Relax, Everything's Gonna Be Alright!

[KDawg]

Buzzsaw. That's what the Redskins ran into to start the game on Monday night. You can say what you want about the Eagles, but one thing that I've seen avoided on the forums is that the Eagles really are a VERY good football team.

 

Vick controlled the game well, and McCoy might be one of the best backs in the NFL. He's extremely dynamic. Add to him the other threats they possess offensively and that team is going to be pretty good this year if they can stay healthy. Their defense isn't exactly a joke, either.

 

So credit where it's due, and I want to be upfront and honest with that. We flat out lost.

 

Now, having said that, we also didn't play very well to start. Turnovers cripple you, and to start the game like we did was definitely a back breaker. We allowed the Eagles offense to stay on the field.

 

Part of that is because we were facing Chip Kelly's offense for the first time. And it doesn't even slightly matter how many times you watch it at the collegiate level. These are NFL caliber players running it. The offense is dynamic and there is zero film on it. So we faced a good offense and we didn't have film on it... That's brutal enough. Then to compound it we managed to play extremely sloppy football in the early going of that game.

 

Our defense was sucking wind hard.

 

But once the 'Skins got familiar with what was going on out there, things settled down a bit for them. Unfortunately, due to the nature of being down so big, our running game was effectively stifled and shut down. That's a huge part of our offense. RG3 found a rhythm and got things going with his receivers, specifically Leonard Hankerson who came alive last night.

 

Valiant effort in the comeback, but too little, too late.

 

The Eagles forced us to be one dimensional, and that's a credit to them. They have a good team on their hands. But I don't think we're as bad as we looked in the first half.

 

The sky isn't falling.

 

Things are still okay.

 

Instead of beating ourselves up, let's give credit where it's due. Again, with no film on an offense that's already very good, you're in a bit of a pickle. And with the turnovers that the Eagles D forced, you're really in trouble. Live and learn.

[DeadExField]

I agree. Tons of reactions on here last night as expected. We have a hungry team in GB next week, but I think if we slow things down and control the pace of the game, we can be competitive and put up a good performance. We also can't panic if we get down either.

 

I think WE can do better, as fans, but that may be asking too much considering the amount of booze consumed during gameday lol

[KDawg]

Well, fan is short for fanatic. And to be fair, many of them just see the score and the flow of the game and begin to panic. It's not an insult, it's just how it is.

 

What's important to remember is that every game is different. In all reality, some teams are more prepared for a team than others. A mistake that may not be made in the future can be made and cause a very adverse situation. There's a ton that goes into a win and loss, it's important that people realize that.

 

But again, many don't understand the intricacies of the game. They're not delving deep into football jargon... They just want to see their team win. So I see why there is frustration, but it's important to understand that one game isn't indicitive of much.

[CaptChaos86]

Agreed, remember we were 3-6 last season before we got on a roll. And with all the time RG3 missed, I expected him to be rusty. But the first half was embarrassing and I'm glad they didn't implode on themselves like they would have a couple years ago, they fought hard and came back to make the game interesting atleast. So its a long season and yes it sucks to lose a division game in week 1. But I have faith they will get it together and can turn this thing around, we still have a lot of talent.

[ross3909]

Question:  are we just using a more vanilla offense to work Griffin back in slowly while protecting him from big hits in the open field?  Or have we moved on from the read option/ pistol offense we had so much success with last year?  If we are just breaking in Griffin slowly, how long till we start seeing the offense we got used to last year?

[texasthunder]

Well I am proud of the way the team fought back, and I do believe the lessons learned in last nights game will really help our team when we get to the middle and latter stages of the season.

 

We get to face the Eagles again, and I am quite confident that the results will be no where near the same.

 

Plus I actually believe we will give the Packers a hell of a game.

[KDawg]

Question:  are we just using a more vanilla offense to work Griffin back in slowly while protecting him from big hits in the open field?  Or have we moved on from the read option/ pistol offense we had so much success with last year?  If we are just breaking in Griffin slowly, how long till we start seeing the offense we got used to last year?

 

I don't think it's possible to have any idea. I would doubt we're going away from the type of stuff we saw last year, but just because it's not the pistol zone read doesn't mean it's vanilla

 

We fell behind fast. That essentially neutralized our running game. In the second half, down like we were, the zone read because a luxury that we probably couldn't afford. Situation dictated what we did offensively. And seeing how we didn't run a whole lot of plays before the Eagles started taking it to us, I wouldn't be worried about it.

