Adam Schefter: What's Wrong with the Redskins

Personally I would have benched Moss and put Mitchell or DT in. I think they're ready to contribute too but they're not being given much of a chance so far.

Exactly! I would have benched him and made him earn a spot back. He'd have to return punts first of all. If he took one to the head and got his act together, I'd put him at slot.

No disagreement here. If only he was put in such positions to do so (shotgun, 65-35 pass:run ration) it'd be nice to see what he could do.

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.

Our passing attack is entirely too reliant on Cooley. Don't get me wrong, he's a great player, but until Kelly, Thomas, and Davis are included in the offensive game plan, expect to see 17 points or less per game. Campbell needs to step up his game big-time, or he can look forward to a career arc similar to Patrick Ramsey's.

Good point. I've been saying that for awhile. People point to Cooley's 83 receptions last year. While that's good for Cooley, it's not necessarily good for the offense.

Campbell needs to step up his game, but I would also add that Kelly, Thomas, Davis and Santana Moss need to get open on a regular basis.

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.
Jason Campbell definitely needs to show more awareness but I'm not buying your statement that the offensive line gave him a ton of time and is doing a great job.

On the Jason Campbell fumble. The protection was not that great. Tuck blew right around Samuels and applied pressure from the backside. Campbell should have more pocket presence and stepped up into the pocket. Both the protection and Campbell are at fault.

There was another running play when Hester let a defensive end come free and stuff a third down run attempt. The offensive line did okay but the Giants kept Campbell under pressure and forced him into hasty throws. I'm not sure a quarterback with more composure would have done anything differently. I don't think you are giving the Giants defense enough credit for keeping the pressure on.

Jason Campbell definitely needs to show more awareness but I'm not buying your statement that the offensive line gave him a ton of time and is doing a great job.

On the Jason Campbell fumble. The protection was not that great. Tuck blew right around Samuels and applied pressure from the backside. Campbell should have more pocket presence and stepped up into the pocket. Both the protection and Campbell are at fault.

There was another running play when Hester let a defensive end come free and stuff a third down run attempt. The offensive line did okay but the Giants kept Campbell under pressure and forced him into hasty throws. I'm not sure a quarterback with more composure would have done anything differently. I don't think you are giving the Giants defense enough credit for keeping the pressure on.

It was Umenyora, not Tuck. And there's nobody by the name of "Hester" on the O-line. If you mean Stephon Heyer, it should be noted that he didn't allow a sack all game.

While the pass protection wasn't perfect, considering the athletes the Giants have on their front four, it was adequate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.