It's interesting that the Vikings' two losses this season have come against the two rookie quarterbacks selected No. 1 and No. 2 overall in the 2012 draft in Indianapolis' Andrew Luck and Washington's Robert Griffin III.
But Griffin wasn't the main reason the Vikings lost Sunday, 38-26 at Washington.
In the NFL, everyone knows that you can't go on the road, march into the red zone three times in the first quarter and have your scoring consist of only three field goals.
They had a chance to take a huge lead in the first quarter as they marched inside the Redskins 20-yard line three times only to settle for nine points. They went for 78 yards on their opening drive, for 44 yards after a bad Washington punt gave them the ball at midfield and then for 26 yards after Antoine Winfield made a nice interception along the sidelines.
The Redskins defense hadn't been impressive. Coming into Sunday, it was the 27th-ranked defense in the NFL and 31st against the pass at 328.6 yards per game.
At one time early on, the Vikings had an edge of 142 yards to 7 for Washington, which had lost its previous eight games at FedEx Field and hadn't won on its own turf since Week 2 of last season.
A fumble by Christian Ponder that was recovered by Lorenzo Alexander led to a touchdown in the Redskins' 17-point second quarter, which didn't help.
The other reason the Vikings lost is because the defense had no way to stop a great young quarterback in Griffin.