Not the start everyone was hoping for.  Jay Gruden continues his winless streak on opening day and the Redskins drop game 1 to philly at home. The offense looked as rough as it did all preseason and the defense looked as bad as last year on third down. A frustrating day to say the least. The good news is it’s only one game and there are some things the skins can build on. And considering they played one of the worst games I’ve seen in two years, they still had an opportunity to take the lead late in the 4th quarter. So with that, let’s dive into some film and grades.

Kirk Cousins:

I’m going to do my best to stay positive here but boy did Kirk look out of sync. He was missing high almost all day, wasn’t stepping up into the pocket, and uncharacteristically inaccurate.  Give the Eagles d-line some credit for making him uncomfortable early.  It’s especially annoying that Cousins has a bad day week 1 after an offseason where his contract situation was the top story around the league.

His stat line didn’t tell the full story.  23/40 for 240, 1 TD, 1 Int, and 30 rush yards may seem okay but the interception came in the red zone (to the delight of the anti-kirkers).  To make matters worse, he had Crowder wide open and it looked like it would have been an easy score. Simply put, the worst play of game. Let’s break down that first.

Man that hurt to watch again. Eagles bring an “engage eight” blitz right into Kirks face and the middle linebacker was set free. Luckily the Redskins had the perfect call – a slant combination with Pryor overlapping Crowder. Pryor does a good job of bumping safety who is manned up on Crowder and the cornerback has essentially no idea what’s happening.  Case in point, perfect route running and Crowder is wide the hell open.  Kirk feels the pressure in his face and doesn’t set his feet before he throws (3rd pic).  When you don’t set your feet and follow through, the ball sails. This ball just happens to sail to the lucky corner who essentially gets hit in the chest while he’s still diagnosing the play. Boy is that disappointing. Credit to Crowder for still almost getting his hands on it. Even if he tips the ball here, maybe the ball falls innocently to the ground.

So many things to get mad at here but I can’t help but be upset at the offensive line. Pressure in the A gaps has to be picked up first. In this case, TWO blitzers were set free up the middle. What is going on here? Chris Thompson does a great job picking up one blitzer which leads me to believe the center/ guards only saw one blitzer but did not seen the second semi-delayed blitzer. In a perfect world, the line pinches down, absorbs the interior pressure and Thompson chops an end down, leaving a free rusher off the edge but giving Kirk a pocket to step up and fire this ball to Crowder.

Plays like this feed the anti-Kirkers fire.  Last year, Cousins threw an almost identical interception on 3rd down week 2 against Dallas when the skins were in the red zone about to take the lead. The QB will always be blamed for something like this and in this case I can’t defend him. Kirk needs to get his confidence back and start stepping into his throws. This was a common theme all day.

Let me say that this might have never happened if Reed catches this ball the play before.

Was the ball a little high? Sure, but if Reed is the supposed best tight end in the league not named Gronk, he makes this damn catch.  The Redskins are marching down the field and have all the momentum and one of their best players drops a first down catch.

Following in that theme, let’s go back to the first play of the season.

This makes me miss Desean Jackson right here. Positives – Pryor beat the coverage and Cousins gave him a catchable ball.  Negatives – Pryor couldn’t find it and looked like a total dunce while trying.  Sigh.

Another ugly play was the second 3rd and long on the skins opening drive.

This may be Kirks worst decision of the day. Just a few plays ago, Kirk forced one to Pryor who caught it for a 1st down. This time, Kirk steps outside of the pocket, stares down Pryor who appears to be either standing still on some kind of slow, out-breaking route.  The Eagles are playing a deep cover 2 blanket with the safeties shaded towards the sideline. Pryor is essentially triple covered and this pass should have been picked off.

The play looks like it was meant to go to the left since that’s where Cousins eyes went initially. When he steps outside of the pocket, the timing on the play is gone and Kirk is going off-script.  Old Kirk would dump it to Jordan Reed who is wide open in the flat to his left. New Kirk appears to make a terrible decision in trying to force it to his new favorite receiver. Really hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.

Here is another example of Cousins not seeing the field.

First off, the Eagles were offsides here but it wasn’t called. Second, Jordan Reed is so, so open right off the snap and is waving at him. This play appears to be a flood-left/ levels style play with Crowder going long, Davis doing a 10-yard out, and Kelley doing a quick arrow in the flat.  The weird part of this play was the offensive line shifting to the right leaving the end unblocked right in Cousins sightline. This leads me to believe the line must’ve been expecting a blitz pre-snap and shifted.

