I know something you don't know: Redskins-Giants first half quick hits

[dmek25]

gtripp another good read. but a couple of points i disagree with. Jason Taylor. i hope your right, but i don't see it. i singled him out, a bunch of times on Sunday. Blatche moved him all around the field, tyring to free him up to make plays. he had like one pressure. and while Hall might not be a great cover corner, he is a play maker. should have 3 interceptions in 3 games. he is probably leading the skins in picks after only being here for not even a quarter of the season. play makers are where its at in this league

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

I'm not denigrating him. But Tripp was basically making it out that Spagnulo was some kind of genious or something. And Blache was an idiot for blitzing Manning. I'll just put it this way.

I did write the sentence to come off that way, because he got totally outcoached in the first half of the game. I sometimes write things I don't totally agree with in order to convey the point to people who haven't seen the tape.

But I totally agree with you that Spags is generally overrated and viewed as a miracle worker, when all he really has is a good sense of the game and good common sense.

Blache was really coaching well earlier in the season, but he hit an inexcusable comfort level with the blitz in recent weeks. It made sense when the secondary was ravaged with injuries to Springs, Doughty, Smoot was banged up, Hall was in Oakland, Torrence was playing a full-time role, and Tryon was on the field as well. He was just doing what he could do to keep bad offenses from being able to exploit matchups against us like St. Louis was able to.

But as this comfort level with the blitz developed, people started coming back healthy, and we added to our secondary depth. We were never at any point a good-blitzing team. But against weaker offenses like Cleveland and Detroit and Pittsburgh, it made sense to blitz a lot to prevent the exploitation of weaker matchups in the secondary.

However, we had an entire bye week to get healthy and re-evalutate this strategy, and the blitzing against good offenses (Dallas, NYG) has absolutely killed us. I mean, we're not even giving our defense a chance really.

Spagnulo is a good coach, but his job is much easier than Blache'.

Agreed 100%.

[Stacks42]

Spagnulo=Norv Turner

It just shows you that if you have great talent, it makes you look like a great coach.

[IowaSkinsFan]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

The Redskins offense averaged 6.26 yards per play in the first half.

6.26!

6.26!

And scored only seven points. Because they can't sustain drives. (44% Success Rate, one successful 5 yard run by Portis).

I'm guessing there's no way this success continues in the second half, because the Redskins would have won the game.

First half Goats

#1 and #2 is Greg Blache

Because the Giants averaged a totally ridiculous 7.03 yards per play and sustained every drive they had, never punting in the first half.

The Redskins blitzed 11 times in the rain in the first half. THEY GAVE UP EIGHT STRAIGHT SUCCESSFUL PLAYS ON BLITZES. If the definition of insanity is, in fact, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, stadium security should have arrested Blache at halftime.

It wasn't just that the blitzes weren't working because our coverage was poor, it's that we never got remotely close to Manning on a blitz the entire half, and he and coordinator Kevin Gilbride diagnosed every single blitz pre-snap. The Giants got three plays of 25 yards or more off of Redskins blitzes.

Also, it WAS RAINING!!! What the hell are we doing sending people after the quarterback when we had no traction?

Steve Spagnuolo blitzed twice the entire half. That's why he's a champion coordinator, and Blache is a re-tread.

#3 CBs DeAngelo Hall and Fred Smoot

Hall, really, really stinks in coverage. Blache has a man-crush on him though. Hall defensed a pass nicely on a play where Manning was pressured, and he intercepted a pass that Manning put in a perfect spot on Hixon's body, but Hixon didn't know was being thrown. I'll never trash Hall's ability to locate the ball in the air, because he has an uncanny ability to locate a football in flight, but he's rarely in position to do so.

Outside of those two plays, here's Hall's first half:

-Beaten on a slant by Toomer, misses the tackle, and then late hits Toomer after the play, accounting for 23 total yards allowed.

-Beaten on a simple option route by Steve Smith for 11 yards and a first down.

