Adam Schefter: What's Wrong with the Redskins

[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 BigHairedAristocrat

Well, against the giants, we've seen what he can do when his offensive line gives him a ton time and his receivers get open - he holds on to the ball too long, overthrows open receivers, makes poor decisions, and locks on to Cooley and Randel El.

All last year the Campbell-lovers here blamed the offensive line and the fact that it was his first year in the system for Campbells lack of production. Now hes in his second year, the the line is doing a great job in pass protection and giving him time, you're saying we ran the ball too much and didnt use the shotgun enough???

why pass more when Campbell was doing a horrible job at passing? Why use the shotgun more when Campbell dropped a pefect shotgun snap that could have resulted in another turnover?

All we saw of Campbell against the Giants was just more affirmation for those that beleive he is not a starting-caliber QB. I'm willing to give him another two or three games, but if his line continues to hold up and Campbell continues to make poor decisions, he's never going to start in this league again. He's simply running out of excuses.

We lost the game by 7 points and Campbell lost us atleast 7 points when the Giants took the ball out of his hand and ran it in for a TD. If we had scored even a field goal on that drive, or the one where he threw the INT, we would have had enough points to win the game. If not, we would have atleast been in an overtime situation. Yes, some of Zorn's playcalling sucked; Yes, our secondary looked mediocre; but Jason Campbell's poor decision-making cost us the game.

It's probably erroneous to say it was Campbell's decision-making that cost us the game since failing to step up in the pocket away from pressure does not fall under the category of "bad-decision". Audibling to a run on 3rd and 8 does constitute a bad decision, but, if the defense would get off the field, it's a meaningless play.

You can't confuse the fact that we didn't convert the 3rd and 8 in part because Campbell made a boneheaded audible with the fact that the combination of ineffective running and crappy defense made that 3rd and 8 an unreasonably high-leverage situation for a third quarter play. Sure, THAT play was the point at which it became unlikely the Redskins would win, but considering that the league-wide conversion rate on third and eight is ~25%, Campbell's decision to run the ball simply turned it into roughly a ~15% conversion.

It's a mistake, but on a team with a good defense, a error with 5 minutes to go in the third quarter does not give you a team that will only see the ball twice the rest of the game.

Let's put this another way: if our passing game does not get any more effective than it was on Sunday, I would still expect a balanced team to win 10+ games. If the Redskins only win 6 or 7, it's because they are a horribly unbalanced team with a decent pass offense and liabilities elsewhere.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by BigHairedAristocrat

Well, against the giants, we've seen what he can do when his offensive line gives him a ton time and his receivers get open - he holds on to the ball too long, overthrows open receivers, makes poor decisions, and locks on to Cooley and Randel El.

All last year the Campbell-lovers here blamed the offensive line and the fact that it was his first year in the system for Campbells lack of production. Now hes in his second year, the the line is doing a great job in pass protection and giving him time, you're saying we ran the ball too much and didnt use the shotgun enough???

why pass more when Campbell was doing a horrible job at passing? Why use the shotgun more when Campbell dropped a pefect shotgun snap that could have resulted in another turnover?

All we saw of Campbell against the Giants was just more affirmation for those that beleive he is not a starting-caliber QB. I'm willing to give him another two or three games, but if his line continues to hold up and Campbell continues to make poor decisions, he's never going to start in this league again. He's simply running out of excuses.

We lost the game by 7 points and Campbell lost us atleast 7 points when the Giants took the ball out of his hand and ran it in for a TD. If we had scored even a field goal on that drive, or the one where he threw the INT, we would have had enough points to win the game. If not, we would have atleast been in an overtime situation. Yes, some of Zorn's playcalling sucked; Yes, our secondary looked mediocre; but Jason Campbell's poor decision-making cost us the game.

Wow, the OL did a great job??

Yikes, have our expectations sunk that low?

They did a fair job in my eyes. If I'm grading them I'd give them a C.

As for the bobbled shotgun snap, the snap came in low and hot (hardly perfect) as pointed out by Aikman. JC turned it into a 23 yard gain to Betts, not sure why you are trying to spin that into a negative.

There are many factors that went into the loss, it's kinda shortsighted to finger one guy but I guess that's par for the course when it comes to JC.

[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.

[Njall]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

The Giants didn't play all that great either. I'm kinda perplexed over those saying we got outclassed or dominated.

Do not understand it either . There seems to be alot of excuses out there for a lack luster preformance. Giants just looked a little faster and the Skin's played in Sloooooow motion.

Did anyone look at Zorn on the sidelines he looked like a defeated man in the 2nd quater.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Njall

Do not understand it either . There seems to be alot of excuses out there for a lack luster preformance. Giants just looked a little faster and the Skin's played in Sloooooow motion.

Did anyone look at Zorn on the sidelines he looked like a defeated man in the 2nd quater.

I didn't see "defeated." I saw Zorn looking downright angry. He was also shown chewing folks out in his anger. He had the same MO last year. As much as I like Zorn, I think this is a major failing of his. I don't think that players respond well to his public anger. If he wants to get angry, he has plenty of time to do so behind closed doors.

[Apache516]

We could release JC and cut our losses, put in Collins (that once lead us to the playoffs), and sign Chase Daniel as our back up.

[Njall]

Originally Posted by Lotus

I didn't see "defeated." I saw Zorn looking downright angry. He was also shown chewing folks out in his anger. He had the same MO last year. As much as I like Zorn, I think this is a major failing of his. I don't think that players respond well to his public anger. If he wants to get angry, he has plenty of time to do so behind closed doors.

You like Zorn and Campbell? Wow... I saw defeat not anger in Zorn. But you are a fan of both so you will find excuses. J.Campbell gave up an interception and Zorn stands there basically consoling Campbel. That mentality is why Skin's will go 8-8 at best and Zorn and Campbell will be out of jobs and no NFL team wants Campbell.... Maybe he should get a bus ticket to Canada and play in the CFL or the new league..Cuz he is not NFL material!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Njall]

Originally Posted by Apache516

We could release JC and cut our losses, put in Collins (that once lead us to the playoffs), and sign Chase Daniel as our back up.

I wish no harm to no one but best thing is Campbell to get hurt. Last time we made playoffs he got hurt. Collins gave us a ride to Seattle... Zorn has no confidence in him at the goal line he picks a running play..

[SFREDSKIN]

Originally Posted by Apache516

We could release JC and cut our losses, put in Collins (that once lead us to the playoffs), and sign Chase Daniel as our back up.

You think Collins can move when you have the DL/DE from Dallas, NY and Phi barreling down his ass? Collins had a nice time as a backup when Campbell got hurt and that's about it. Campbell has played in one game and was not given many resources as far as other WR's on Sunday. Talk to me at the end of the season.

[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.