"That's where teams fall, when they get the quarterback hit," said Zorn, a longtime quarterback and quarterbacks coach. "The frustrating thing is to see thing happening well down the field, but not having enough time to get the play thrown or executed. They magnify when the result is like today."

Jason Campbell was only sacked three times by Dallas, but he was forced to throw on the run plenty of times on his 34 attempts.

"To be where we're at, as far as protecting Jason is definitely a question mark," said center Casey Rabach, who allowed one of the three sacks against the Cowboys. "It's something that needs to be addressed and something that needs to be taken care of."

"We do have a quarterback that can avoid a sack, ... but it's not going to happen all the time," Zorn said.

Zorn said he has always told his quarterbacks to expect seven big hits a game.

"I don't want them to go into any game thinking this is going to be hunky-dory," Zorn said. "When they do get hit and they don't know where it came from, what I try to do is give them the correct information, 'Here's what happened.' ... As long as the quarterback knows that we can take care of it and we're going to take care of it, I think it keeps him playing well. It keeps him playing with some confidence."

While the Redskins have won two of their past five games, their confidence isn't exactly high, given that the victories were over shaky Cleveland and winless Detroit and one of the losses was to lousy St. Louis at home. The other two losses were to the potent pass rushes of AFC North leader Pittsburgh and preseason Super Bowl favorite Dallas, both at home.

"Jason got hit quite a few times," said fullback Mike Sellers, who scored Washington's only touchdown on his third catch of the year to complete the Redskins' first series. "When everybody's not on the same page, stuff like that is going to happen. We're not that good right now to have those types of mistakes."

Indeed, the offense hasn't generated even 20 points in any of the games during the downturn after averaging 26 during the four-game winning streak that preceded it. The Redskins are 13th in yards but 27th in scoring, the biggest disparity in the league.

"We're hitting on some cylinders, but we're not hitting on all of them, that's for sure," said Zorn, who has merged his West Coast passing scheme with the power running attack of predecessor Joe Gibbs.