One Night Only: Offensive Packers-Redskins Game Review, Mythbusters Edition

[firstdown]

So what your saying is teams are not affraid of RGII's arm unless he is able to run which I agree. He is not a pocket passer and needs his legs to be affective.

[SouperMeister]

Originally Posted by firstdown

So what your saying is teams are not affraid of RGII's arm unless he is able to run which I agree. He is not a pocket passer and needs his legs to be affective.

Nobody could function as an effective pocket passer behind this line. Griffin threw plenty of accurate intermediate to deep passes from the pocket last year. This notion that he cannot become excellent in the pocket is bunk. That said, with his lack of protection, he better start using his legs to extend plays, or this will be a very long season.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by SouperMeister

Nobody could function as an effective pocket passer behind this line. Griffin threw plenty of accurate intermediate to deep passes from the pocket last year. This notion that he cannot become excellent in the pocket is bunk. That said, with his lack of protection, he better start using his legs to extend plays, or this will be a very long season.

Well if you look at RGII"S sacks 4 and hits 12 there are plent of other QB's hit and sacked about the same with much better numbers. I don't buy into the O line is to blame and the number don't support it either.

[skinsguy]

Just a few issues here. If RGIII's teams suck that badly, why is it that they were quite successful last year? Doesn't make sense to me. Could they be better? Absolutely! But I don't think they suck. I DO think Fred Davis is very underwhelming right now, but I've seen great improvement with Hankerson, Morgan is a beast with fighting for more yards, and Garcon looks to be quite explosive.

As far as RGIII goes, I think he's playing very attentively to his knee injury. I think it's kind of a form of "shell shock". Griffin is healthy, physically. He's healthy enough and probably fast enough to be as effective as he was last year, but he's playing scared. Many of the passes that have been off from Robert has been due to him throwing off his back foot. Yes, I know that all the great QBs, including Griffin, have been able to complete great passes despite bad mechanics, but Griffin has been doing this quite a bit in the last two games. I think it's coming down to the fact that Griffin is still trying to get back into game speed mode, and often when a QB is still trying to adjust, you're going to see him throwing off his back foot because he's trying to get the ball out quicker. And let's not down play this, the guy has come back from a very, very, serious knee injury. Only eight months ago at that! So, in a way, I can't blame Griffin for being a little cautious with his knee.

I also can't blame the coaches for wanting to protect Robert as much as they can in the early going. I can't say for sure if Robert is actually reading the defense in the read option (when they do run it) or if the tosses to Morris are strictly designed no matter what. But I have noticed times when Griffin would have taken off and ran - especially when there was a running lane, and he didn't. Now of course, that's part of what we complained about last season - was that he needs to learn to not run so much, so I guess we can't complain out of both sides of our mouths. Either let him run or let him be quarterback first and running back as very last option.

Finally, The blame is spread across everything. Those who are advocating sitting Griffin either have not been watching the games, or just those knee-jerk reaction type of people who have tunnel vision to the quarterback and disregard everything else. Griffin is not going to be in 2012 in the early going, but he has to be out there to get back to his 2012 form. He's not going to fully recover, physically & mentally, until he's out there enough to trust his surgery, trust himself, and to trust his protection. It's just going to take time. Two full games after eight months removed from a serious knee injury, and we're talking about sitting Griffin? He's healed, but he's gotta get out there and work through this, that is the only way he gets out of this.

Let's remember, our secondary is going to go through some major growing pains. They are young, and they are showing us they are rookies. They will improve, but it's going to take time. They had to face this uptempo offense that nobody knew anything about, then they had to face Aaron Rodgers. Next week, they have to face Mathew Stafford and Megatron? These cats are getting baptized by fire, man. But, in the long run, this will help them. I think we will have a very strong secondary, but it's going to take time.

I hate the this season has started out the way it has, but I don't think there is need for panic just yet. I'll start to sweat a little more if the 'skins drop one to the Lions, but this is a very talented Redskins team. I think Mike Shanahan has done a great job turning this organization around. We 'skins fans are a very fickled bunch and often look at the glass as being half empty, because we're used to failure. Some expect it, and even some of us hope for it just so we can complain. But, I'm not going to complain just yet. I understand how much this injury would effect not just Griffin, but the entire team. He is the leader out there, and if he's not so sure of himself, then the rest of the team is going to pick up on that. A win against the Lions and the Raiders puts the 'skins into a good situation and erases our doubts and fears.