Smoot Lays The Smack Down (Redskins vs. Colts)

[QUOTE] 1.) The Beckwagon-Slow your roll, Beckwagoneers. He did nothing wrong really, and he was very efficient in one half. But he played in a pretty simple offense last night against a simple defense. He didn't cleary distance himself from Rex Grossman last week. The question, of course, is does he need to?

What you saw last night will not keep many DC"s up late trying to figure out how to defend. I'm in agreement with those who want to see if Beck can deliver the ball down the field on any consistent basis, until then no team is going to fear him as a NFL QB.

Your assessment is pretty accurate and someone agrees with it:

Observation deck: Redskins-Colts - NFC East Blog - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post?id=29771)

There's a reason we didn't stretch the field last night.

The Colts play a Tampa 2 defense. The strength of that defense is defending the deep ball. Two deep safeties, one deep linebacker, and rush with the front four. The weakness in the Tampa 2 defense is short and intermediate, particularly over the middle. Which is the part of the field the Redskins attacked over and over again.

You guys don't remember the Colts game last year? The go route with Banks? The deep pass attempt to Armstrong? They're always ready to defend the deep ball. They could've tried it, but the chances of completing it wasn't much. So why take a shot deep when they're giving you the short stuff and leaving the middle of the field open for you, not to mention they're having trouble stopping the run?

I guarantee you, if the Ravens try to crowd the box to stop the short passing game, Beck will have no problem chucking one deep, provided he has the time. The weakness of the Ravens defense is still in their secondary; they bought in Bernard Pollard, but he's like Landry and has issues covering, and they'll likely be starting Jimmy Smith, who was worked on by Dwayne Bowe.

As for red zone production, if Sellers doesn't get accidentally tripped up, it's a touchdown. I think there's like, five teams who made the playoffs last year that had an even worse red zone conversion rate than we did. I saw some good red zone plays called in the regular season at the end of the year, particularly with Fred Davis. You don't want to tip your hat to that too much, though.

There's something weird about this qb "competition" ... that's all I'm gonna say.. whoever starts I hope they do well.

There's no competition... it's Beck's job to lose.

[quote=Longtimefan;825334]

Your assessment is pretty accurate and someone agrees with it:

Observation deck: Redskins-Colts - NFC East Blog - ESPN (http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post?id=29771)

So thats how you know SS was behind that ESPN NFC East Blog!

;)

There's a reason we didn't stretch the field last night.

The Colts play a Tampa 2 defense. The strength of that defense is defending the deep ball. Two deep safeties, one deep linebacker, and rush with the front four. The weakness in the Tampa 2 defense is short and intermediate, particularly over the middle. Which is the part of the field the Redskins attacked over and over again.



Exactly, I think in an interview Beck said Kyle Shanahan told him to not go for "spectacular" plays.. So it was in their game plan.

After the game, Beck explained how offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan cited his days as Houston’s offensive coordinator in advising him to take what the Colts defense gave him. Shanahan told Beck there was no need to try to make the spectacular play against the Colts, Beck said.

Redskins-Colts Film Review: Offense - Washington Times (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/20/redskins-colts-film-review-offense/?page=2)

I think you should include finishing in the red-zone -- we're only two games into the preseason but we've completed 2 of 9 trips into the red zone for touchdowns. That has to be rectified if we're going to be competitive, this is a problem we've had for a few years now in my estimation and has to be fixed for us to become a consistent team.

Hankerson will be fine. Anyone who says they don't know a lot of rookie wide receivers that drop passes that get better aren't really paying attention.

It's not a lack of hands for Hank. It's concentration drops. It's always concentration drops. He only dropped one pass last night, and then caught the other passes he was targeted on. Hank makes the same mistake every other rookie wide receiver does; he looks to run before he catches the ball.

Roddy White, T.O, Brandon Lloyd, Dwayne Bowe, Braylon Edwards all had drops, and then corrected the those problems as they progressed and got older.

Let's give the rookie a little bit of time before we go worrying about it. He dropped an easy one over the middle, and then caught three more passes over the middle, and all with his hands instead of his body, and wound up being the leading receiver for the game.

I guess I wouldn't be as concerned about his drops if that wasn't a knock on him coming out of college. If he never had a problem with it before, you could chalk it up to rookie nerves. But he did have issues with it at Miami. Not saying it can't be corrected. It's just ... concerning.

Especially when you consider that we haven't drafted a wide receiver who's had any long term success with the team since Ricky Sanders.

I guess I wouldn't be as concerned about his drops if that wasn't a knock on him coming out of college. If he never had a problem with it before, you could chalk it up to rookie nerves. But he did have issues with it at Miami. Not saying it can't be corrected. It's just ... concerning.

Especially when you consider that we haven't drafted a wide receiver who's had any long term success with the team since Ricky Sanders.

Exactly what I was going to say.

well, stretch plays don't work as well in the red zone, the player density is just too great... and those fast OL guys can't use their speed in space, so they tend to get pushed around since they're not as hard to move as 350lb grinders.

I think the red zone won't be a major hurdle, but we're not coming close to #1 there... it'll be a lot easier for us to be a 30yd TD type team.