What's The Real Problem?

[jsarno]

With all the comments thus far, it's obvious we can not just pick one problem. There were a slew!
This is how I saw it: (in no particular order)
1- Horrible play calling on both sides of the ball. Why did we not try to open up the field by throwing downfield? We have Moss, a burner, Lloyd, the guy that can jump and has the "size", and Randle El to create, yet we never even looked at Lloyd and limited Moss to screens. On the D side, we made the Vikes O line look like all pro's. Partly play calling, partly...
2- No defensive penetration. Brad had all day to throw the ball. The linebackers had no sense of urgency, and the DE's didn't create any opportunities.
3- The 700 page playbook. If Brunell was "wishing the day was over", that lack of confidence will trickle down. Brunell was not that good. If you watched downfield, often times a receiver was open and Brunell never saw him. Brunell looked confused.
4- Poor kicking game. I'm not the type to blame the loss on such a thing, but watching Hall's previous kicks, I was even nervous about him hitting an extra point. He kicks one ugly ball. When Randel El did not get to that first down marker, I knew we lost cause Hall would have missed that field goal 4 out of 5 times.
5- Most importantly, we could not stop the 3rd down conversions!!!!! We let the freakin Vikes run or pass at will on 3rd downs! We were lucky to lose by only 3 thanks to Williamson sucking. He dropped that easy TD on the most perfect pass anyone has seen in years, and, humorously, dropping a pass with the deflection of his helmet!
6- Injuries. The loss of Springs was noticably significant, and we need Portis to run the ball 20 times. I like Betts, but he's no Portis.
7- Why OH WHY don't we use Randel El for kickoffs? If he can punt return, he can kick return. Our KR game is horrendous.

There were some other issues, but those were the biggies.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by Sheriff Gonna Getcha

The defense allowed 19 points, 86 rushing yards, and 223 passing yards. While not fantastic stats, and though they didn't meet my expectations of them, objectively speaking they were not "Swiss Cheese" or otherwise horrible. I think we've been a little spoiled by Williams' defense the past few years. The did a decent job, even if they couldn't seal the deal.

The offense also played decent, but couldn't seal the deal. Yeah they moved the ball and I was encouraged, but they didn't score 7 points when it counted.

The problem is that we didn't do anything to perfection. Both sides of the ball came up short.

I agree that the offense couldn't seal the deal in the red zone, and did mention that, but I don't agree that the defense did their job -- although I will say allowing the Viking's great field position for much of the game didn't help matters. Still, if we were spoiled by great defenses under Williams the past two seasons --- AND considering that any changes we made on defense was supposed to have been upgrades, that leads me to believe that the defense was a dissappointment last night.

[Sheriff Gonna Getcha]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

Still, if we were spoiled by great defenses under Williams the past two seasons --- AND considering that any changes we made on defense was supposed to have been upgrades, that leads me to believe that the defense was a dissappointment last night.

No question they were a disappointment. I have just been trying to look at things objectively and without reference to our expectations. The defense disappointed us because they were medicore when we expected them to be great. Conversely, the offense encouraged many of us because it was mediocre when we expected it to be sub-par. So, while the defense might have been a disappointment, the units performed at about the same level.

[Meast]

Bottom Line: WE WERE OUTCOACHED!?
p.s. lord give me an O-line

[sniks]

Who expected it to be subpar?Not me I expected alot more than that.Saunders, randle El , Lylod millions of dollars later same result as last year CANT SCORE POINTS.

[That Guy]

wow, talk about over reaction. 3 weeks ago I said we'd get off to a slow start because of gibbs insistance on NOT using preseason to actually practice. The switch just doesn't flip on that fast.

last year we started with 2 games of zero offense (well, 1.93 games). I guess everyone forgot that openning day whooping we put on the bears (9-7).

the only thing is this year the defense let us down with third down penalties (and brad johnson didn't miss a throw). The returns on carter and arch don't look great, and losing our #1 CB and important depth/special teamer prioleau really hurts.

The insistance on staying with dismal kickers and punters sucks too, and lots of people saw that as early as game 6 LAST YEAR. that hurts.

[cowboykiller89]

Yeah, I knew that potential game tying field goal was outta John Hall's range. What's Chip Lohmiller doing these days?

[cowboykiller89]

Don't worry my fellow Redskins fans, this is only the beginning. Be patient, the team is still adjusting to Al Saunders offensive 700 page playbook. Also, Greg Williams will fine tune the defense and by midseason we will be virtually unstoppable, offensively and defensively.

[mike340]

Biggest problems:

1) Play calling in the red zone. (Sellars and Duckette, until the other team shows they can stop them.) (Should improve with time.)

2) Inability to stop the 3rd-down conversions; especially with long yardage (i.e. passes.) in general

3) CB play (wave at the nearest receiver.) (Should improve with Springs).

