Week 1 @ Philadelphia: The Good, Bad and Ugly

[naptownskinsfan]

I used to be a sports writer at a local paper coming out of high school and part of my way through college, and I enjoy writing on the topics that interest me- and that's one of the reasons I ultimately decided not to pursue that job, amongst others.  However, I've recently picked up the bug again, and will be presenting a column hopefully after every game titled "The Good, Bad and Ugly."  So let's begin. 

The Good 

No turnovers.  The Redskins have been bitten by the turnover bug for years.  With another QB under center, and against one of the NFL's better pass-rushing defensive lines, one might think that the team would turn the ball over plenty.  That didn't happen.  Case Keenum did not throw an interception, and only took one sack.  While the rushing attack was nearly non-existent, we did not put the ball on the ground via fumble.  To roll up over 400 yards of offense without a turnover is a great takeaway from this game. 

Terry McLaurin has speed.  McLaurin, also referred to as Scary Terry, took his game to the next level today with five catches for 120 yards and a touchdown.  That touchdown was scored on a deep throw off play-action for 69 yards, and if not for an overthrow, McLaurin may have caught another deep throw.  

Trey Quinn shined.  Quinn hauled in four catches for 33 yards and a touchdown, and also impressed me with some of his cuts on punt returns- specifically the one called back.  The slot receiver needs to have that kind of agility to make people miss, and Quinn showed today that he can be a player in that position. 

The Bad 

Derrius Guice did not look good.  Guice only ran 10 times for a total of 18 yards, but did manage to catch three passes for 20 yards.  However, it's clear he still has some rust.  Since I do not count pre-season games as a "meaningful snap," this is a player who hasn't played one of those in over 18 months, and the coaching staff has committed to him as the bell-cow back to get a majority of the carries.  With the investment in Guice, they should be gradually turning over carries to him, not starting him out with the majority.  He also struggled heavily in pass-protection.  Jay Gruden's foolish 1st down play-calling did play a part in his struggles as well, so it's not totally on Guice.

Quinton Dunbar got burned early and often.  Former Redskin DeSean Jackson put up 154 yards on eight catches and two touchdowns against us, and more often than not, Dunbar was the one in coverage.  He also drew Zach Ertz a few times, and also struggled there.  Dunbar is a converted receiver, and a few years ago, looked the part of an emerging #1 corner.  That hype may be drawing to a close.  

Injuries continue to plague the Redskins.  The defensive dynamic seemed to change when Jonathan Allen went out with a sprained knee- he was held out of the game as a precaution.  But numerous other Redskins went down, more than a couple due to cramping, and one really has to wonder about both the medical staff (contracted to Inova) and the strength and conditioning staff (hired by the head coach.)  I planned to put this under Ugly, but frankly, there are more things to put under that category, and there were not any major injuries that were suffered.  

The Ugly

The Adrian Peterson situation.  The worst-kept secret all week was that Gruden was going to list Peterson as a healthy scratch, the first healthy scratch of his career.  Ultimately, this proved to be the case, and was a point brought up a few times by the FOX announcers, as well as in the post-game conference and in the forum GDT.  Expect a lot more discussion on all avenues throughout the week, as this will prove to be yet another famous Redskins "off the field" distraction, as it seems Gruden and Bruce Allen are at odds with each other.  

Penalties!  No team is more penalized than the Redskins it seems, and today was no exception- 12 penalties taken for 96 yards.  Specifically, Morgan Moses seems to take a ton, and he is at the point where someone on the coaching staff with authority needs to bench him to send a message.  In the third quarter especially, offensive penalties led to consecutive three-and-outs, and the lack of discipline is completely unacceptable.  

Play-calling is atrocious.  On the offensive side, it's been mentioned that Gruden ran a ton on first down and it seemed the Eagles were prepared for it.  After going into the half with a 20-7 lead, both the offense and defense went into their traditional prevent play=calling instead of making adjustments and keeping the pressure going.  Gruden's prevent offense was ridiculously ineffective, and not helped at all by numerous penalties that derailed drives before they started.  On defense, they could not get off the field on third downs and Greg Manusky yet again allows his corners to play so far off the ball that you can't expect anything but a completion from a QB as accurate as Carson Wentz.  Being up 20-3 and losing 32-27 is squarely on the coaches this time for horrific play-calling in the second half.

Tickets are still available.  While watching the Cowboys/Giants game on Fox, I about fell out of my couch when they ran a commercial saying Redskins season tickets were still available.  Who would want to buy them after this game?  That said, with tickets still available, and the Cowboys looking like they are ready to take the next step (Dakota looked really impressive today) I would expect that tickets remain available, and to expect the Cowboys game next week to be split down the middle with Redskins and Cowboys fans.  

[Umbaugh21]

Good write up man! 

I honestly am not as mad about this game as others are. We were not supposed to even have a chance at winning this game according to the experts (hence the biggest spread difference in week one). Guess what though? We were two deep balls on 3rd and 10 away from winning this game. Without even mentioning the open would be TD that Case Keenum overthrew  McLaurin on, we win this game by playing the deep ball better on 3rd and long.

I think our zone defense will get better as the season goes on. Our pass rush will certainly be more effective than it was today, and maybe we get Trent Williams back and our run game improves. This game gave me more hope for the rest of the season that we will at the least be a competitive team and not a Miami Dolphins. 

[turtle28]

I can’t complain with the write up at all, it’s spot on.

I expected us to lose this game and 4 of the first 5 games of the season at the least - the Giants defense looks far worse than ours ever did, even in the second half.

I was entirely shocked we were up 17-0 in the first half but not shocked that we let the Eagles back in the game in the second half.

