Tony McGee on the Cardinals & Cowboys

[Gmanc711]

Hello Everyone,

Great to be back after another win. A thank you to anyone who helped out by tuning into the broadcast to help us out, too.

There isn’t really a whole lot to say after last week. It was a very solid game on both sides of the ball, but for the most part the Redskins played good football. Offensively, Jason Campbell very well may be turning into the quarterback the Redskins wanted when they drafted him out of Auburn. I don’t know if he turned the corner or not in the 4th quarter of that Saints game, but he played very good last weekend against the Cardinals. The one thing you have to remember with him, is the problems he had last year with turnovers…if you look this year, he still through 3 games has zero. That means he is correcting his mistakes, and will continue to work to do so. You can’t get on this kid too much when he makes a mistake this season, and he has proven that he is able to fix mistakes, so as he matures as a quarterback he will be able to put it all together. As a whole offensively, I think the Redskins still need to do a better job establishing the run early in the game. Coming up this weekend against a team like the Cowboys, they are going to have to be able to run effectively early in the game and Clinton Portis needs to be a big part of that success. Santana Moss is also coming together in his 2005 form, and I think he could be a big part of the game plan this week, given his past success against Dallas (remember he had two good games last season as well). Overall, I’m very happy with how the offense is progressing. In addition, its so exciting to see a coach go for the win at the ends of the game and not play it safe. In both the New Orleans and Arizona game, Jim Zorn made calls that are somewhat un-conventional, but directly lead to wins.

Defensively, the Redskins still need to play better against the run and have a better pass rush. The Redskins got somewhat run over on defense against the Cardinals, more than the stats would indicate. They have to do a better job up front. I’m think the pass rush is good, but can continue to get better, they are going to have to get better pressure on Tony Romo this week if they want it to lead to a win in Dallas. When you look at the difference in the two games last season, it was the amount of pressure they were able to establish on Romo in game 2 vs. the first game, where he had all day to throw and hooked up with T.O. for 4 TD’s.

Not a whole lot to say about the Cardinals game, it was a close, but solid win from start to finish. Overall going into this week, its always a game where you can throw out the records and you never know who is going to win. Dallas is one of the most talented teams in football, and the Redskins have had a real struggle winning in Dallas. If the Redskins can win this week or next, they will be in very good position with three winnable games coming up against St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit after that. I still think the Cowboys, at this point, are the better team, but I think it will be a highly contested affair this Sunday.

Thanks,
Tony