-Hall falls down as soon as Toomer makes an in cut. Give him a break because the field is slick, I suppose. 17 yards against.

-10.2 yards per target in the first half for Hall. It looks better with the pick, of course.

Smoot got toasted by Toomer on the 40 yard TD pass, and was responsble for Steve Smith on the throw that looked like it hit the ground at the two minute warning.

So either Amani Toomer is an elite NFL receiver, or our coverage is terrible.

Rogers didn't have a great half either, but compared to those two, he was brilliant.

#4 Redskins WRs

James Thrash had two third down targets and converted neither. First one, he got screwed when the official got in his way and forced him to alter his route, but the second one was a great throw by Campbell against 8 man coverage, and Thrash flat dropped it.

Moss, Randle El, and Kelly each had one key drop each in the first half. Randle El's was the worst because he allowed the coverage to strip a football that Campbell got to him with more than enough time to secure it. Campbell struggled just a little bit more than Eli Manning did to throw the ball in the conditions, as I counted three times where his throw missed it's mark by enough to cause a drop or deflected pass. However, if the receivers catch the ball, the Redskins have 17, or maybe 20 points at half easily.

#5 Special Teams

They suck, except the kick return team, which gave the offense average to great field position on all four kick returns. Plackemeier is terrible, and Suisham is really struggling. Tryon is not a good gunner.

Players who did well in the first half

#1 Jim Zorn

Zorn's running schemes in the first quarter were perplexing as the Redskins tried to run into 8 man fronts without stretching the defense via our best running play, but after the first two drives, Zorn called the best half of football ever.

He countered the respect the Giants ran for Portis with play action and screens. Zorn ran SEVEN play action plays in the first half and two screens. The results of these nine plays: 71 yards, 67% successful, and most importantly, eight plays where the Giants pass rush didn't get within 5 yards of Campbell.

The lone exception was the single sack allowed by the Redskins in the half when Rabach got beaten off the snap by Cofield. But the conditions combined with the playcalling created only one play where Campbell was so much as pressured (the sack).

#2 The Offensive Line

See above paragraph.

#3 Jason Campbell

Campbell had a heckuva half of football. He moved all over in the pocket in those max protect schemes, saw the field very well, and spread the ball around. When he screwed up, it was problems with accuracy, not anything inherent in his fundamentals, and he found wide open throwing lanes, and was just spinning it the whole half, as Jaws would say. No help from Portis, and he made things happen with little help from receivers who wouldn't get open and wouldn't catch the ball when they did.

#4 Defensive Line

Boy, did these guys play well in the first half. Jason Taylor looked like Jason Taylor for the first time. Griffin and Evans were great against the run. Montgomery was an unblockable beast, killing a drive with a sack. Lorenzo Alexander made four or five great plays including blowing up the QB sneak attempt. Andre Carter didn't play much, but he did have a critical pressure on a third down.

When we didn't blitz, the four man rush did great. We collapsed the pocket on Eli and did brilliantly on front side runs by Jacobs, effectively neutralizing him in weather conditions that should have really been to his advantage. There weren't running lanes, period.

#5 Chris Horton and London Fletcher

Were everywhere. Not really against the pass, but the run. They closed incredibly quickly on Jacobs.

I'll try to see how much of this changes in the second half, but we won the turnover battle, lost the yardage battle almost exclusively on defense, and both offensive coaches totally outsmarted the defensive coaches.

Receivers have to catch the football, and run crisper routes. Moss especially.

We haven't been a good blitzing team since GW first year in 2004 and that really only lasted half of the first season.

No other team in the league, when the blitz, makes the opponent look like they are playing with 15 players on the field.

Our blitzes are picked up so easily that it appears the offense has kept 8 players in to block and still sent 4 players out into the pattern.

Our blitzes should be stopped and we should literally double every receiver in the pattern, then hope that we have enough defenders left to spy the QB when he attempts to run for the first down, not because he has been flushed, but because he has the time to do so.