The message must have not made it to Cousins. Kirk awkwardly tries to side arm the football around the unblocked DE and it luckily falls incomplete around Davis. I don’t know why Kirk didn’t look to his hot route once he saw the pressure or heard the line shift pre-snap.  Reed runs a perfect quick slant and looks to have an easy first down if he sees him. Also, that was an extremely lazy pass that could’ve been picked off had the linebacker got his head around. Very bad play by Cousins here.

The very next play, Moses gets beaten around the edge and Kirk gets stripped sacked. It’s incredible how one bad play can lead to disaster so fast in the NFL.  Kirk redeems himself on the final drive of the half capped off with a great play by Thompson to take a hot route to the end zone.  Cousins best drive happened with the first drive of the 2nd half. Here is Kirk’s best play of the day.

Now that’s a play! Kirk feels the pressure, shucks off the would-be tackler, scrambles to his left, resets his feet and throws a dart for a first down. Right after the play Kirk gets in Trent Williams face about leaving him out to dry there and rightfully so. The Eagles rush three(!!) and somehow one is left unblocked.  Completely unacceptable.  This appears to be the 15 yard in route that Garcon killed teams with last year.  It’s a 5-step drop. Kirk needs time to let the play develop thus making Trent’s gaffe that much more egregious.

You can tell that by this point in the game, Kirk is frustrated. Earlier on the drive, he had tucked and run for the first down twice. You never like to see your QB get happy feet in the pocket but it works for him here.  A few plays later, his happy feet gets the best of him.

Kirk throws a jump ball to Pryor here which I can live with in most situations. However, not here. His foot work is awful and he’s falling backwards as he’s throwing.  He has a lane to step up in the pocket. Yes, the Eagles dialed up the blitz again and Scherff gets bull rushed into Kirks lap. Still, this is an awful pass. Look how open Davis is in the flat here in the second picture. This is a 2nd and 9 and philly is sending the blitz again – take what you can get here and make it 3rd and manageable!

The Eagles terrorized Cousins with the blitz all day.  Kirk was inaccurate and wasn’t trusting his offensive line. Essentially, Kirk was playing scared.  He made some plays but his mistakes far outweighed them.  He got rattled early and couldn’t seem to get his head right.

This is the first time I’ve seen Cousins really try to make plays instead of taking what the defense gives him.  He is more athletic than most people give him credit for but much more of a field general like Brady/ Manning than he is of a play-maker like Rodgers/ Favre/ Romo.  He needs to get back to what he does best, diagnose the defense from pre-snap and make quick decisions. I wondered if this was going to be an issue with Grudens offensive play-calling vs McVay. We will see how it goes next week.

Grade: D-

Rob Kelley:

I feel like a broken record but something has got to give with this run game. Kelley’s first run goes for negative yards. His second, zero. His third he gets hit in the back field and pushes ahead for 3. The one decent run Kelley had was when he took a pitch outside for a nice gain but then gets picked up and body slammed by a safety.  Overall, he did not look like a starting running back in this league. He wasn’t running over anyone and definitely couldn’t make defenders miss.

It’s also becoming increasingly annoying to hear the same remarks from Gruden in the press conference saying how he’s frustrated that he had to get away from the run game again so early. At what point is he just going to admit we have no run game or at least say we pass to open up the run? The Redskins hardly disguise their running plays and didn’t run the ball once in a 3rd down situation. Can you blame them?

If Kelley doesn’t start making some plays, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Thompson take over some of the 1st and 2nd down reps, especially if Kelley gets out to another start like he had week 1. Thompson will at least surprise the team when he runs it.

Grade: F

Offensive Line:

I hope blitz pick up is a point of emphasis this week. The Hogs 2.0 have been making mistake after mistake for the whole offseason and it reared its ugly head again week 1.  Again, you have to credit philly for dialing up the pressure all day but this is a division rival who you play twice a year. You mean to tell me this was different that what you saw last year?

Moses was terrible against the Philly stunts and was beaten badly for a few sacks. Scherff looks like a shell of his pro bowl self from last year. He was getting pushed so far back in the back field that Gruden had to abandon the running game and especially anything that involved pulling a lineman. Williams was okay but not anywhere close to the dominant he was last year. Lavou and Long did nothing to stop the blitz. A disappointing game all around from offensive line. Let’s hope it was the Eagles defensive line being really good as opposed as the redskins offensive line regressing.

Grade: F

Pryor:

Can this guy catch a football or not? I broke down the first play of the game earlier so no need to beat a dead horse on that abortion but how about the wide open TD he dropped plays later? Thankfully it was going to be called back on a holding so everyone could just imagine the play never happened.

