Redskins Offense: What's the Problem?

I had to go with playcalling. Now I know our pass protection has been horrible and it's easy to blame the o-line, but Zorn needs to come up with different schemes/playcalling to effectively compensate for our weaknesses. Let's face it the good coaches come up with ways to make up for their weaknesses and that's what Zorn and the offensive staff need to do.

I'm just not prepared to say Kelly, Thomas, and Davis are done. To write off an NFL receiver after half of their rookie season is not fair. We essentially spent a high first round pick on these three guys. If we don't give them a chance to develop, we deserve to lose.

As for the offense in general, I guarantee our offense will be more dynamic, unpredictable and effective if we start attempting to go deep. I'll take few sacks for a few 20+ yard throws any Sunday.
Thank you Sheriff. Thank you.

Thank you Sheriff. Thank you.

We got sacked 3 times yesterday and we got only one pass over 20 yards.
So in a sense, Sheriff got half of what he wanted in this little trade-off he talked about.

With this line, we're getting the sacked all right. But like I keep saying, the receivers don't have time to get downfield for those long passes.

This one's easy. Our line is not giving Campbell the time that it did earlier in the season. They looked completely outclassed for the majority of that game. It's easy to criticize the playcalling, but it's pretty difficult to run much more than a conservative look when your QB is consistently under pressure. I don't think you can blame this on Portis's injury either. We have serious issues in both run and pass blocking and, unless they are addressed somehow, this could be a lost season.

Zorn was right. This is the time in the season when the good teams start to separate themselves.

This one's easy. Our line is not giving Campbell the time that it did earlier in the season. They looked completely outclassed for the majority of that game. It's easy to criticize the playcalling, but it's pretty difficult to run much more than a conservative look when your QB is consistently under pressure. I don't think you can blame this on Portis's injury either. We have serious issues in both run and pass blocking and, unless they are addressed somehow, this could be a lost season.

I agree.

Our line is awful. Just is. We cannot pass protect at all. It is hard to throw the ball downfield if JC is getting pressured constantly. If we can't throw downfield they can stack the line which kills our running game. Rinse repeat. It is time our FO started understanding the value of building through our lines. We continue to roll the dice each year with our lines and it is biting us in the ass pretty good right now. Too old too slow and not nearly good enough.

This is a combination of line play and play calling.
If you noticed in the first month the line was playing better when the defenses didn't know what to expect because Zorn was new.
Well since then, Zorn continues to call the same exact plays regardless of opponent, thinking we can simply execute.
There were no adjustments for the Pitt defense with misdirection, screens, draws...etc
There were no adjustments for the Dallas weakness...deep passes in the secondary.

Bottom line is Zorn hasn't made any playcalling adjustments...certainly not at halftime.
And this one he had 2 weeks to plan.
It is entirely possible that this head coaching thing is taking so much of his time that he cannot dedicate to put in new plays and adjust offensive play calling as well as he should.

The lines play becomes easier if the defense is either off balance or if there is a lot of smash mouth running (since our lines strength is run blocking)
Right now, neither is going on.....how hard is it to predict a slant on 3rd and 3 anyways?

I am also getting a bit concerned on Zorn's ability to "inspire" the team for big games.
The defense seems "ok" but they dont have a killer instinct.
The offense needs a major adjustment, it has for weeks....if Pitt and Dallas after a bye doesn't result in an adjustment....I don't know what will.
Get ready for some more vanilla offense.

I agree with Beem here. It's the line. Zorn himself said he had to change his playcalling to deal with the lack of pass pro. And he pointed out that several plays where they went short actually have a first read deep. JC is getting pressure and saving what he can. He does not have time to sit back and let a long route develop. So he goes short. The screens were called to try to relieve some of the pressure. If the line could block, you wouldn't need to do that.

i think the problems are a combination of everything, when you have problems are every level of your offense they compound each other.

seems every week coach zorn is pointing out plays where we had a long ball called then explaining for one reason or another why it never materialized. just speculation on my part but aside from pass pro problems and a lack of depth at wr, i think JC only throws the long ball if he has single coverage and he actually sees his man open. JC might be too gun shy given gibbs pounded it into his head to protect the ball and throw sideline.

the play he lofted it up to moss who almost made a play on the ball was JC throwing it up there b/c he had to given the situation.

Maybe JC is being too selective when he wants to throw the long ball, only wanting to let it go when a guy is wide open?

i dont know, but we have problems now that he run game has slowed down.

go skins!!

Seems pretty clear to me that it's the offensive line, specifically in pass protection. The run blocking is pretty damn good or we wouldn't have the league's leading rusher.

Jason Campbell is just under duress the entire game. I don't think it's cause he's holding on to the ball to long most of the time, there's just no pocket or it disintegrates within a second or so of the snap.

Porous is about the only way to describe our pass protection right now.