The Skins are Falling

Winston-Salem, NC -- As always, Monday mornings are the busiest time of the week for me. After reading the Washington Post's "JaLa's" "Redskins' Insider's" post this morning, I completely echo his sentiments. I'll have my own personal take on the Skins' dreadful performance later on tonight or tomorrow, but for now, here's an accurate description of the state of the Skins:

"It's very, very early Monday morning and we've
all seen this movie before, so I'm not going to belabor the obvious. We've
covered the issues that have been begging to be addressed -- the offensive and
defensive lines and the lack of offensive playmakers. Responsibility for those
deficiencies starts at the very top of the organization and rests with Daniel
Snyder and Vinny Cerrato. But in the loss to the Ravens, there again was a
failure of scheme and far too few players looked to be up to the task of
competing against a more physical opponent.
This stretch of four losses in
five games should be enough to open management's eyes as to what ails this team
and one would think it would make their self-scouting pretty simple. Playing top
opponents is a good gauge of where a team stands and losses to the Steelers,
Cowboys, Giants and Ravens show that there is a wide chasm between the Redskins
offense and what it would take to beat good teams on a weekly basis --
especially in the playoffs.
The Redskins aren't close. The offensive and defensive
lines are collapsing again. It's time to rebuild and that can't be put off
another year. The front office can't kid itself that the team is just an Ocho
Stinko or a Lance Briggs away. The Redskins' starting offense was healthier than
any in the NFL through 12½ weeks -- losing just one real man game to injury --
so don't let the latest Chris Samuels and Jon Jansen injuries convince you it's
just a matter of guys getting nicked up. That's football. And the results speak
for themselves.
If Chris Samuels is lost for the season -- and I got the
sense in the locker room that that is a very real possibility -- the Redskins
might not win another game this season.
Running back Clinton Portis seemed
perturbed by his lack of playing time, and rookie coach Jim Coach Zorn suddenly
finds himself in the middle of a maelstrom. Perhaps those who believed all along
that he was wearing too many hats are right. Perhaps those who believed he was
he was being put into a position to fail are right. Whatever happens to be the
case, this offense is indeed failing.
Beyond personnel, the decision to use
Mike Sellers as the third-down pass protector over Portis, banged up or not, was
stunning. Putting Justin Geigsinger at left tackle with no help from a tight end
against Terrell Suggs was stupefying, even for one play. Not running more two
tight-end sets with Geisinger and Stephon Heyer as your tackles was a major
surprise. Not opting to go no-huddle in the third quarter, not rolling Jason
Campbell out more, not going to the screen-pass game before the end of the first
half was odd.
(As an aside, Santana Moss seems to be shriveling up. Fabian
Washington doing such a great job even when playing press-man on Moss a lot of
the time, with no help, was a big factor. Campbell tried to go to him when
possible in those alignments and Washington was there stride for stride,
breaking up plays.)
This has always been a very good locker room -- like an
organizational hierarchy, the best rooms flow from the top down with ego-free
stars setting the tone -- but it's now Year 5 of the defense carrying the
offense and the paltry scoring output is resembling 2004. Even when the team is
handed a 26-yard field, it's a struggle to move the ball. And Zorn doesn't have
the kind of coaching resume that's going to make anyone do a double-take or give
him the benefit of the doubt, as they did with Joe Gibbs. He also doesn't have
the 2005 Redskins offensive line (largely the same guys; but different bodies at
different stages of their career). The offense can't handle big, aggressive
defenses that punch teams in the mouth with the blitz, and that's hardly a shock
when you look at how they were constructed.
There was no real imagination in
the scheme, no cute stuff for Antwaan Randle El, no surprises. On the other side
of the field, Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron did exactly what I
expected -- he concocted about three huge trick plays to overcome his sizeable
offensive limitations. The four-and-one quick-drop screen that looked like a
quarterback keeper, the misdirection fake to Todd Heap and the reverse for Mark
Clayton on that final drive were huge plays. They're exactly what is missing
here. (Setting up the play action and attacking Carlos Rogers with the double
move for that final TD was excellently timed as well - more on that drive
later.)
The defense played admirably, but Joe Flacco was dying to give this
game away and the Redskins defense just wouldn't take it. The kid looked nervous
for the first time in months. With his passes sailing, he was making poor reads
and seemed ready to implode. He might have if only there had been even a tiny
pass rush to go "boo" in his face a few times. Greg Blache did a better job of
mixing up his coverages and implementing more zone this week, but they can't
knock a quarterback down with a two-by-four.
The kid had an embarrassing
amount of time in which to read the field and deliver his errant throws. Jason
Taylor knocked down a pass, but for all of his flip-flopping sides he was again
a zero factor. Andre Carter can't even make an impact as a $10-million Chris
Clemons-type to come off the edge on third-and-long. LaRon Landry finally made a
few plays in the second half, but sitting 40 yards off the line of scrimmage
didn't help a ton against an offense as limited as this in the first half.
It
was a one-interception night that could have been a three-interception night, a
game in which the Redskins perhaps could have taken an early lead had anyone
gotten in Flacco's face.
I wonder how long the images from that final
Baltimore scoring drive might linger. This defense hasn't been steamrolled like
that in a long time, not for a full 80 yards over eight minutes. Everyone in the
stadium knew exactly what was coming -- handoffs to fullback/tailback Le'Ron
McClain -- and the Redskins were run over on pretty much every play anyway in a
flashback to Marion Barber and the Cowboys.
That was no surprise; it was the
template the Ravens have used all year -- they are the best fourth-quarter team
in the NFL and generally wait until then to unleash their beefiest back on a
tired defense. That was soul-sucking, and it may have been effectively
season-ending.
A single stop there and this would still have been a ballgame,
with Washington seizing momentum and being one broken play away from tying the
score. But the Redskins gave up 147 yards -- again far too much on the ground
for this unit -- even if was an unspectacular 3.8 per carry. The Ravens are
going to run the ball 40 times and protect their young QB at all costs, so often
even holding them to around their pedestrian season average isn't enough. And it
wasn't Sunday night."