Scouts Inc: Redskins Training Camp Preview

[SmootSmack]

(Not much new info here, but still interesting)


Although 2004 was understandably a learning year for head coach Joe Gibbs and his staff, you get the feeling they will make the necessary adjustments heading into the 2005 season. They still will utilize a lot of one-back and two-TE sets with motion and also will use their TE's on a lot of blocking schemes, but they will change a little bit of their run game philosophy with Clinton Portis.

Portis really struggled to run the Redskins' traditional "counter trey" a year ago, because it requires a lot of patience on the part of the running back to give it time to develop. Portis is a speed back who likes to hit the hole on the run, and patience is not his strength. For a guy who has explosiveness and big-play capabilities, he only averaged 3.8 yards a carry. That's not good enough, and we will see the Redskins utilize more stretch plays and straight-ahead running plays in order to maximize his skills.

The Redskins have a new offensive coordinator, Bill Musgrave, a proponent of the West Coast offense, and he will use a fairly safe, conservative passing game to move the chains. The challenge for the Redskins, though, will be that they may again be forced to use a lot of max-protection schemes like they did a year ago to protect QB Patrick Ramsey, and that limits their ability to spread the field. Also, their receivers are small and not very physical, and they will struggle vs. press coverages, so we may see a lot more motion and shifting of their WR's in an effort to get away from the jam.

This is an offense that needs to run the football to let the defense rest and to play smarter than it did a year ago, when Washington was the most penalized team in the NFL. We will see fewer counter-trey and trap plays, but there is a lot of work to be done in training camp.

Defensively, coordinator Gregg Williams did a tremendous job a year ago with only average personnel. He utilized a philosophy that emphasized blitzes from all over the field and also did a lot of pre-snap shifting along the defensive line to confuse offensive blocking schemes. After the snap, the team played a lot of one-gap penetrating techniques. The end result was a defensive line that played much better than its talent level indicated.

In the secondary, the Redskins will play a lot of Cover-1 schemes and will blitz their corners off the edge more than you might think to try to bring pressure.

This defensive unit should be good again, especially if the offense can control the clock. The pressure will be on offensive coordinator Musgrave to make the offense more efficient and accomplish that.

[JWsleep]

Is Musgrave the O-coordinator? I thought he was the QBs coach.

[Redskins8588]

Did Gibbs promote Musgrave to Offensive Coordinator? I am pretty sure that Musgrave is still the QB coach. Why do analists consistantly pre-maturely promote Musgrave to OC?!?!

[Redskins8588]

Just goes to show how much this wrighter knows!!!

[SmootSmack]

good catch guys, I just glossed right over that gaffe

[JWsleep]

Glossed over the gaffe--I hate when that happens. Just don't gaffe over the gloss.

[EternalEnigma21]

Are they sure we were THE most penalized team in the league last year? I thought Oakland took that crown.

[mooby]

i don't know but i hope we cut down on them this year.

[GoSkins!]

We cut down on penalties by the end of last year. You could see the adjustments starting to work. No more motion penalties, fewer offsides, better special teams, more efficient offense.

Lets just hope it carries over to this season.

[MTK]

Musgrave is the QBs coach

[firstdown]

I looked up penaltie stats on nfl.com. We were third in total yards and 15th in total penalties and this was offense only. They did not have the stats for D.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Damn. And remember how many of those were COSTLY penalties?

[memphisskin]

Why everyone thinks that Musgrave is going to negatively affect the Skins this year is beyond me, I thought all QB coaches did was coach the QBs and not submarine the offense.

We should be able to drastically reduce our offensive penalties since we're bringing back the same coaching staff and the players will be more comfortable with Gibbs' system. Less penalties should equal more offensive plays which should equal more scoring.

Defensively I think we have a chance to be more dynamic this year. I think we'll see less cornerback blitzes, I look for Lavar to have an awesome year to quell this "overrated" talk.

[mooby]

Originally Posted by TheMalcolmConnection

Damn. And remember how many of those were COSTLY penalties?

i can think of a few. the second eagles game where they called defensive pass interference and gave the eagles the ball at our 1 yard line. that one sticks out. also the one on the potential game winner against green bay, where they called back portis' 43 yard touchdown catch, that hurt too. there were a lot of them last season.

[manicd]

Originally Posted by mooby

i can think of a few. the second eagles game where they called defensive pass interference and gave the eagles the ball at our 1 yard line. that one sticks out. also the one on the potential game winner against green bay, where they called back portis' 43 yard touchdown catch, that hurt too. there were a lot of them last season.

Yeah, but that call against us in the Green Bay game was a hose job. I'm not saying all calls against were bad. But that one was. I watched over and over and saw nothing.