Smoot Lays The Smack Down-Redskins vs. Ravens (Preseason Special)

The Running Game: Left a lot to be desired. The lack of production can be attributed to ineffective blocking along the interior, a less than totally committed effort on the part of Johnson. There's little that needs to be said when a r/b is tackled in the backfield as soon as he touches the ball. Work need to be done in that area.

Rex Grossman: What a difference a week makes. The most recognized difference is the level of competition. A vast difference between the Bills and the Ravens.....didn't want to anoint him king after last weeks performance, knowing there would be more difficult days ahead.

Kareem Moore: His absence will be felt. The young man was making great progress atop the depth chart. Hope he can get back into the action sooner rather than later.

Devin Thomas: The +'s and -'s continue to swirl around the w/r core, eventually we're going to have to settle on six of these guys unless something unforseen happens between now and Sept. 12th. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping someone other than Galloway will emerge as a potential #2. Nothing against Galloway except his inability to stay healthy.

LeRon McLain: A feeble attempt at constructing a sort of turf war that dosen't exist. Maybe not as geographically close, but typical in cases where coaches have success against their former teams, moreso when they've been let go.

Albert Haynesworth: I'm through talking about him, there's just nothing left to say.

Just for the sake of clearing something up it's important to remember that theres no free and strong safety in this system. Rather the team is using left and right safeties.

I thought this game showed how far the Skins still have to go to compete with the top teams in the league.

The Ravens are a better team but let's not act like we were not competitive. We had several things go wrong that are correctable. If Mcnabb lays the ball out Armstrong has two TD's. We got fooled on a gimmick play which lead to 7 points. First team vs first team we had them outgained and moved the ball pretty well though the air. The defense ( w/out AH) kept them out of the endzone. I saw a lot of positives.

Some thoughts:

We actually moved the ball well against on of the better Ds in the league--it was the TURNOVERS that killed us on O. We lefts a lot of points on the field because of that, and it made the final score more lopsided than it should have been. Yes, I know, we are responsible for the TOs, but I think they can be cleared up. Timing and route running is obviously still an issue, not to mention blitz protection. But the pass offense is LIGHT YEARS ahead of anything from the past, what, 10 years? That's a good sign. All praise to young Kyle.

The run game is a work in progress, no doubt. Several things conspired to make Sat. night a bad run game. 1. We wanted to evaluate WRs, so we threw a lot more than balance dictated. 2. The Ravens will be top 3 in rush D. 3. LJ did not play well. 4. We haven't caught on the all the subtleties and such of full-blown Mike S. zone blocking. Not so surprising that we didn't run well. I expect this will get better as the season progresses. Seriously, this is going to take longer than the passing O.

First string D wasn't bad. I do think they will be better when AH heals from his rambalambadosis or whatever, and gets his head out of his own colon. We have not fully caught on to the 3-4 and we going pretty vanilla. Still, we may not have all the right personel yet for this D. Rome wasn't built in a day, fellas.

Injuries suck, but they happen. Here's where the curse of Vinny still lingers: a lack of quality depth provided by 3-4 rounders in the draft. Thanks, monkey-boy.

**** that fake punt. Good call, shifted the momentum, bummed us all out. It happens. And **** the Ravens. I hate them. BUt they are what we want to be. Hopefully, we'll use this to motivate. I like that we have tough teams in the pre-season. This game was probably more useful as a teaching/evaluating game than buffalo.

Just got done looking over the game. A few thoughts:

McNabb: He should've been 14-26 TD, 2 INT. He's still trying to find his comfort level with the offense and WRs. Several passes were behind WRs. The INT was ugly. That being said, his ability to keep plays alive is huge and will be a major plus in the regular season. Accuracy hasn't been McNabb's strong point throughout his career, but hopefully by Week 6 or 7 he and the receiving corps are more comfortable and timing is better. It's good to have an unquestioned leader at QB.

Grossman: Is what he is, a game manager that will make some good plays and knows the offense, but will make some plays that just make you shake your head (INT pass). Let's hope for a healthy McNabb all season.

First Unit OL: Trent Williams was solid for the most part. He did get abused by Suggs on the LJ drop, and gave up a sack but Suggs is a Pro Bowl player. He also got blown up by Suggs on 3rd & 1 on the Skins 2nd possession (more on this later). Brown looked a bit rusty, but I expect he'll be in form by Week 1. Dock & Rabach, average, nothing particularly good or bad. I think Rabach will have the same problems in pass pro as last year, should be OK in the run game as he really just needs to get to a spot and isn't asked to move anyone. Hicks is a concern. He was abused on a stretch play, missed a blitz pickup and appeared to be a half-step or so slow. Hopefully he'll be more solid in the next two games.