[MattFancy]

Question:  are we just using a more vanilla offense to work Griffin back in slowly while protecting him from big hits in the open field?  Or have we moved on from the read option/ pistol offense we had so much success with last year?  If we are just breaking in Griffin slowly, how long till we start seeing the offense we got used to last year?

 

It was hard to tell last night because of the big defecit early. It seemed that we were using some of the offense from last year. I went in not expecting my Read-Option and it didn't seem like we used very much of it last night. I'm sure we didn't go all out last night just to see where RG3 was health wise. But it seemed like as the game went on, more of our offense started coming out.

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Question:  are we just using a more vanilla offense to work Griffin back in slowly while protecting him from big hits in the open field?  Or have we moved on from the read option/ pistol offense we had so much success with last year?  If we are just breaking in Griffin slowly, how long till we start seeing the offense we got used to last year?

 

You'd better hope we're just easing him back in because you take out the RO, and threat of Robert's legs, and you have a shell of what we had last year and a VERY ineffective Butler. 

 

Hail. 

[MattFancy]

Good post KDawg. I always enjoy reading what you have to say. I agree and don't think it's panic time yet. I posted in the Prediction thread yesterday that I was nervous about this game because no one had seen their offense. Reminded me of our game last year against NO. For us to have won last night, we needed to execute almost flawlessly on both sides of the ball. Unfortunately, we didn't do that until it was too late.

[daveakl]

One thing to note last night (and I even think Gruden may have mentioned it)

 

Once the Redskins were down big the read option lost its effectiveness.  The LBs were no longer worrying about the run portion of it and even play action was rendered useless.  They knew we needed to throw, we knew we needed to throw.

[KDawg]

I WAS impressed with how we defended the Eagles read option. We scrape exchanged it, but our linebacker popped his feet at LB depth until the read was made, then he closed down the running lane. That's a great way to slow that part of the game down. The problem is the rest of the plays packaged in. The packaged play offense is BRUTAL to stop. BRUTAL.

[#98QBKiller]

I agree. Our offense came out in the 2nd half and showed resolve, getting us within 6 and the defense came out and held them after that 3rd quarter score should give everyone a lot of hope. We're still the same good team we were last season when we finished 10-6. We're just off to a rocky start. That was literally RGIII's first time taking live hits since January when he was injured in the Seahawks game. I'm not surprised it took him a few quarters to get going. 

 

Not to mention no one had any tape on that Eagles offense before last night. Kind of hard to prepare for the unknown. Going into Lambeau and playing the Packers isn't an easy task but I think this team is up for it and I think we definitely can beat them next week. We just have to come out and execute like we know we can. 

[Bang]

Robert was clearly not ready, Neither was Morris. these guys need preseason reps,, they're not seasoned vets.

Granted, robert's injury precluded that and i will not argue against the wisdom of protecting him this summer. 

We were kind of caught behind the 8 ball there.

But we should have expected a slow start, and tentative play from him. He's still new at this.

 

i got the feeling that the redskins were a bit overconfident, that they've been reading their press. 

In that regard, this loss is a good slap in the face.. college boy coach and his college boy offense did their job and owned the first half. The Eagles supposedly porous defense smacked the redskins around in the first half and took the ball away.
This should be a wake up.

 

the second half looked nice, but the eagles dropped into a deep zone and gave us a lot of underneath yards. However, it should serve to build confidence back into a team that was shellshocked by their own poor performance. I have no idea, but  I'd bet that was one of the worst halves of Robert's entire football life.

He'll learn from the adveristy, and he will definitely realize no one is going to give him anything just because of his reputation and hard work.

I'm confident Shanahan will put it in proper perspective, and Robert will learn and be better for the experience.

 

~Bang

[MassSkinsFan]

So, this is the thread for the reasonable ESers, right? LOL.

 

I admittedly don't know much about D secondary, but it looked to me like both Amerson and Rambo had good games. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

 

The Eagles did come out on fire and our turnovers were demoralizing. Had we not turned the ball over early, we might have seen a slightly different game, but I still think we'd have lost.

 

A friend of mine put it well - too many personnel packages in the pre-season for the Skins. I thought at least the team turned it around, though it was too late. Should be a good game coming up in Lambeau.

 

Oh yeah, Kerrigan continues to be the beast.

[bowhunter]

The eagles deserve some serious kudos for being able to run that fast pace with very few mistakes. That requires discipline and practice. Almost no penalties or turnovers. Something that our team couldn't do even while running our usual slower paced offense.