Pryor finished the day with 6 receptions on 11 targets for 66 yards. Cousins was forcing the ball to Pryor all day and Pryor didn’t make the most of it. Pryor was nice enough to blame himself for the loss and seems eager to redeem himself this week against the Rams.

Grade: D

Zack Brown:

Said it all last year that all the Redskins really needed on defense was a decent middle linebacker and boy did Brown show why. He finished with 12 (!) tackles on the day including two solo tackles on 3rd and short that caused punts. He was a little shaky in coverage but he’s absolutely as good as advertised in the rush defense department.

Grade: A-

DJ Swearinger:

Swearinger was another big name addition this offseason but he didn’t live up the hype nearly as much as Brown.  He missed a tackle on that fluky first Eagles TD that was magnified since the four other guy missed a sack on Wentz.  The biggest problem with the defense right now is the inability to get off the field on 3rd and long and I can’t help but blame Swearinger for this. Yes, Wentz made it difficult on the DBs because of his knack of extending plays (which he did masterfully this week). Yes, Everett did him no favors by constantly biting on the run and being out of position. But Swearinger is now the team captain – he needs to solve problems. Swearinger finished the day with 5 tackles and 1 pass defended.

Grade: C-

Bashaud Breeland:

What nice surprise Breeland was. Bashaud was a menace in man to man coverage against the taller Alshon Jeffrey and was a hair away from coming down with two picks. It’s exciting to think what the defense could be if he continues this play and looks like he did his rookie season.

Grade: A-

 

 

Things are starting to look grim for the Redskins season. The starting offense was, once again, out of sync early and struggled to move the football. The starting defense also showed some signs of wear and took a step in the wrong direction. Yet there were some positives to take away from the contest. Here are some of my takeaways and grades.

The Offensive Line:

Instead of writing about the running game this week I’ve decided to touch on the offensive line as a whole.  The running game was alarmingly bad in weeks one and two. This week it was able to get a little back on track thanks to a change at center. Rookie Chase Roullier (C Wyoming) got the start this week and was a nice surprise. Here is the first drive.

Here is a simple inside zone right. Roullier (#73) walls off the nose tackle and Lavou (#77) is able to peel off and take the linebacker. If Lavou stays on his feet and Kelley doesn’t run into his own man, this could’ve been a huge run. The Bengals linebacker is getting caught in the traffic, Pryor has his DB locked down and the safety is still 15 yards deep. Bad luck here. Here’s the next play:

This appears to be the same play except this time out of a bunch set. Again, Roullier (#73) gets a good initial push and backs up the nose tackle. Lavou (#77) gives ground to the bull-rushing end and Trent (#71) takes the outside linebacker. Roullier (#73) peels off and catches the linebacker at the last minute giving Kelley a lane down the middle for an easy 5 yards. In a perfect world, Kelley is a little more patient here and sees the wide open lane to the left. However, with the situation being 3rd and 1, I don’t mind him putting his head down and getting 5. Of course, this play gets called back on a mysterious ‘illegal shift’ call putting them in a 3rd and 6.

The rookie gets his first taste of an NFL line stunt.  The Bengals use a 5 down lineman package and are going to do a NT/ DT swap stunt. Roullier (#73) takes the nose tackle then quickly gets hit by the DT to his right freeing up the NT. The Bengals lineman gets caught up in the wash a bit but since Scherff (#75) gives up so much ground to the bullrush, he is able to still make the sack. Yet, I can’t blame the line here. Kirk has a wide open Jordan Reed over the middle here right at the first down marker who happens to be waving at him. Unfortunately, he’s concentrated on Ryan Grant who hasn’t come out of his break yet. This is a bad miss on his part and set him up for the sack.

Next drive, the line started off strong again.

This is a counter tray style off tackle run that is blocked to perfection. Nyles Paul (#85) has the end up field and out of the play, Moses (#76) has the DT blocked down releasing Scherff (#75) and Roullier (#73) has his nose tackle blocked down releasing Lavou (#77). In the 3rd picture, you can see Williams (#71) is already up field stalk blocking a LB and Scherff/ Lavou have made it through the hole and to their respected LB assignments. However, Thompson (#25) decides to bounce it outside completely ruining the play.  You have to imagine that if Kelley was in there, he would’ve rumbled for an easy 5-10 yards. Since Chris didn’t, it forced the Redskins into an obvious passing situation which led to this.

Bengals bring a simple four-man rush and Scherff loses his man immediately. This is simply unacceptable especially from a Pro Bowl guard. The DT does a power rip move leaving Scherff grabbing air. His play this preseason has been concerning to say the least and I’m sure this is a play he’d like to have back.  This play appears to hurt Cousins confidence in the line leading to this later.