Back-up OL: Heyer will be OK as a RT, I would like to see Rinehart get a good deal of time the next two weeks. He didn't play, is he injured? Lichtensteiger seemed solid. He didn't anchor well and got blown back on one play, but Grossman rolled away. Didn't see too much problem with Robinson, but that's because the Ravens were too busy explioting the A gaps. E. Williams completely missed on two consecutive A-gap blitzes and didn't come down to help at all. Montgomery shouldn't be on an NFL roster. Capers' first two plays he looked like his feet were stuck in cement, he's bad. He looked exactly like what we saw at the Senior Bowl. Cook and Oldenburg haven't shown anything to warrant keeping them around.

RBs: Portis looks quicker this year, solid in pass pro. LJ is more of a downfield runner, although he got to the edge on the first play of the game. He also tripped over Hick's feet on what would've been a decent run. I don't believe LJ is going to turn out to be a good fit for the zone-blocking scheme. However, if KS gets his head out of his ass on 3rd/4th & short run calls LJ should be productive (again more later). LJ missed on a blitz pick-up and had his dropped pass to cap off a "stellar" performance. K. Williams showed good hands out of the backfield and will help as a KR. If he doesn't make any major mistakes the next two weeks, he'll be on the roster.

Sellers: I would really like to see our rookie Morris get a good look in the next two weeks. Sellers whiffed on one block badly and got jacked up on another. This isn't the first time we've seen this happen either.

TEs: Cooley and Davis each had a drop, but they both made good plays. These two will be fine and I expect good prodcution from both this year. Cooley's deep whip route on the first drive and the seam route on the 3rd posession were both excellent.

WRs: Moss made some very good plays. He did have drop in traffic. Armstrong showed good hands and playmaking ability. He really helped himself tonight. Roydell Williams had a couple of good plays, but they were against 2/3rd unit guys. Thomas.....the physical ability is there, but unfortunately GTripp's assessment of him coming out of MSU may be correct unless he can have better focus and concentration. No excuse for the drops he's had. He'll give us enough as a KR and 3rd or 4th WR, but unless he works to improve his hands he'll never be an every down WR in the NFL. I'd hate to give up on Kelly, and I don't think the team will just yet, but if he can't get on the field consistently by mid-season he's gone.

Secondary: Rogers played well. Excellent pursuit on the reverse play. Good coverage and solid tackling. Hall surprised the heck out of me tonight and made two very good tackles. He appeared frozen and got beaten on a go for 20 yds late in the first half, but other than that looked good. Barnes missed three tackles. He's disappointing me in a big way, the last thing I thought we'd see from him is piss-poor tackling, maybe coverage mistakes but weak physical play I didn't expect. Buchanon missed a tackle too, the 2nd unit CBs need to pick up their physicality. Tyron had a nice strip (yes it was a fumble) and an excellent play to stop the slant for a TD. He helped himself tonight.

Landry looked aggressive and played well. If he's used near the LoS on attack mode or given a specific man to cover he should do well. He's another guy that doesn't function well in space or with read-react.

DL: Here's where the serious concern starts. In the first series on the second play, a stretch L, Kemo was pushed back in a big way. Two plays later he was handled by the Ravens C 1-on-1 on a toss R. He didn't stand out later in the game one way or the other. But....it's not a good sign when the anchor of your defense isn't anchoring. All the "trade AH" talk sounds good, but it's hard to run a 3-4 without a stong NT. NT is going to be a team effort between AH & Kemo this year if we're going to be successful on D. Now, if a 4-3 team that's a contender losses a starting DT, we can get some value for AH (2nd rounder min.), and they (or AH) pay back a large portion of the $21M check he just got, then maybe we make a move. Barring that, he'll finish the year here and NT will be our #1 priority in the 2011 draft.

Our DEs did nothing to stand out other than Golston was driven inside badly on the second play of the game. On the second unit, Darrion Scott was dominated on the GL TD run and had two other major negative plays. Howard Green did nothing to help himself and AH was obviously just going through the motions for over 50% of the plays he was in. Rob Jackson and Jarmon did nothing to stand out.

ILBs: Rocky and Fletch wil be fine. Blades and Riley are still making some mistakes but I think will be adequate backups.

OLBs: This is the major area of concern for our defense. We have two converted DEs starting at OLB. AC showed in SF that he wasn't an OLB, he's confirming that again now. First play of the game AC bites on the action to the left and gets beat by the reverse... basic football....when action goes away and you are contain, B-C-R Backside, Counter, Reverse. This is high school stuff. Same possession on the toss play, AC is not quick enough on the read to make the play. Next possession in addition to the rest of the front seven AC is beaten for a resulting 6 yd gain. He also had the dropped INT.

