Adam Schefter: What's Wrong with the Redskins

[Longtimefan]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Yeah. Webster is a shutdown corner at this point. The interception, while it never should have been thrown, was a fantastic play by Webster. It was a better play, IMO, than Polamalu's INT in the Steelers-Titans game.

The passing game was fully functional throwing to the mismatches that Cooley and Randle El had all game. Unfortunately, we just didn't do enough with it.

Speaking of the INT, That play resulted in something I have never witnessed in all the years I've been watching professional football. The QB starts to run crosses the LOS, throw's an illegal foreward pass that is intercepted. In sixty yrs. of watching pro. football I've never seen that.

I do agree with Matty, other receivers other than Moss have to step-up and begin to make a serious contribution to the offense. Both Thomas and Kelly were virtually invisible on Sunday, and no Davis either. It's time for Zorn to give these guys the opportunity to make some plays. They can't do anything if he won't put them in the game.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by Longtimefan

Speaking of the INT, That play resulted in something I have never witnessed in all the years I've been watching professional football. The QB starts to run crosses the LOS, throw's an illegal foreward pass that is intercepted. In sixty yrs. of watching pro. football I've never seen that.

I do agree with Matty, other receivers other than Moss have to step-up and begin to make a serious contribution to the offense. Both Thomas and Kelly were virtually invisible on Sunday, and no Davis either. It's time for Zorn to give these guys the opportunity to make some plays. They can't do anything if he won't put them in the game.

You can do a search on my posts and see that I said I was "seriously pumped" about the emergence of Kelly and Thomas during the offseason. I bought into the hype about those guys.

But if there was ever a time when we needed them to step up and divert some attention away from Santana Moss, it was Sunday. You have to give the rookies the benefit of the doubt in year one. But it's year two now. These guys need to man up and show us why they were highly touted coming out of college.

Until then, they are proving the critics of Vinny Cerrato's talent evaluation exactly right.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

You can do a search on my posts and see that I said I was "seriously pumped" about the emergence of Kelly and Thomas during the offseason. I bought into the hype about those guys.

But if there was ever a time when we needed them to step up and divert some attention away from Santana Moss, it was Sunday. You have to give the rookies the benefit of the doubt in year one. But it's year two now. These guys need to man up and show us why they were highly touted coming out of college.

Until then, they are proving the critics of Vinny Cerrato's talent evaluation exactly right.

Now, when the ball was thrown at receivers who were not Santana Moss, we completed more than 80% of our passes for better than 9 yards an attempt.

Perhaps there wasn't a problem with Kelly or Thomas in this game, but simply that our two interior receivers were so wide open most of the game that there was no reason to go past them in the progression. The statistics certainly support this to be the case.

The only negative plays in the passing game happened when the ball went to Moss, who just got embarrassed in his one-on-one matchup with Webster. If there's any part of the passing game that needs to step it up, it starts and ends with him. Kelly did fine.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Now, when the ball was thrown at receivers who were not Santana Moss, we completed more than 80% of our passes for better than 9 yards an attempt.

Perhaps there wasn't a problem with Kelly or Thomas in this game, but simply that our two interior receivers were so wide open most of the game that there was no reason to go past them in the progression. The statistics certainly support this to be the case.

The only negative plays in the passing game happened when the ball went to Moss, who just got embarrassed in his one-on-one matchup with Webster. If there's any part of the passing game that needs to step it up, it starts and ends with him. Kelly did fine.

But don't you think that was by design? Wouldn't the interior receivers underneath be second in the progressions?

With Cooley especially, I could see how they figured they could take their chances with Cooley underneath knowing he didn't get into the endzone much last season. Ditto for ARE -- they took away Moss and Portis knowing they are the major scoring threats and gave us whatever we wanted yardage-wise between the 20's.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

But don't you think that was by design? Wouldn't the interior receivers underneath be second in the progressions?

With Cooley especially, I could see how they figured they could take their chances with Cooley underneath knowing he didn't get into the endzone much last season. Ditto for ARE -- they took away Moss and Portis knowing they are the major scoring threats and gave us whatever we wanted yardage-wise between the 20's.

In shotgun formations, the progression generally tends to be inside out. You know the old saying that nothing good happens when you throw late over the middle? Coaches usually teach the quarterback to look inside out because once the inside receivers show the defense what they are running, the window to get the ball in closes pretty quickly.

The time to use the outside guys in the passing game would have been inside the red zone, but given that our two trips to the red zone in this game produced exactly two attempts, not for Kelly or Thomas but for ALL receivers, into the end zone, you can imagine why we couldn't get them the ball.