I think what needs to added is that not only was Dunbar burned, but we shouldn’t give Josh Norman a pass for his average at best play. Let’s not forget that Norman was also burned by DeSean Jackson for the Eagles first TD.

Besides Allen getting hurt and that changing the direction of the defense bc they could then double Payne and single block the rest of our defense, Josh Norman was burned by DJax on the first Eagles TD of the game with 4:19 left in the first half and the game was never the same after that.

This is going to be a long season, people need to brace themselves for a losing season and if we happen to be near or over .500 I’ll just chalk that up as amazement!

That being said, I hope this forum can realize that although this is likely to be a losing season brighter days should be ahead next year and the years after once Haskins, our current young pieces on offense are developed more and after we’ve added even more pieces to this young team.

Edited September 9, 2019 by turtle28

[Slateman]

I think the defense is going to be a problem all season. It's pretty obvious that none of the defensive coaches trust anyone in that secondary to cover the opposition. Which means a lot of four man rushes. Which means opposing QBs will have a lot of time to throw.

[turtle28]

17 minutes ago, Slateman said:

I think the defense is going to be a problem all season. It's pretty obvious that none of the defensive coaches trust anyone in that secondary to cover the opposition. Which means a lot of four man rushes. Which means opposing QBs will have a lot of time to throw.

I think we should realize that not every team in the NFL has the same passing attack that the Eagles have. They have the best deep threat in the NFL. Two other WRs who are starter level quality, the best receiving TE in the NFL, one of the best young TEs in the NFL and one of the best receiving RBs in the NFL.

I think our defense is closer to the one that played in the first half than to the one that showed up in the second half where the offense only mustered 16 yards in the 3rd quarter and no first downs and only had 30 yards of offense in the 2nd half before the final drive of the game when the Eagles were in a prevent defense.

I think we are a top 15 defense.

Edited September 9, 2019 by turtle28

[MikeT14]

8 hours ago, naptownskinsfan said:

The Ugly

Play-calling is atrocious.  On the offensive side, it's been mentioned that Gruden ran a ton on first down and it seemed the Eagles were prepared for it.  After going into the half with a 20-7 lead, both the offense and defense went into their traditional prevent play=calling instead of making adjustments and keeping the pressure going. 

Normally I would agree with you re: Gruden, but not this game. What is he supposed to do when the offense kills drives because of penalties, Keenum overthrows a wide open Terry, and Prich drops two wide open passes for first downs?

[MikeT14]

Here's some ugly.

 

 

[turtle28]

6 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

Here's some ugly.

 

 

Moses just said on The Junkies that he’s 50/50 on whether Trent plays next week.

He said if Peterson is not active next week he's going to talk to coaches about it. He said not having a Hall of Fame player active is a slap in the face.

[turtle28]

34 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

Normally I would agree with you re: Gruden, but not this game. What is he supposed to do when the offense kills drives because of penalties, Keenum overthrows a wide open Terry, and Prich drops two wide open passes for first downs?

Can’t disagree there, the entire team was awful in the second half except our MVP Tress WAy.

Edited September 9, 2019 by turtle28

[Umbaugh21]

You can mark Guice hurting his other knee under ugly now. 

[naptownskinsfan]

9 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

Normally I would agree with you re: Gruden, but not this game. What is he supposed to do when the offense kills drives because of penalties, Keenum overthrows a wide open Terry, and Prich drops two wide open passes for first downs?

Not consistently run on first down?  Then start running it on first and second?  Bench a player like Moses for taking stupid penalties?  Not go into prevent offense so early in the game.  The Redskins did not execute at all in the third quarter, but how many times have we seen that during Gruden's tenure?  

[naptownskinsfan]

17 hours ago, Umbaugh21 said:

Good write up man! 

I honestly am not as mad about this game as others are. We were not supposed to even have a chance at winning this game according to the experts (hence the biggest spread difference in week one). Guess what though? We were two deep balls on 3rd and 10 away from winning this game. Without even mentioning the open would be TD that Case Keenum overthrew  McLaurin on, we win this game by playing the deep ball better on 3rd and long.

I think our zone defense will get better as the season goes on. Our pass rush will certainly be more effective than it was today, and maybe we get Trent Williams back and our run game improves. This game gave me more hope for the rest of the season that we will at the least be a competitive team and not a Miami Dolphins. 

I put a lot of the failure on the pass-rush as facing an elite offensive line.  The Eagles offensive line may THE best in the NFL, and I think Redskins fans are overrating our defense a bit when they think we should've gotten a few sacks on Wentz.  But against most other teams, we should be able to generate a pretty good pass rush. 

[naptownskinsfan]

8 hours ago, MikeT14 said:

Here's some ugly.

 

 

Yeah, that is pretty ugly, and against our early season competition, I don't see it getting much better. 

[naptownskinsfan]

10 hours ago, Slateman said:

I think the defense is going to be a problem all season. It's pretty obvious that none of the defensive coaches trust anyone in that secondary to cover the opposition. Which means a lot of four man rushes. Which means opposing QBs will have a lot of time to throw.

That's another good take on the situation.  It's going to be a long season.  

[turtle28]

3 hours ago, naptownskinsfan said:

I put a lot of the failure on the pass-rush as facing an elite offensive line.  The Eagles offensive line may THE best in the NFL, and I think Redskins fans are overrating our defense a bit when they think we should've gotten a few sacks on Wentz.  But against most other teams, we should be able to generate a pretty good pass rush. 

This happens every time we play Wentz. Back in 2017 we had Wentz in the grasp several times and he broke free and completed passed for TDs in both of our loses to the that year.

Edited September 10, 2019 by turtle28