Orakpo may ultimately make the transition to OLB, but not if he keeps playing like he did tonight. Second play of the game he gets WAAAY to far upfield creating a huge running lane. On the Rice's fumble recovery run Rak comes in completely out of control and Rice makes him look real bad (so will Felix Jones, A. Bradshaw or L. McCoy twice a year if he doesn't learn to play under control). He got sucked inside on the 4th play of the next Raven possession which resulted in a +5. Rak is a prototypical RDE, he's not good in space....yet. We'll know by the end of this season if he's capable of making the transition. If he still isn't cutting it, he would have good trade value to a team running the 4-3.....in the AFC.

For our second unit guys, Chris Wilson had a couple of nice rushes off the edge. Draft (I believe) got crushed on the GL run. Other than that nothing noteworthy.

And finally......my major gripe.....on 3rd or 4th and short why are we still running stretch plays? We saw this too many times last year as well. Zone blocking in short yardage DOES NOT WORK. It's fundamental physics, you cannot take a lateral step and expect to drive back a person coming straight at you, full speed. That's why TW got blown up by Suggs. I don't blame him, I blame the playcall. And we did it more than once.

Note to KS, install a power run package for short yardage. It's not blasphemy against the Zone Blocking gods to run an ISO on 3rd & 1. O-Lineman like to line up and play smash-mouth. F the finesse crap in short yardage, IT DOESN'T WORK. If anyone from Redskin Park wants to PM me, I've got some basic stuff that works real well out of a Tackle Over, a Jumbo I, or we can go old-school with a Power I.


Slinger...outstanding post...I wasn't able to see the game...this breakdown really helps me out...thanks!

I sure hope you are wrong on lil' shanny not having a goal line power rushing scheme..I am a bit down about Hicks not doing well...good thing we made that trade otherwise this dude would be at Right Tackle.
Too bad Randy Thomas was signed by the Dolphins...I sure dont want another year of sucky play at RG.

Thrilled about armstrong...was he going against 1st stringers?

^ Except that he wants to count a "what if" INT for McNabb but not his "what if" TD dropped by Fred Davis...or the other 5 or so drops by other receivers. If we're going to play that game, "McNabb should've been 20-26 with 270 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs in 2 quarters".

You can't pretend that negatives almost happened and ignore positives that almost happened at the same time.

In the end, none of it happened and McNabb's 206 yards and 1 INT in two quarters looked pretty solid to me. Armstrong played most of the game...against 1st-teamers and scrubs later on. His big 45yd catch was against the Ravens' starting D from McNabb. He had one late catch that put him on the top of the box score over Moss.

^ Except that he wants to count a "what if" INT for McNabb but not his "what if" TD dropped by Fred Davis...or the other 5 or so drops by other receivers. If we're going to play that game, "McNabb should've been 20-26 with 270 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs in 2 quarters".

You can't pretend that negatives almost happened and ignore positives that almost happened at the same time.

In the end, none of it happened and McNabb's 206 yards and 1 INT in two quarters looked pretty solid to me. Armstrong played most of the game...against 1st-teamers and scrubs later on. His big 45yd catch was against the Ravens' starting D from McNabb. He had one late catch that put him on the top of the box score over Moss.

Way too up and down. He threw behind guys, over guys and underthrew Armstrong for a TD. But he also made some very nice plays and had several drops. He can play better but it's pre season. Not too worried about D Mac.

Armstrong played most of the game...against 1st-teamers and scrubs later on. His big 45yd catch was against the Ravens' starting D from McNabb.

If that is the case...this guy has a legit shot to jump to the #2 or #3 receiver. Keep in mind the Ravens' secondary is a bit weak....but that is a really good sign for Armstrong.

I dont understand why we have Joey Galloway still in that #2 spot.
Our long term starters need serious reps in during the critical preseason game 3.

Why not Moss, Armstrong, Thomas as 1,2,3?
They need to get timing down ....and quick

Everyone wants to blame Grossman for the INT but from my point of view it was more Keiland Williams' fault. He started to come back towards Grossman but then stopped just as the ball was thrown making it easy for the CB to get in front of him.

I saw very little difference in Grossman from week 1 to week 2. Week 1 he got lucky, week 2 he didn't.

Everyone wants to blame Grossman for the INT but from my point of view it was more Keiland Williams' fault. He started to come back towards Grossman but then stopped just as the ball was thrown making it easy for the CB to get in front of him.

I saw very little difference in Grossman from week 1 to week 2. Week 1 he got lucky, week 2 he didn't.

I noticed that too....the offensive player must out fight for that ball true...but the reality is...it was a stupid pass to make...high risk, very low reward....it was not 4th and goal...and the ball wasn't in the endzone...it was a pass that cost the team guaranteed pts.
(I know the 3 points didn't mean much at the time...but you dont leave points on the field)

I do agree that not winning the battle from the ball hurt Williams' chances a bit...you gotta win those.