Belated Redskins-Packers Reviews

Offense

It was about five games into last season when we all realized that the Redskins offensive line couldn't block anyone, couldn't pick-up any blitzes, and even three man rushes were getting home around the time the running back was leaking out of the backfield.


Green Bay's Clay Matthews may lead the NFL in sacks, and he may have hurt himself in the fourth quarter not to return, and that may have been seen as a blessing in disguise. It likely had no impact on the outcome of this game. Green Bay's constant "three man pressure packages" continued to baffle the Redskins offensive line right into overtime. In simple terms, the Redskins won this game because they forced a turnover on the Packers in their own territory. The offense couldn't sustain anything.
The touchdown drive was two plays long. The Redskins had two different trips inside the Green Bay 40 yard line that yielded zero points. The game tying field goal drive lasted just 6 plays with no 3rd down conversions. The field goal drive at the end of the first half was more or less just a third down conversion.


Even the best plays of the day occured when McNabb was getting hit into his throws. A couple times, Green Bay made the mistake of allowing McNabb to break contain, and this is when big plays occured. Both 40+ yard completions in this game happened because the right side contain defender came down inside and engaged the running back, with McNabb able to threaten the line of scrimmage with no one contesting the throw. None of the Redskins offensive tackles could secure the edge against the outside rushers of the Packers, and the interior lineman were beaten too many times to count.


To be sure, the Packers are a strong pass rushing team even independent of Clay Matthews. McNabb was sacked *only* 5 times. It seems like a lot more. Remember, the Packers sacked McNabb 8 times in the 4th and 26 game that was eventually won by the Eagles.


Blown Blocks

Ugh. This was ugly. Kory Lichtensteiger paced everyone with 5 blown blocks. That's a bad season from a left guard, but it wasn't such a terrible game by the standards of this offensive line in this game. Casey Rabach had 2 blown blocks, plus another two plays where the Packers assulted McNabb with Rabach playing the role of the fiery coach of the offense who yells encouragement at his troops without actually doing anything to help them. Trent Williams had 2 blown blocks in his return to the lineup, and he wasn't the one going against Matthews most of the time. Artis Hicks had the worst game of his Redskins career, 3 blown blocks. Keiland Williams and Ryan Torain blew a block each. Torain at least made up for it with the key block on the Armstrong TD and an awesome-though-meaningless decleater of 340 lb BJ Raji. Stephon Heyer had a blown block and didn't even start. He replaced the injured Jammal Brown, who blew 3 blocks in the first half plus a drive (two of which vs. Matthews).


If you add up the carnage, the Redskins blew 18 blocks in this game between the runs and the passes. About 4 to 5 blown blocks is normal for a game against a quality opponent. The Packers played well, but that was only part of the issue. The main issue was that the Redskins offensive pace-setters never even bothered to show up.


Effect of Blown Blocks on McNabb


Some observers largely disagree with the premise that cumulative pressure can wear against a quarterbacks' mental well being, and turn him into an emotionless player who doesn't see the whole field and percieves pressure around him at all times. That was never a characteristic of Donovan McNabb in Philadelphia. It took five games in Washington to turn him into someone who is always worried about taking that next hit.


Too many of McNabb's wildly inaccurate throws in this game were not a function of poor fundamentals, but rather, turning away from the pressure as he was surrounded by white jerseys. There are two sides to every coin of course: McNabb never lost his aggressiveness for any reason. He made stick throws into impossibly small windows multiple times in the fourth quarter. On a fourth and two playcall with the Redskins down by ten, he threw the ball deep into the end zone to a double-covered Anthony Armstrong (he screwed up badly in leaving the pocket in the first place, however. Solution: run the ball.). There was no comfortable pocket at any point in this game, and McNabb beat the blitz to an open receiver in the middle of the field any number of times.


Traditionally however, McNabb has always proven strong under pressure. This game was clearly an exception, but not inconsistent with the second half of the Philadelphia game. McNabb is now perceiving pressure from the backside and up the middle, and is leaving the pocket trying to extend plays instead of getting deep into his progressions. Can we really blame him? We blew 18 blocks as a team, 16 of them in the dropback passing game. We don't trust our running game in critical times (1 RB carry in 3 OT possessions this year, 2 combined rushing yards same timeframe), and we're too predictable on second and third downs (we mix very well on first downs), and all of this is causing McNabb to be the focal point and sole distributor of an offense that can't protect him.