The Bengals fake the blitz and only bring a four man rush. Cousins sees this pre-snap and moves Thompson up to help. The Bengals do another DT/ DE twist stunt and it seems to spook Cousins. Scherff (#75) gives ground to the bullrush and Kirk sees this and decides to try and escape. Unfortunately, he falls right into Williams (#71) lap for an easy sack. It appears Kirk has Crowder open in the flat here but it might not go for a 1st down. I believe the sack from the prior drive was in Cousin’s head here which led to him getting spooked to easy. Again, the line did the right thing here but Kirk did not.

The Redskins seemed to get their act together after Cousins threw a pick six (which was all on Cousins not seeing the linebacker flowing over the top). Here is the best run/ play of the day:

Just like how the coach drew it up! This appears to be a cutback/ trap run to the right but it’s a very deceiving play design. In the 2nd picture, you can see Davis (#85) running a flat route and Crowder (#80) running a go. Paul (#84) comes across the formation to block the end but the end has already sold out on the pass play by going after Cousins so Paul just turns up field looking for someone to block. It seems as though the whole Bengals defense thought this was a pass. The corner and the safety follow Crowder and don’t recognize it’s a run until well after the Kelley has the first down. It’s worth noting that if the DE sold went for the running back here, he could have blown the play up in the backfield. Another note: Scherff (#75) took his linebacker for a 20 yard ride and planted him just where Kelley was tackled. Great effort.

Overall I’m starting to have concerns about this unit. Yet, they’re showing signs of improvement from last week. Cousins will need to start trusting his line more as the season progresses and be able to step up into the pocket. Scherff will have to play better as well. I believe when the Redskins open up their playbook, things should be a whole lot better.

Grade: C-

Pryor:

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Just a few weeks ago everyone was talking about how Pryor has incredible hands. Now everyone is wondering if he’s ever caught a ball in game action.  Here is one of his drops:

Pryor ran a perfect 15 yard dig route and was wide open. Then he clearly takes his eye off of it looking to make a big play and drops an easy first down. He would go on drop another few passes in the half but none as bad as this one.  Just to add to how disappointing this was, the very next play Cousins throws a pick six.

Pryor has now dropped a passes in each of the first three preseason games.  It’s a bit concerning but I believe he’ll return to form when he gets a game under his belt. The good news is he’s showed strength when run blocking and a fearlessness that only Garcon had last year. He also made a tougher catch over the middle on the touchdown drive.

Grade: D

Doctson:

Another game, another mysterious injury. Doctson is as injury prone as they come. For all the flashes he’s had in practice, we still have to wait and see it on the game field. The worst part about this injury is now the Redskins PR staff is refusing to let Doctson interview with reporters.  See here:

They did this last year when Doctson had the achilles injury.  Who knows what he did this time but this is getting out of control.  I can only hope that the Redskins are hiding him for the regular season.

Grade: INC

Josh Norman:

As I mentioned in the last blog, Norman had his toughest test this week. Sadly, he failed. Let’s start with the first 3rd and long.

Man to man coverage here and Norman guesses wrong. Sad thing is he was even playing outside contain. Green gives Norman a little shake at the top of his route and Dalton times the pass perfectly for an easy first down. After that 3rd and 13 the Bengals get some momentum and go on a long drive. Here was another bad moment for Norman.

Yikes. Yes, that’s rookie Joe Mixon and I know he’s known for doing this but it’s still sad to see Norman, a pro bowl CB, not even get a finger on him.

Norman stayed on his side of the formation so he didn’t have many opportunities against Green. He made a couple tackles later in the game but didn’t have any pass break ups. I hope he will be more prepared come week 1.

Grade: F

Martrell Spaight:

Martrell Spaight led the team with 7 tackles on the day and showed why they spent a 5th round draft pick on him two years ago. His first tackle was on punt coverage after the first three and out. He proceeded to make big hits from all game and even had a few QB pressures (one that should have been a sack).  Spaight played alongside Compton on the 2nd unit and certainly out performed him. If Spaight can stay healthy, he will be a force on special teams and could soon be the first inside linebacker off the bench this season.

Grade: A

The Skinny:

Even though it wasn’t pretty, the offense should be fine. Gruden begrudgingly opened up the playbook in the 2nd quarter and the offense started looking crisp again.  It may not seem like it but the running game is improving week to week.  My concern is the defense. It’s nice to see the rookies and new free agents step up.  However, the front seven still looks weak and no cornerback has shown improvement for last year.  As long as the run defense improves, I believe the unit will be much improved from last year. Things are looking up and the butt kicking they Redskins took over the last few weeks should only fire them up more.