybody could have made plays,” defensive tackle Cornelius Griffin said. “No one did.”

The offense kept punting the ball back to Buffalo. A coverage mismatch between Jackson and linebacker London Fletcher became a 54-yard gain that set up the fourth of Lindell’s five field goals. A 30-yard pass from Edwards to Josh Reed went 30 yards to the Redskins 33 with 27 seconds left to set in motion the final sequence.

Having known loss, the Redskins once again lost when they most needed to win.

“I can only imagine what they went through, from the aspect of losing a player like Sean,” Jackson said. “They came out and hit us in the mouth and we just had to weather the storm and it turned into football again. It was kind of surreal.”