[PeterMP]

1.  Whether things are going to be okay partly depends on what you mean by okay.  There was a thread the other day about the champoinship window opening.  Today's NFL is so hard to predict in terms of championships as compared to before because almost every team has flaws (e.g. can the Packers run the football, for the 49ers can any WR other than Boldin make a big play, and how is Nambi going to play, etc.).  In that sense, I won't say that we can't/won't win a championship, but I don't think our odds are any better then let's say the Giants, Cowboys, or Vikings.  I just don't think this team is atheltic enough at multiple positions and while other things hurt us last night (turnovers).  I think you see the lack of athelitcism in terms of making tackles and breaking tackles last night.

 

2.  I don't think the Eagles are going to be very good (I'll give them 7 wins last night).  Yes Vick is dynamic, but you saw all of the flaws last night with Vick (the inaccuracy, the lack of visions (completely missed a guy for a TD), and the TO and that's without any pressure on him, which other teams are going to generate more of (even w/o blitzing because they have better pass rushers), which historically has made his decision making even worse.  On defense, they still have 4-3 DE still playing 3-4 OLB, the still have a 4-3 MLB (that was moved from the Texans partly because of issues with him fitting into 3-4) and so have all of the relevant issues related to that, and you still have a secondary filled with guys that haven't historically been very good so there is no real reason to believe they are better now (and they really didn't show they were better last night).

 

3.  (Which brings to be #3).  Yes, Hankeron had a good statistical game, but how many balls did he drop, or not catch cleanly.  Against a better defensive seconday (and maybe even against an Eagles secondary not sitting on a big lead), those turn into drops or even worse TOs.

 

I generally think/thought, this is a middle of the road team that can make the playoffs if things break right, and from there, they might get lucky.

 

The other thing is we are going to see more of that up the middle blitz from other teams.  If we can't figure out how to handle that, it might turn into a very long year.

[Taylor703]

Kudos to the Eagles, they played tremendous and boy did Chip Kelly have them ready to rock n roll. Vick and Shady were outstanding and their defense played much better than anticipated.

 

We started very, very slow.  The rust was very evident with just about everyone on the team but most obvious with Griff and Morris.  It will take him some time to get back into a rhythm but I suspect Griff will be just fine.  He seemed to settle down and regardless of what defense the Eagles were playing the zip Griff was putting on his passes in the fourth quarter compared to the first was drastically different.  I choose to believe we will be just fine and give the Packers all they can handle in Lambeau, win or lose.

[#98QBKiller]

The other thing is we are going to see more of that up the middle blitz from other teams.  If we can't figure out how to handle that, it might turn into a very long year.

 

 

I think a lot of that was due to them knowing that we were behind and that we had to pass the ball. If teams want to do that when we're not playing catch-up, I could see them getting hit with big gains to the outside by our running game. 

[Matugi]

So, this is the thread for the reasonable ESers, right? LOL.

 

I admittedly don't know much about D secondary, but it looked to me like both Amerson and Rambo had good games. Anyone else have thoughts about this?

 

The Eagles did come out on fire and our turnovers were demoralizing. Had we not turned the ball over early, we might have seen a slightly different game, but I still think we'd have lost.

 

A friend of mine put it well - too many personnel packages in the pre-season for the Skins. I thought at least the team turned it around, though it was too late. Should be a good game coming up in Lambeau.

 

Oh yeah, Kerrigan continues to be the beast.

Amerson had a solid game but Rambo was terrible.

[DJD2]

Amerson had a solid game but Rambo was terrible.

 

Rambo made a weak effort on that TD pass to Celek. Guess he thought a shoulder hit was bringing him down.

[TSO]

Great thread KDawg and I thoroughly agree. This isn't the "same old Redskins" as some stated. The same old Redskins would've allowed it to get worse than it was. The same old Redskins don't keep the team in the game when EVERYTHING was going wrong in the first quarter.

 

We even lose better than we used to.

 

That being said, seeing Robert and Morris struggle early on was very disappointing and only further reinforced just how much our team runs through those guys.

 

I think we match up well against the Packers.      

[Matugi]

What's even funnier is the knee-jerk going on around the web.  ESPN dropped us to 19 in the power rankings and raised the Eagles to 14 based on not one game, but one-half of one game.

[Koolblue13]

Robert wasn't even close to ready, throwing off his back foot and all. Just sloppy football. I hope that knocked the rust off them and they buckle down now.

[bradboyd80]

Great post KDawg! Have to give the Eagles credit for coming out and smacking us in the face right out of the gate. I am just as guilty as the next guy of letting my emotions get to me during the game and overreacting. But we all have to realize this was only one game. There are 15 more to play, and I do believe the division can be won with 10 wins again. So we still have a chance if we can right the ship, play cleaner ball (less penalties), and get into a groove on offense again.