The Sound of Silence

[LoyalSkinsFan]

For the first time in a long time my house was quiet. Typically, even when I'm alone and watching a Redskin game in the comfort of my own home, I emerge sweaty and hoarse...having exhausted my emotions - and lungs - during the course of the game. Yesterday, though, it was quiet throughout.

And I saw it coming.

This was the kind of game that, historically over the course of the last fifteen years or so, we would lose. And, once again, we did.

I've asked myself "why?" many times since yesterday and the answer - of course - is simple. They scored more points that we did.

Don't yell at that simplification......because the more I've thought about it the more I've come to realize that it really is all it is. I don't think we can blame the playcalling necessarily. I don't think any particular players or coaches are to blame either. There really is NO GOOD reason why we lost. We just did. So let's move on.

Jason Campbell, as much a talent as he is, is still a young quarterback. The Giants dared him to beat them and he - this week - wasn't up to the task. It was obvious to me, early on, that the Giants were stacking their defense up against the run. It's no secret that Joe Gibbs' (and Al Saunders, by default) offensive scheme starts and finishes with the power run game. Yesterday, they were able to start with it...but just weren't able to finish with it. And, as such, were forced to turn to Campbell, in only his tenth start, to muster some production in a late rally...that was ultimately to fall short. Fall short, in great part, due to his inexperience. There have been moments even in these early stages of the season where we've seen Campbell make subtle mental mistakes. This week, unlike the two previous, he wasn't able to overcome them. There are certain "heat-of-the-moment" decisions that he made (or didn't make) that are not Joe Gibb's fault. They are the kinds of mistakes that can lose a game...as they did yesterday....but will in the long run make Campbell a better quarterback.

No question we should never have been in the situation we found ourselves in yesterday in the first place.....you could see the signs that we would end up there, though, early on. We didn't "finish" certain drives the way, I'm sure, Gibbs would have liked to. Those calling for Gibbs' head today are, quite simply, lunatics. Those who think that Joe Gibbs lacks the "killer instinct" needed are simply not watching....and simply don't know Joe Gibbs. The barely missed bomb to Santana Moss in the Eagles game is proof, this year, of Gibb's killer instinct....and anyone around for the first go-around with him back in the 80's and 90's would know what I'm talking about. I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I have questioned my loyalties to Gibbs over the last few months...wondering if it was ME that was missing the point. The answer is no. And the headhunters calling for his head today are all the reassurance I need.

I suppose now we can put to bed all the cries for "respect" and "props"....and just get on with the task at hand. To win football games. The bandwagoners will hop on and hop off as they see fit. But winning football games should, alone, be our focus.

Certainly, yesterday's game should serve to humble the team and its loyal fans. It will undoubtedly keep the team's heads out of the clouds and will keep the players hungry as they go out each week to prove that they belong in the upper echelon of the NFL. There's no queston that there are a lot of ways to spin the loss....and for the optimist like myself there are many positives to gleam from it...which I won't get into here. But that doesn't make yesterday's loss any easier to swallow. I saw a lot of good things I hadn't seen from a Redskin's team in a long time out there yesterday, but in the end it really just sucked.

I hope now, too, that we can dispense with all the "throwback" uniforms. They didn't help us when Spurrier was here and they aren't helping us now. The "circle R" helmets were kind of cool, knowing that they were designed by Vince Lombardi, but they didn't help us win any games back in the 70's and they certainly didn't yesterday. The throwbacks won't help us to establish our identity...which, right now, is an important part of becoming a winning team. Let's just keep it to a patch and a tribute. Leave the old unis in the locker and let's get on with winning games.

I'm gonna miss having a game this coming weekend..but I'm glad we've got the time to heal from our injuries and to think on what went wrong in the game yesterday. We're 2-1...not 0-3.....no need to panic. As always this early in the season our success or failure is still in our own hands.

So, let's get on with it.

Hail to the Redskins.

[RedDevil]

Yes and we are one loss away from last years record at this time of 2-2... we all know how great that ended. Its not just the record, looking at the last 3 games as a whole we just need to be more aggressive on offense.

[brianforster]

very good post, i agree with a lot of your points about gibbs.

