Jordan Reed cannot stay injury free. Niles Paul cannot hold onto the ball in the red zone. Reed was injured when the Redskins drafted him. It is sinks in that is what to expect. Potential on the bench is a terrible thing to waste.
Paul’s drive-killing strip-fumble on the Houston 9 masked an otherwise good day for him. He caught all four balls targeted to him for 84 yards, an average of 21-yards per catch. That’s gaudy. Losing the ball on the 9 yard line is gawd-awful. There is no excuse.
Be honest. How do you like RGIII as a pocket passer? I do not.
RG is dangerous as a duel threat. He has to run enough to make the JJ Watts of the world stay in their lane. Rushing 120 times, as he did his rookie year, was excessive. What we saw today was insufficient. It is also too small a sample size to draw sweeping conclusions.
I wonder if Coach Jay Gruden was calling short passing plays to make Griffin comfortable with the new offense. The passing game opened up eventually, but not enough to offset dumb turnovers.
ESPN has this QBR thing that values of all measures of a quarterback’s play on a scale of 0 to 100. It’s an attempt to get at the quarterback’s contribution to his team’s performance. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s QBR was 76.8, helped no doubt by his touchdown pass to DeAndre Hopkins. Griffin’s QBR was 29.7, hurt no doubt by two fumbles.
Fumbling the ball on the Houston 11 kills your QBR. We should be as critical of RG for that as we are of Niles Paul. Fumbles are a nemesis to Griffin. Even if you recover it, it wastes a down and often kills drives.
Griffin’s QBR was lower than Nick Foles, Derek Carr, Ryan Tannehill, Geno Smith and Tom Brady. (TOM BRADY?) Griffin wants to emulate Brady, but not like this. Foles, Tannehill and Smith won today.
Colin Kaepernick had the highest QBR of the Sunday afternoon games. That guy Peyton Manning was having an outstanding night as I write this. Andrew Luck right now has more rushing touchdowns (1) this season than RG.
Last Thursday we watched Russell Wilson complete long passes from the read option look. I had forgotten that passes are an option in read option. So have the Redskins, apparently.
I just spent 290 words to tell you I am not comfortable with this pocket passer look for RG. They are turning him into a game manager. Thoroughbreds must run.
Gruden’s offense must be allowed time to work. Hog Heaven comforts himself with the words of the late Zig Ziglar.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you can do it well.”
We will revisit this issue in November.
Sports talk radio will be full of commentary about the run pass balance in today’s game. You don’t need to hear more from me. It is enough to say that Gruden did not stick with the concept of the Redskins as a power run team. There was no point in the game where running the ball was not an option. Pfft!
For a while in the first half, I thought special teams played well. Kai Forbath’s opening kick-off went for a touchback. The first four punts to Houston were returned for 12, 7, 9 yards and a fair catch. Andre Roberts averaged 28 yards on kick returns and 18 yards on punt returns. The hang time of Tress Way’s punts is 4.5 seconds.
Then special teams could not defend Washington’s lone point-after attempt, or a punt that was blocked and returned for a score. That eight-point swing was the difference in the score. The Redskins might have survived the red zone fumbles were it not for those special teams screw-ups. So too the opposite. The Skins might have had eight points to give, if they made the most of their trips to the red zone.
That guy, J.J. Watt….
To end with positives, the passing game shows there is something to work with, even though it was not sufficient to win this game. The running game is as potent as ever. The defense only allowed one legitimate score. Keenan Robinson might do well as London Fletcher’s replacement. An eight-win season is still within our grasp. Hail to that!
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