[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

What wasn't adequate was the Redskins coverage against secondary and tertiary Giant receivers.....

While D. Hall and Smoot look bad this is a scheme issue IMO.

The plan: if Smoot is in the game, throw at him.

Problem with Smoot is, at this point he's a Cover-2/Tampa-2 Zone CB only, forget man coverage, he's awful. He's fairly decent in run support. The way Blache sets his D, it doesn't matter if Smoot subs in when they run C2 Zone. You can read it pre-snap from a mile away anyway.

Blitzin' Greg Blache
With Doughty back in the lineup, the Redskins are a much better team when the blitz. I charted 13 separate Redskin blitzes. 6 of these resulted in successful plays for the offense so it's hard to say the Redskins are better off blitzing than rushing four. I do think if Blache can generate additional pressure with the occasional blitz, it's worth doing, but the all-out blitzes have to stop.

Again a scheme issue. In the first quarter the Skins came out in either Cover 1 or Cover-2 Zone. Very easy pre-read for Manning. If Landry is 20 yds deep middle it's C-1. At about 11 min left in the 2nd Qtr Blache switched to a Cover 3 base look. From that look it was harder to read the pass coverage and this forced Manning to question his pre-reads a little more. Still pre-reading C-3 Zone vs. C-1 Man against the Skins D is not as hard as getting a good pre-read on the Giants' D.

The only score of the day for the Giants on Sunday came on an equally inexcusable blitz. The Redskins were in the nickel, and blitzed both linebackers and both safeties at Eli Manning. Manning knew it was coming, so he got the ball out to Mario Manningham quickly. The blitz put Fred Smoot in an awful situation: having to come up and make an aggressive open field tackle with no pursuit to come before the first down would be reached. Smoot's tackle attempt only compounded the problem as he basically tried to faceplant at Manningham's feet in the hopes that he would trip somehow, but Smoot isn't going to make that play very often. Manningham went in for a touchdown after DeAngelo Hall came over and tried to think-push him out of bounds.

No problem with a Cover 0 blitz. All good Ds take this risk sometimes....problem is Blache's D is very predictable/easy to read and it was a simple audible for Manning. However there is NO EXCUSE for a CB who can't come up on a WR quick screen and grab some jersey to hold onto until help arrives. Hall should be fined for his effort on that play. If he wants to play flag football there are plenty of leagues in VA he can play in.

The Redskins also have a schematic issue with their seven and eight man blitzes: the fact that they don't have any bump and run corners outside of Rogers anymore means that the receivers get a clean release on more or less every play......

I thought Hall was supposed to be a bump-n-run shutdown corner? My mistake. What did we pay $ 27M + for? Landry can't play man coverage? Hell, give Barnes or Tryon a shot.

The poor coverage is a result of questionable cornerback depth. For the Redskins to be a threat against the quarterbacks who will populate the playoff field in the NFC, they will need an unexpected development from at least one of their current 4-6 CBs on the current depth chart.

My belief is that the CB talent, while not spectacular is adequate. The problem is Blache playing a "bend don't break" style of D. I only saw 6 plays where a real blitz was called. I'm not including run blitzes because often in Man coverage the LB/DB reads his man blocking or reads run and flys into run support making it look like a run blitz.
Blache is not schemeing his D at all. He sits back in the Cover 1 Man or Cover 2 Zone and hopes his personnel are just better than the opponent. That doesn't work and he backs off into the Cover 3 scheme we saw on Sun. Again, the Cover 3 coverage was harder to read but still not tremendously difficult for pros who have full field film and hours to study. Just looking at the Eagles and Giants D you see defenders moving in and out of gaps and feinting blitz then dropping to coverage. What happened to a Zone Blitz here and there? The FO spent a great deal of money and we have some playmakers now, Blache needs to be much more creative in his schemes and efforts to confuse to opposing QB.
How hard is it to put Orakpo in position to get after the QB at not worry about coverage, how setting up overload blitzes and Zone Blites, I didn't see much of that on Sunday.

A few other thoughts:
- D. Hall: Outside of the INT (which Landry created, he was in Zone and happened to benefit) Hall played a crappy game. I counted three terrible efforts at tackles, the penalty on the Punt Return, getting abused by Smith, and being manhandled in the run game by Nicks & Co. He better step it up or we're looking at Lloyd/Arch part 2.
- Our CBs must jam the WRs, this 8-10 yard cushion and giving WRs a free release doesn't work.
-When Landry comes into the box, he blitzes, period. This isn't a hard read to pick up on.

Keep in mind without the 2 close stops the D made inside the 10 (yes they did a good job inside the 10 but we won't be so lucky if our opponents are consistently inside our 10) and the fake FG, the score could've very easily been 28-0 at half and 34-10 for the game.