If this sounds familiar, it's because now with Portis out, we have last year's offense, but with an additional big play receiver and a quarterback who is a threat to get the ball downfield in any down and distance.


Things are Still Going Right Though? We're 3-2 with a Mediocre Defense

Well, yeah. I always thought we overpaid for a non-elite player who had contractual ability to walk after a season. It's not like we've paid for nothing. Only two quarterbacks have turned the ball over less frequently than Donovan McNabb this year: Mark Sanchez, and Michael Vick.


The difference in offensive efficiency between the Eagles/Jets and the Redskins has nothing to do with the passing game. I'd put our passing game -- crappy line and all -- up against theirs any day. The differences are in the rushing game, where LeSean McCoy and LaDainian Tomlinson have rushed the ball a combined 144 times for 800 rushing yards (5.6 YPC average), with 8 rushing TDs. Ryan Torain and Clinton Portis have combined for 60 rushes, 351 yards (3.9 YPC average), and 3 rushing TDs. That's about league average, whereas the Jets and Eagles run the ball better than anyone.


Still we should be leaning on our league average running game more than we actually are, particularly in third down and less than five, when the Redskins have thrown close to 100% of the time this year (optimal balance is roughly 3/4 running in that situation). That's the biggest repeatable reason for our 3rd down failures this year. We're not a bad rushing team, but because we aren't great at it, we hardly ever run. That, and we haven't found a change-of-pace back who we will give the ball to other than Torain. Keiland Williams is going to be the third down back while Portis is out, but the Redskins don't want to give him a chance to carry the ball.


Still, when you can throw as frequently as the Redskins do and still never turn the ball over, there's not a whole lot of reason to run more frequently (with the exception of the situational factor above).


Playcalling

I thought Kyle Shanahan called a good game here. I'm not sure how many opponents have picked up on his tendency to alternate run/pass on first and second downs in normal game situations, and I know teams have picked up on his tendency to throw in short yardage, but for the most part, he was able to attack a strong Green Bay secondary without the element of surprise or pass protection for his quarterback. He didn't get away from the stuff that was working and stuck with the game plan: we were running the slant-flat combo deep into the game, although McNabb didn't really stick with the play when we did run it. That's not the playcaller's fault.


I don't think he called a good overtime period. It's very difficult to pass ones way all the way down the field without at least one ten yard run to help alter field position. But Shanahan didn't even really run after the Landry interception: the ball was moved by defensive penalties on critical downs. The Packers sniffed out a third and one throw because, well, if you thought the Redskins wouldn't run for a yard in that situation, you were right.


I did like the quarterback sneak calls to ice the win at the end of the OT period, however.

Offensive Roundup


Donovan McNabb shows a strong tendency to stick with plays that go to Chris Cooley, Santana Moss, or Anthony Armstrong, while avoiding sticking with other receivers. However, in the fourth quarter with Armstrong hurt on the sideline, McNabb needed to be able to trust Joey Galloway on timing patterns to finish off the comeback, and while McNabb badly underthrew a couple of outs, he made some completions to Galloway that were among his best throws of the day.


Fred Davis was not targeted by the Redskins in this game, which is fairly inexcusable.


Santana Moss isn't primarily being used as a deep threat in this offense. Even though we're base two wide receivers, Moss is the slot reciever, the engine of the passing offense. Chris Cooley is often used as a desperation target in our base sets, which is why his offensive efficiency numbers are down. Fred Davis is a package player. Anthony Armstrong has emerged as the team's primary deep threat, taking over Galloway's role. Galloway is carving out a new niche as a reciever who works the sideline. We'll see if that bears fruit.


The passing offense is progressing and adding depth while securing roles for individual receivers, even as the offensive line is regressing to last year's levels. If there are better days in the future for the Redskin offense, this needs to be a clear outlier performance. The pass protection unit's number one task for next week is to win Donovan McNabb's confidence back.

Defense

So, after 5 weeks, the Redskins have dropped to last in total defense. They are 30th in passing defense. That's nice to know.