[HEavyJumbo85]

After we lost the game yesterday it felt so much like the Minnessota game from a year ago, which was a truley heartbreaking loss against a team we should have destroyed at home. We all thought it was a fluke last year and some of us think that this game was a fluke, but after last season, I think we have to take this loss for what it was. It was a bad loss that we earned, we were outplayed, the Giants were a better football team. The Giants are a better football team, it's as simple as that. Now I still believe that we have a pretty good team here, but we just aren't good enough to win week in and week out. We can't go into any game expecting to win because we aren't good enough. It's nothing the coaches can change, it's nothing the fans can change, only the players can change it. And up to this point they haven't proven to me that they know how to find ways to win. No one has stepped up and decided that we weren't going to lose games like this and we will continue to lose games like this if that attitude doesn't change.

We fell into a trap yesterday, we got up big on these guys and thought we would just wipe them out in the 2nd half, we were wrong. The players relaxed, while the Giants were fighting for their season, bad combination. The players can't allow this to happen anymore, losses like this are on them, not the coaches.

[voicekiller]

Good post but JC had a good game, I blame the coaches and clock management more than anything else. Why is it that this coaching staff cannot manage a game to save their lives...the spiked ball when they didn't need to, the time management, etc...Gibbs needs to hire a guy or something just to manage the clock because whoever is doing it now is clueless

[HEavyJumbo85]

Good post but JC had a good game, I blame the coaches and clock management more than anything else. Why is it that this coaching staff cannot manage a game to save their lives...the spiked ball when they didn't need to, the time management, etc...Gibbs needs to hire a guy or something just to manage the clock because whoever is doing it now is clueless

all of the manage the clock stuff is garbage...because, *newsflash*, Gibbs didn't manage the clock all that great in his first tenure either.

[LoyalSkinsFan]

Good post but JC had a good game, I blame the coaches and clock management more than anything else. Why is it that this coaching staff cannot manage a game to save their lives...the spiked ball when they didn't need to, the time management, etc...Gibbs needs to hire a guy or something just to manage the clock because whoever is doing it now is clueless

But see, that's just it. I hold the coaching staff accountable for certain things so far as clock management goes....not the least of which is preparing Campbell in advance for those situations. Still, there are moments that come up, such as the spiking the ball incedent in question, where I think it really is on JC and not the coaches. He's the one that has to implement the preparation correctly.....and, this time, he didn't. It all happens in the blink of an eye.....he'll get better.

HTTR

[LoyalSkinsFan]

We fell into a trap yesterday, we got up big on these guys and thought we would just wipe them out in the 2nd half, we were wrong. The players relaxed, while the Giants were fighting for their season, bad combination. The players can't allow this to happen anymore, losses like this are on them, not the coaches.

I agree. We can't blame the coaches for everything. This team needs to collectively find it's identity and the coaches will help them to get there. In the end, though, it's on the players.

We're on the right path......just not there yet.

HTTR

[mistertim]

I understand your point, but I think blaming it on Campbell as opposed to the coaching is silly. He runs the plays they call unless it is a blitz and he has to adjust at the LOS. In the second half the play calling was so predictable that a high school defensive coach could have schemed against it. Run a sweep, run to the middle, pass on 3rd and long. So they stack the box the first 2 downs, and then run a shell cover defense on 3rd when we also sometimes only had 1 or maybe 2 wideouts. And you wonder why Campbell had a hard time finding an open receiver on those 3rd downs? Please. I'll admit he made some mistakes and mental errors, but all of those 3 and outs you simply can't blame on him. The playcalling was just horrific.

I'm not calling for Joe Gibbs head. But this whole thing really makes me wonder how much control he exerts in the offensive playcalling. Sorry, but if you watched the Rams or the Chiefs when he was there you know that Al Saunders offenses really don't look like that, and he certainly doesn't call the same plays over and over. He also attacks and keeps attacking when the team is leading. Sitting on a lead with conservative and predictable playcalling has been going on since Gibbs came back, not since Saunders showed up. How many games in the past few years have we lost at the end after trying to sit on an early lead? Quite a few. Yes, that one play against the Eagles was attacking and taking a chance. That ONE play. I think Saunders is on a pretty short leash. I could be wrong, but it seems that way to me.

