Smoot Lays the Smack Down (Redskins vs. Ravens)

On Hall's tackling, as others have mentioned, this is just an example, if you really watch the games closely or look at a DVR'd game....well let's just say the "eye in the sky don't lie".

Here is my problem with Hall and fans that support his play. Hall gives up far more plays than he makes, but the ones he makes are INTs and are what people remember from the game.
They don't remember:
- the 14 yds easy completion to Evans where hall wasn't within 2 yds of him
- or the 3 & 4 slant where Hall was abused, but fortunately the WR dropped
- or the whip route that Boldin abused Hall on for a first
- or the weak tackle effort from Hall on Boldin on the Otagwe blown coverage
- or the TD where Evans just blew by our #1 "speed" corner who couldn't recover and made no play on the ball
....and that was in 1 half without me really looking a Hall's tackling (I know he missed at least one other tackle)

Yes the INT for TD was a good play, but is it worth 2 first downs (a 3rd was dropped) to keep drives alive, plus a TD....I don't think so. Trust me on this, no OC fears Hall. On the contrary, OCs look to take advantage of Hall and for the most part they are successful.

You're just picking on the guy lol.. The Evans play was a good throw and play by the offense in which Hall still almost pulled the ball out to make a play.

The 3 yard slant? Really? Come on man.. He was tight on that coverage too, and if the WR makes the catch it's a 4 yard gain.

You're just being finicky with Hall, and it's the other side of the field we have to worry about more then Hall. Hall can't make all the plays,and he's not the guy who is going to lock down every play and every WR in the game today, but he's a good corner and I support him.

Our opinions wont change, so i'm going to agree to disagree. The guy won 2 games for us last year, and i'm glad he's a Redskin

Flat out fact: if Chris Horton gets beaten in deep coverage by Lee Evans, then shamelessly stays on the field illegally with the idea that they'll have to go challenge the play if he protests it, Chris Horton gets released the next morning. Period. End of story.

Defensive "leaders" like Hall do get a bit more room for that, but we're really talking about 20% of NFL defensive players who won't get released instantly for pulling a selfish stunt. Whether or not your opinion of Hall is that he's one of the best 20% of defensive players in football, it's clear that the term to describe this is preferential treatment. If your defense of Hall is that he's earned preferential treatment, fine, my argument ends at that point. But let us at least call it what it is.

How can you call that a fact if it's never happen? You don't know what would happen if this was to occur. You guys are just picking on a guy who goes out and try's to make plays every game. This is the kinda defense Haslett wants and if you want to blame someone for this then blame him.

Facts.... LOL, That's like me saying..

FACT!!! John Beck would win the NFL MVP if he completed 50% of his passes this year

Finally had a chance to review the game. Hopefully this is a preview of a weekly SS33 Game Review.

OL - Huge improvement from last year. Familiarity with the ZB scheme is helping the guys from last year. I finally saw an important component of the ZB scheme that was missing last year.....the cut blocks. On the Hightower TD, the cut from KL took down two Ravens and opened the cutback lane. I specifically saw good two good cuts by TW and another by KL. Didn't notice any from Brown/Chester, but hope they're coming.

Monty at C, without bashing ol' turnstile Rabach for a paragraph, let's just say Monty is a huge upgrade at C. The only bad play from him was a mis-communication between him and Chester that allowed the DT to shoot the A gap and blow up a run. Monty went 2nd level too early and Chester couldn't reach the DT.

Pass-pro is much improved. Not seeing the OL getting beaten with a 4 or 5 man rush. The OL is getting at worst a stalemate in pass-pro, which is a win and big improvement from last year where our OL were not only doing a poor job of blitz pick-up, but were losing individual battles.

Blitz Pick-up - An area that needs work, but with new players at C, RG, RB and TE this should improve and is an area that can be "coached up". TW has to get better at reading overload C-gap pressure and stay home rather than get sucked down to the B gap. Brown and Chester need to improve communication in passing the rushers between them. The blitz pick-up appears to be more of an issue on Brown's side. Hopefully by game 4-5 Brown, Chester and the backs/Davis will have settled in.

Davis is much improved in blocking and appears to be taking pride in this effort here. He still has work to do in blitz pick-up, but the run blocking appears to be coming along well and he's showing "want-to".

DL - Very pleased here. Cofield is showing why he was the most improtant off-season acquisition. He holds his ground in the run game and creates pressure in the pass game. The base 3-4 rush and 4-man front are getting pressure without needing blitz support....huge improvement from last year. I really like the even front with Rak and Kerrigan off the edges and Cofield and possibly Carriker/Bowen/Scott (JJ loss is awful, overall we'll be fine but he was a pleasant surprise).

Not real happy with Bowen's pre-snap stance (I get in a similar stance in the early AM), but he's doing his job so far.

I think Scott earned himself a roster spot with his versatility and effort. He created good pressure in pass rush and held up well in the run game overall.

More later....