If you're reading this you already know that total defense is terribly misleading completely worthless as a defensive measure. The Redskins give up 18.4 points per game, which is 8th best in the NFL. That's also meaningless, but it's no more or less valuable than "ranking dead last" in something, which sounds way cooler if you: 1) despise the 3-4 defensive alignment, and 2) want everyone to know how much your life sucks when you have to watch your team play the 3-4 defensive alignment.

The Redskins rank in the top quartile in scoring defense because the offense has turned the ball over less frequently than anyone but the Jets and the Eagles' offenses this year. The Redskins aren't actually the 8th best defense in the league. Brian Burke's Efficiency Ratings has the Redskins at 15th on the year. Football Outsiders' DVOA has them at 23rd overall. Which system is more correct? I couldn't possibly tell you. What I can say is: that it's a pretty accurate range to assume when watching the Redskins defense play.

If you defined defense specifically as "preventing touchdowns by the opponent", there's nothing not to like about this defense. The Redskins are giving up fewer TDs/drive than either of the last two seasons. In fact, you'd have to go all the way back to 2004 to find a defense that was better at preventing TDs by the opponent. The quality of offense faced this year has been well above the average: consensus top ten offenses in four out of five weeks. That doesn't change this next week with Indianapolis visiting.

Of course, "preventing touchdowns by the opponent" could be rephrased as that dreaded term "bend but don't break," which would make everyone cringe. The turnovers are up, at least: we're now into the middle third of the NFL! But whenever yards against are at odds with points against, a defense is going to get the reputation of bend but don't break.

One thing I will say through 5 weeks is that what the Redskins put on film is usually out of line (in a good way) with the statistics. It's hard to believe that a defense that looks this good actually ranks solidly in the bottom half, though clearly, all methodologies are in agreement that this is the case.

One reason for a discrepancy is that the Redskins really struggle to get drive-killing sacks, despite the fact that the film shows three or four rushers with multiple dynamic pass rushing moves. The Redskins have 12 sacks through 5 games, which is tied with the Jets for 7th in the NFL. However, the Redskins have faced more passing attempts than any defense in football, and given the circumstance, 12 sacks really isn't all that much. Brian Orakpo has 4 sacks, and that puts him on pace to get a career-high 13 by seasons end. No other Redskins player even has two sacks (though regarding the sack on Aaron Rodgers in the 4th quarter: either Alexander or Fletcher would have gotten their second sack had they not split it with each other). This even though, again, the Redskins have faced more passing attempts by quarterbacks than any other team in football.

A big problem in this sack issue is in the scheme, specifically, that no one outside of Orakpo is rushing the quarterback enough to make a significant impact. That's now starting to change with Lorenzo Alexander, but a big concept against Green Bay was the three man rush. The three man rush can be a great defensive tool (especially if you're playing our offense), but it's a major bend-but-don't-break concept used primarily when the defense feels the offense has a talent advantage. Not so coincidentally, Haslett began this game calling a lot of 3 and 4 man rushes, but then as Green Bay started to lose weaponry to injury, the fourth quarter and overtime were laden with pressure schemes.

Both strategies worked to their intended degree. Green Bay ran up a ton of yards on us in the first quarter, but got in the end zone just once, needing a 71 yard run from Brandon Jackson to get in striking range of the end zone. That specific play wasn't even well blocked by Green Bay -- no blockers reached the second level on that play -- but they were able to double team and drive Golston out of the hole, and when Fletcher stepped up to fill the front side gap, it left McIntosh one on one with Jackson in the hole to prevent a first down. McIntosh took a timid angle, then chased. Then Kareem Moore took aim at Jackson's shadow. Then DeAngelo Hall ran past him. Twice. And then it was a foot race.

Green Bay had some long drives early in this game which led to point opportunities, but those opportunities died in the second half. The Redskins had given Rodgers time to throw most of the first half, but in the second half, he started to get pressured on most every passing attempt. On the series to begin the fourth quarter, Lorenzo Alexander recorded a pressure on every play of the series. The next series, Orakpo began the drive with two pressures on Rodgers. The first pass attempt on the series after that, Fletcher and Alexander came unblocked to meet at Rodgers, setting up a meaningless 3rd an 23. In overtime, Orakpo ran right around Chad Clifton to drill Rodgers to end the first series. The final passing attempt from Rodgers resulted in the cumulative effect of all that pressure: Rodgers threw well behind an open Greg Jennings with Jeremy Jarmon in his face, was picked off by Landry, and the Packers would later report that Aaron Rodgers sustained a concussion on that hit.