4) Hall. (I told my wife we would almost certainly lose before the last field goal attempt.)

5) Not stopping them when they started from their own 2.

Other thoughts:

It looked like RE thought he had the first down when he stepped out at the end. Just a miscalculation; can happen; nobody's perfect. He had to get out of bounds.

Offense moved the ball pretty well, especially considering that Saunders doesn't seem to have figured out how to use the players he has.

Neither line looked good.

Didn't feel we ran many routes in the middle of the field. I think this is where Minn. got a lot of the first downs on 3rd and long.

Nice KO return by Betts to give us a chance at the end.

Nice drive at the end with no time outs.

[That Guy]

i do wonder what happened to sellers and cooley and that stupid 3rd and 2 play where they both drift out towards the sidelines... you know, the one we ran about 574 times last year... seems like we could have used it.

[jrocx69]

i wish we would put Campbell and Duckett in inside the five. Do a PA rollout, b/c everyone will bite on the PA fake to a guy 250+ and Campbell will elude any pressure better than brunell running and throwing it away. Three dementional play... Big runner with power, a QB that could bootleg, or rollout to a open Chris Cooley/ WR/ Sellers. ahhh we can dream cant we?

[JWsleep]

What's funny is, if we had pulled that game out (and it was close despite all these "obvious" problems), we'd all be saying how good we are. And of course, we'd be going overboard in that case as well.

I'll take Gibbs at his word now--we are inconsistent, but the problems can be readily fixed. This isn't surprising at all on offense given the new system. On D, our lack of secondary health restricted the blitz, a big o-line stuffed our front four, and Brad Johnson was his usual accurate self. He's a vet who reads Ds well and gets rid of it quick--all this made Williams reluctant to Blitz, and that means it isn't really Williams D at its best. Next week, we'll see a lot more blitzing, for good or ill.

But the bottom line is, we aren't as good as the hype made us out to be, but we aren't NEARLY as bad as some nay-sayers here would have it, IMHO. As Gibbs would say, up here it's tough to win. We have to play better. Can we do it? Jeeze, do you really think it's IMPOSSIBLE for us to play better? Of course we can. And given our coaching staff, my guess is that we will. Hang in there, people!

[RiggoRules]

Originally Posted by That Guy

wow, talk about over reaction. 3 weeks ago I said we'd get off to a slow start because of gibbs insistance on NOT using preseason to actually practice. The switch just doesn't flip on that fast.

last year we started with 2 games of zero offense (well, 1.93 games). I guess everyone forgot that openning day whooping we put on the bears (9-7).

the only thing is this year the defense let us down with third down penalties (and brad johnson didn't miss a throw). The returns on carter and arch don't look great, and losing our #1 CB and important depth/special teamer prioleau really hurts.

The insistance on staying with dismal kickers and punters sucks too, and lots of people saw that as early as game 6 LAST YEAR. that hurts.

Finally, a voice of sanity.

There were so many places where this game could have turned, it isn't even funny.

The one place where we were consistantly bad was in the area of getting 3rd down stops -- especially 3rd and 5+. This league is all about third down. It is an area we excelled at last year.

Right now, we have a simple issue of depth due to injury. At this point, I don't think there is anything that can really be done about that. GW is going to have to come up with something before Sunday night to turn that around with the few tools we have available in the secondary.

[ultimateskinsfan56]

I think the real problem was that we didn't establish the run, throught the game. Portis had few too many carries, and Betts had more carries than he should have. I think the coaching staff doesn't want to disappoint Betts by taking him out. I think that we would have been more sucessful if T.J Duckett had as many carries or more that Betts. We know this from last year , we are sucessful as an offense running the ball more than passing.

[cowboykiller89]

Originally Posted by JWsleep

What's funny is, if we had pulled that game out (and it was close despite all these "obvious" problems), we'd all be saying how good we are. And of course, we'd be going overboard in that case as well.

I'll take Gibbs at his word now--we are inconsistent, but the problems can be readily fixed. This isn't surprising at all on offense given the new system. On D, our lack of secondary health restricted the blitz, a big o-line stuffed our front four, and Brad Johnson was his usual accurate self. He's a vet who reads Ds well and gets rid of it quick--all this made Williams reluctant to Blitz, and that means it isn't really Williams D at its best. Next week, we'll see a lot more blitzing, for good or ill.

But the bottom line is, we aren't as good as the hype made us out to be, but we aren't NEARLY as bad as some nay-sayers here would have it, IMHO. As Gibbs would say, up here it's tough to win. We have to play better. Can we do it? Jeeze, do you really think it's IMPOSSIBLE for us to play better? Of course we can. And given our coaching staff, my guess is that we will. Hang in there, people!

I totally agree. The first one is out of the way and wasn't so bad, it could have been worse. Everything will come together within the next three to four weeks.