You should make it a weekly feature. Your game reviews are the best I've seen on any message board and as good as many professional ones I've seen, and you don't have the same access to film they do

You're just picking on the guy lol.. The Evans play was a good throw and play by the offense in which Hall still almost pulled the ball out to make a play.

The 3 yard slant? Really? Come on man.. He was tight on that coverage too, and if the WR makes the catch it's a 4 yard gain.

You're just being finicky with Hall, and it's the other side of the field we have to worry about more then Hall. Hall can't make all the plays,and he's not the guy who is going to lock down every play and every WR in the game today, but he's a good corner and I support him.

Our opinions wont change, so i'm going to agree to disagree. The guy won 2 games for us last year, and i'm glad he's a RedskinThe quick slant is one of the most important routes in football. A perfectly thrown quick slant will likely get a favorable down and distance at the very least, and it can easily be a 10 yard gain or more. I've seen how Brett Favre raped D's with that pass; it's not something to brush off lightly.

Good stuff Sammy and very encouraging. Keep it coming!

You're just picking on the guy lol.. The Evans play was a good throw and play by the offense in which Hall still almost pulled the ball out to make a play.

The 3 yard slant? Really? Come on man.. He was tight on that coverage too, and if the WR makes the catch it's a 4 yard gain.

You're just being finicky with Hall, and it's the other side of the field we have to worry about more then Hall. Hall can't make all the plays,and he's not the guy who is going to lock down every play and every WR in the game today, but he's a good corner and I support him.

Our opinions wont change, so i'm going to agree to disagree. The guy won 2 games for us last year, and i'm glad he's a Redskin

The Hall bashing is really humorous on this board. Truth is, we see the other corners play a fraction of the time we see our guys week in and week out. So it's quite easy to take a handful of plays from the highlight reel or during the playoffs, when we see the other corners play nationally, and conclude they are head and shoulders above what we have. All corners give up big plays and miss tackles.

I'm not taking anything from from the other so called elite corners, but it seems we're nit-picking here. D.Hall had 95 tackles, 2 forced fumbles and six picks last year, and 16 defended passes. There are a lot of ways we could parse those stats and come to different conclusions, but given the front seven Hall playing in front of him last season and the plays he made, I'd still take him over the majority of cornerbacks in this league.

Good breakdown, SS33

The Hall bashing is really humorous on this board. Truth is, we see the other corners play a fraction of the time we see our guys week in and week out. So it's quite easy to take a handful of plays from the highlight reel or during the playoffs, when we see the other corners play nationally, and conclude they are heads and shoulders above what we have. All corners give up big plays and miss tackles.

I'm not taking anything from from the other so called elite corners, but it seems we're nit-picking here. D.Hall had 95 tackles, 2 forced fumbles and six picks last year, and 16 defended passes. There are a lot of ways we could parse those stats and come to different conclusions, but given the front seven Hall playing in front of him last season and the plays he made, I'd still take him over the majority of cornerbacks in this league.Cornerback is one of the positions where stats are absolutely terrible at describing performance. Good coverage usually results in no stats being accrued.

On Hall's tackling, as others have mentioned, this is just an example, if you really watch the games closely or look at a DVR'd game....well let's just say the "eye in the sky don't lie".

Here is my problem with Hall and fans that support his play. Hall gives up far more plays than he makes, but the ones he makes are INTs and are what people remember from the game.
They don't remember:
- the 14 yds easy completion to Evans where hall wasn't within 2 yds of him
- or the 3 & 4 slant where Hall was abused, but fortunately the WR dropped
- or the whip route that Boldin abused Hall on for a first
- or the weak tackle effort from Hall on Boldin on the Otagwe blown coverage
- or the TD where Evans just blew by our #1 "speed" corner who couldn't recover and made no play on the ball
....and that was in 1 half without me really looking a Hall's tackling (I know he missed at least one other tackle)

Yes the INT for TD was a good play, but is it worth 2 first downs (a 3rd was dropped) to keep drives alive, plus a TD....I don't think so. Trust me on this, no OC fears Hall. On the contrary, OCs look to take advantage of Hall and for the most part they are successful.


Wow interesting break down. All the players make mistakes so why are we bashing Hall? Does he take chances? yes and apparently thats why MS and Haslett like him otherwise he would be gone. Did he screw up on the TD pass and not turn around and either intercept or atleast bat the ball away.... yes he screwed up. I'm sure after watching film he will correct the problem. and yes he was giving players a cushion. why? I don't know... maybe it's by design of the scheme in order to take away something the offense was wanting to do and force them to go shorter to an underneith route? I don't know.

But if we are going to bash Hall then you might as well start bashing all the DL who let the Ravens RB's get 1st downs. So now we need not only a better CB but better DL. I'm also sure some LB's could be replaced as well who were out of position or failed to tackle also.

How soon we forget the tackle he made on a RB alot bigger then him in the Steelers game to keep them from getting a 1st down.