On Rodgers' last 15 dropbacks spanning the fourth quarter and overtime, he absorbed a hit or was pressured into a decision on 10 of those plays.

Word Diagramming a Key Defensive Play

I want to go back to the three man rush for a second, because the Redskins have used the unique talents of their players in very creative ways to create mistakes by the quarterbacks they have played. This was a 3rd & 10 play in the first quarter. As they often do in that situation, Green Bay spread the field with four wide receivers. The Redskins went with three down lineman, which declared a three man rush at the snap. That's not the creative part. The creative part was in the defensive look that they gave the offense versus the coverage they played. They were in dime personnel, with Lorenzo Alexander head up on Greg Jennings, Rogers on the slot receiver to the opposite side, and Hall and Buchanon on the outside. With one defensive lineman on the interior (Holliday), McIntosh and Orakpo were the outside rushers. The Redskins like this because they know that even with a three man rush, Orakpo's presence causes Rodgers to decide which side (and what receiver) he is going to go with the ball pre-snap. They'll be able to give him a clean pocket, but if he wastes time, Orakpo is going to flush him from that pocket relatively quickly.

For Rodgers, this isn't hard to diagnose. You have Greg Jennings in the slot, and with Lorenzo Alexander on him, that's zone coverage. Alexander isn't going to cover Jennings down the field with no help. The beauty of the defensive call: Rodgers is right enough to trust what he's seeing, and wrong enough where he has almost no chance to execute it.

The defensive coverage is "Tampa 2", but with one caveat: it only takes 7 coverage defenders to run Tampa 2, and we have 8 in coverage, which means we have a movable piece. That's Alexander. He's going to be in man coverage on their best receiver, Jennings. But the trick is this: not only does he have help, the Redskins are in a normal zone defense.

Because of Orakpo's presence, Rodgers is going to start with Jennings and stick with Jennings throughout the play, even though he has three other receivers in the route. This is exactly what the Redskins want: this defensive call is trying to force a mistake by the quarterback. At the snap, Rodgers expects Alexander to drop and read him, but this doesn't happen. He runs with Jennings, who goes over the middle on an over route, settling in between Rogers and Doughty (who have middle underneath responsibility). After being fooled, Rodgers flushes to his right, away from Orakpo's rush. He finds the window between Alexander (in trail position) and Rogers, and floats a pass off the wrong foot with little velocity. Fletcher reads this the whole way, drives on the route, and drills Jennings when he reaches up for a high throw. Rodgers didn't take a sack or throw an interception, but in this case, the Redskins defense forced a bad decision.

DeAngelo Hall's Day

While Carlos Rogers had a big day (at least aided a little bit by Donald Driver drops), DeAngelo Hall had a horrific day that regressed his season coverage numbers to right around his career expectation. He got off to a good start this season, pitching a great day against Dallas, a good half against Houston, and he was competitive in the Philadelphia game. Still, five games into the season, Hall has already had two terrible games, and while I still believe that an aggressive Hall is a useful player, I think the sample size is great enough where we know that we're never going to get 16 games (or 10 games) of aggressive DeAngelo Hall. I loved his work against Dallas in the opener when he was sound fundamentally and made multiple game changing plays, but in the span of the last three weeks, we've endured enough of "bad" DHall to last a career.

Hall's coverage numbers (all DB coverage numbers for all five weeks coming in a separate post) for the Green Bay game: 8 targets, 7 completions, 6 successful completions, 63 passing yards against for about 8 yards per target. Hall's one consistent pass coverage skill is that he hardly ever gets a pass completed behind him, and has yet to this year, but he was pitch and catch this game.