You can't have two attempts at throwing a touchdown from the red zone in a game. The possession where we scored on the fake FG was proof of this. On first down we ran the ball. On second down, we threw a WR screen to Moss. Zorn needs to pick one, or the other, not both. Campbell had no chance to make a play on third down because the Giants just sent a creative blitz and got a hit on the quarterback. We completely pissed away that oppertunity for a TD, and scored on a gimmick.

The second time, the playcalling wasn't quite as awful, we just tried to run the ball and ended up losing 6 yards on first down. That's going to happen with a young RT like Heyer. But that caused us to use our second down play to get in a managable third down, which we did, except then Campbell didn't have anyone open in the end zone and was sacked.

In hindsight, we got as many points in the red zone (10) as the players earned on Sunday, but it could have been catastrophic if not for the fake FG. That play really bailed us out from a potential blowout.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

In shotgun formations, the progression generally tends to be inside out. You know the old saying that nothing good happens when you throw late over the middle? Coaches usually teach the quarterback to look inside out because once the inside receivers show the defense what they are running, the window to get the ball in closes pretty quickly.

The time to use the outside guys in the passing game would have been inside the red zone, but given that our two trips to the red zone in this game produced exactly two attempts, not for Kelly or Thomas but for ALL receivers, into the end zone, you can imagine why we couldn't get them the ball.

You can't have two attempts at throwing a touchdown from the red zone in a game. The possession where we scored on the fake FG was proof of this. On first down we ran the ball. On second down, we threw a WR screen to Moss. Zorn needs to pick one, or the other, not both. Campbell had no chance to make a play on third down because the Giants just sent a creative blitz and got a hit on the quarterback. We completely pissed away that oppertunity for a TD, and scored on a gimmick.

The second time, the playcalling wasn't quite as awful, we just tried to run the ball and ended up losing 6 yards on first down. That's going to happen with a young RT like Heyer. But that caused us to use our second down play to get in a managable third down, which we did, except then Campbell didn't have anyone open in the end zone and was sacked.

In hindsight, we got as many points in the red zone (10) as the players earned on Sunday, but it could have been catastrophic if not for the fake FG. That play really bailed us out from a potential blowout.

I see what you're saying, but I wasn't really talking about red zone situations only. Yes, we weren't there often enough to make a good judgement either way. I'm talking about taking deeper shots downfield to the outside receivers (deep-ins, deep-outs, etc.) -- and as I've said before, to the observer watching on TV, it's difficult to see exactly what's happening with the wideouts because they are always out of the shot. I'd be interested to see exactly how many plays were drawn up that specifically targeted Kelly, Thomas, and Moss down the sidelines, 20 yards+, near or outside the numbers.

In the end, I suppose it's hard to make an assessment of the receivers when we're so hell-bent on pretending to be a power running team.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

I see what you're saying, but I wasn't really talking about red zone situations only. Yes, we weren't there often enough to make a good judgement either way. I'm talking about taking deeper shots downfield to the outside receivers (deep-ins, deep-outs, etc.) -- and as I've said before, to the observer watching on TV, it's difficult to see exactly what's happening with the wideouts because they are always out of the shot. I'd be interested to see exactly how many plays were drawn up that specifically targeted Kelly, Thomas, and Moss down the sidelines, 20 yards+, near or outside the numbers.

In the end, I suppose it's hard to make an assessment of the receivers when we're so hell-bent on pretending to be a power running team.

It's true that we'll never really know how good a job that the young receivers are doing in games where they aren't getting the ball much. I just have to assume that we simply didn't have enough balls to go around on Sunday. The solution seems simple: create more passing attempts, but Zorn seems like the kind of guy who is never going to throw more than 60% of the time no matter how glaring the defense is defending the run.

We should have success running on the Rams. They have pass rushers that we'll have to contend with.

[Longtimefan]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

You can do a search on my posts and see that I said I was "seriously pumped" about the emergence of Kelly and Thomas during the offseason. I bought into the hype about those guys.

But if there was ever a time when we needed them to step up and divert some attention away from Santana Moss, it was Sunday. You have to give the rookies the benefit of the doubt in year one. But it's year two now. These guys need to man up and show us why they were highly touted coming out of college.

Until then, they are proving the critics of Vinny Cerrato's talent evaluation exactly right.

I agree, all three of those guys have to demonstrate they're worthy of their draft position. While none of them played very much last year for various reasons, they had the opportunity to observe and learn, going into their second year they should be producing. Sometimes I think Zorn may be overcoaching these guys and expecting them to be perfect. These guys need to play, and it's up to the coaches to find the best way to use them and put them in positions where they can make a contribution.