The only time they finally let Campbell go and throw a bunch was once we were down and had the ball with 1:30 left in the game. And look what happened. We finally got downfield. Obviously we couldn't get it into the endzone because of a couple mental mistakes by Campbell and horrible clock management and playcalling (Betts 2 times to the left???) but the point is that we probably wouldn't have even BEEN in that position if they had done that from the get go. I swear I think I saw a shotgun formation with more than 2 WRs at the most TWICE before that final drive. What the hell? I know we have O line injuries, but wouldn't that be MORE of a reason to run a shotgun formation and give Campbell some extra time against the rush?

I really think this team can be good, but the coaching staff has got to do some serious thinking over the bye week.

:2cents:

[Capt'n Obvious]

After we lost the game yesterday it felt so much like the Minnessota game from a year ago, which was a truley heartbreaking loss against a team we should have destroyed at home. We all thought it was a fluke last year and some of us think that this game was a fluke, but after last season, I think we have to take this loss for what it was. It was a bad loss that we earned, we were outplayed, the Giants were a better football team. The Giants are a better football team, it's as simple as that. Now I still believe that we have a pretty good team here, but we just aren't good enough to win week in and week out. We can't go into any game expecting to win because we aren't good enough. It's nothing the coaches can change, it's nothing the fans can change, only the players can change it. And up to this point they haven't proven to me that they know how to find ways to win. No one has stepped up and decided that we weren't going to lose games like this and we will continue to lose games like this if that attitude doesn't change.

We fell into a trap yesterday, we got up big on these guys and thought we would just wipe them out in the 2nd half, we were wrong. The players relaxed, while the Giants were fighting for their season, bad combination. The players can't allow this to happen anymore, losses like this are on them, not the coaches.

This game reminded me of the Atlanta game last year.

We were up two TD's to start the game, the crowd was into it, the team was pumped, and then we went conservative and everything fell apart and the Falcons offense scored on our worn down and tired defense.

Pretty much the same things, only this time it was against a division rival.

:logo:

[LoyalSkinsFan]

This game reminded me of the Atlanta game last year.

We were up two TD's to start the game' date=' the crowd was into it, the team was pumped, and then we went conservative and everything fell apart and the Falcons offense scored on our worn down and tired defense.

Pretty much the same things, only this time it was against a division rival.

:logo:[/quote']

I'm not so sure we went conservative...or if we simply stopped executing. Although, the truth is, we didn't execute all that well on offense in the first half either. I've also read two polar opposite articles in the Washington Post today...one, claiming that we only ran four running plays in the second half..and the other claiming that we ran the ball almost exclusively in our "conservative" mode.

We just failed to execute on offense. Simple as that.

HTTR

[jaxskinsville]

I'm not so sure we went conservative...or if we simply stopped executing. Although, the truth is, we didn't execute all that well on offense in the first half either. I've also read two polar opposite articles in the Washington Post today...one, claiming that we only ran four running plays in the second half..and the other claiming that we ran the ball almost exclusively in our "conservative" mode.

We just failed to execute on offense. Simple as that.

HTTR

Finally, a post that brings to light a certain fact about yesterday's game that everyone else seems to overlook:

We really didn't play that well during the first half!

In fact, except for the one long TD drive, the first half of play wasn't that much different than the second. Sure, I know we had 17 points at the half but was the extra 10 points a result of our solid play or a consequence to the Giants for their bad play?

All in all, I think there were some flashes of good play (particularly by ARE and JC) but overall, we really didn't execute all that well and because the Giants of 2007 are not the Giants of Tiki, we were lucky enough to have a shot at tying it up at the end.

[LoyalSkinsFan]

Finally, a post that brings to light a certain fact about yesterday's game that everyone else seems to overlook:

We really didn't play that well during the first half!

In fact, except for the one long TD drive, the first half of play wasn't that much different than the second. Sure, I know we had 17 points at the half but was the extra 10 points a result of our solid play or a consequence to the Giants for their bad play?

All in all, I think there were some flashes of good play (particularly by ARE and JC) but overall, we really didn't execute all that well and because the Giants of 2007 are not the Giants of Tiki, we were lucky enough to have a shot at tying it up at the end.

I concur. My displeasure with the way things were going started a long time before halftime. I could just feel it. We had that one, great drive, but beyond that were the recipients of some great defensive play. The second half was just a continuation of the first half without the great defensive play.

I don't think we need to hit the panic button just yet....I sense that this is a different team from years past.....but they'd better use the bye week wisely in order to prove me right.

HTTR