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-