Against a schedule of quality quarterbacks, Hall has been less successful at intercepting passes than at stripping runners. That strip on Tashard Choice probably won the Redskins a game they otherwise had no business winning, but had Mason Crosby been able to squeak the ball inside the upright the way Graham Gano was able to in the same clock minute, Hall would have already given that victory back. On that 21 yard reception in crunch time by Andrew Quarless, Hall had outside leverage on a slant pattern, but needs to know to lock up on a receiver when the quarterback leaves the pocket (and Rodgers had to, because other Rogers was unblocked). Rodgers made this throw across his body against an inexcusable cushion to a third string rookie TE. If we're going to be afraid to get too close to a rookie tight end for fear of getting beat deep, we're going to need someone new in that role.

There was also the tackle "attempt" on Jackson's long run.

Tackling concerns

A big problem with this team is that they are not a sound tackling unit despite having many players held over from last season when they were a great tackling unit. Too many missed tackles on running backs, on receivers, and on tight ends. LaRon Landry has actually significantly improved his tackling, but Kareem Moore, London Fletcher, Rocky McIntosh, and Andre Carter all look very bad in their form. If I have a criticism of the way this unit is being coached compared to last year, this is it.

Facing Manning

What works on Aaron Rodgers won't always work on Peyton Manning, though the strategy of hitting the QB early and often would seem to be the best bet. That means we'll probably need to use fewer three man rushes and try to take advantage of mistakes made by Manning's injury replacements at receiver rather than more three man rushes and unique coverage concepts on slot receivers, such as Dallas Clark.

Of course, you'd need to be a modern day Thomas Edison to invent a strategy to befuddle Peyton Manning, and that point will be front and center in next week's defensive breakdown.

Awesome read!

Good read and good breakdown of Hall. Had that FG went through he might have been run out of town for playing soft against a 3rd string TE. Also I'm not sure why they're not dressing Dock. Lick seems to be a real bad solution. Dock may not be nimble but his replacement is just wiffing too many times.

Offense


Blown Blocks

Ugh. This was ugly. Kory Lichtensteiger paced everyone with 5 blown blocks. That's a bad season from a left guard, but it wasn't such a terrible game by the standards of this offensive line in this game. Casey Rabach had 2 blown blocks, plus another two plays where the Packers assulted McNabb with Rabach playing the role of the fiery coach of the offense who yells encouragement at his troops without actually doing anything to help them. Trent Williams had 2 blown blocks in his return to the lineup, and he wasn't the one going against Matthews most of the time. Artis Hicks had the worst game of his Redskins career, 3 blown blocks. Keiland Williams and Ryan Torain blew a block each. Torain at least made up for it with the key block on the Armstrong TD and an awesome-though-meaningless decleater of 340 lb BJ Raji. Stephon Heyer had a blown block and didn't even start. He replaced the injured Jammal Brown, who blew 3 blocks in the first half plus a drive (two of which vs. Matthews).


If you add up the carnage, the Redskins blew 18 blocks in this game between the runs and the passes. About 4 to 5 blown blocks is normal for a game against a quality opponent. The Packers played well, but that was only part of the issue. The main issue was that the Redskins offensive pace-setters never even bothered to show up.



Whats your opinion on why all the blown blocks happened. It seemed to me at least 2 on Kory was because he messed up his assigment and was doing something else, like he was confussed. I guess do you think most of the blown blocks were due to players just doing the wrong thing or were they outmatched?

Awesome right up again. Thanks

Whats your opinion on why all the blown blocks happened. It seemed to me at least 2 on Kory was because he messed up his assigment and was doing something else, like he was confussed. I guess do you think most of the blown blocks were due to players just doing the wrong thing or were they outmatched?

Awesome right up again. ThanksTwo of Kory's blown blocks were mistakes caused by him vacating his gap to assist Rabach or Williams. Excusable under the "making himself useful" umbrella. Inexcusable under the "executing his assignment" qualification.

Great read. Thanks G-Tripp.

We need Haynesworth to collapse the pocket next week, and really force significant pressure.

Manning with time is unstoppable, but if we can get him to rush his throws... we can get those beloved turnovers.

Thanks Tripp. Great stuff.

GT, McNabb has been known his whole career for throwing wild passes. This is nothing new and did not start last week.

To make my point
McNabbs sack average per game.

2010- 2.2
2009-2.5
2008-1.4
2007-3.1

Getting hit is nothing new to McNabb.