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Lanky Livingston
Guest
One of my favorite columns over the football season, Mr. Irrelevant's Winners & Losers column:
Winners
People Who Like Subway – Subway spokesman RG3 made his return to his non-Subway second job of “quarterback”, and the @Redskins twitter account gleefully touted a Subway coupon in a loss. With exclamation points! Eat your feelings after the loss, Redskins fans!
FedExField – Crowd was loud. Turf didn’t cripple any franchise players. Grass looked more or less like a grass. By this stadium’s standards, those are all huge wins.
A bunch of Eagles guys, notably LeSean McCoy – After a first quarter where the Chip Kelly offense did everything that all the breathless articles said it would, they settled down notably over the course of the game. But they also racked up really unpleasant numbers in the stat columns and walked away with the win. Hence: winners. Sad but true.
Perry Riley – Even during the awful first half, Riley was a bright spot. Sacked Vick, recorded eight tackles on the evening.
Ryan Kerrigan – Looked Kerrigan-esque. Motor! Heart! Grit! Swatted passes! Left the game to be evaluated for concussion symptoms and should thus probably be downgraded to Medium, but heck with it. I’m hard up for Winners on this one.
Dr. James Andrews – The details of RG3’s performance are irrelevant to the good doctor’s rankings, as are his dumb hat and the vacant look on his face whenever they show him on the sidelines. The fact of the matter is this: when Griffin crumpled to that field back in January, I was terrified that he’d miss this entire season or worse. He didn’t miss a single regular season snap. That is the kind of doctorin’ that makes someone a Winner around these parts.
Losers
Aldrick Robinson – Kept not catching the ball in crucial situations, including a late 4th down. Also did not seem to know how to effectively notify the officials that he was being mugged by the Eagles defenders.
Alfred Morris – Fumbled the first time he touched the ball. Failed to handle a (somewhat off-target) pitch-out from RG3, leading to an Eagles safety. Rushed 12 times for 45 yards. Subjected us all to the announcers telling the story of his Mazda AGAIN. I am so over that Mazda.
Chris Thompson - Looked less like preseason Brandon Banks and more like regular season Brandon Banks. Hopefully it’s just a learning curve and once he recovers from his latest injury he’ll figure this whole “punt returning” thing out.
DeAngelo Hall – Played pretty much the quintessential DeAngelo Hall game: a long defensive touchdown, a couple of decent plays, a couple of … um … less-decent plays, a loooooooooooooootttttt of jawing, and at least one major penalty.
Kyle Shanahan – Sure, the team got it together a bit in the second half, against an Eagles defense that was giving much more of a cushion. But last year’s offensive genius was pretty plainly overshadowed by Chip Kelly’s shiny innovations and crazy tempo. Unleashing the four-QB offense next week will put him back in the guru column.
The Redskins defensive backfield – I don’t have any fancy John Keim details to give, but this group did not look good to my untrained eye. Occasionally they did not even look present on the field.
The fleeting hope of the end of speculative RG3 injury talk – “Should the team have played him in preseason” is the new “should the coach have pulled him out of the playoff game,” and I am already sick of it.
Common sense and human decency – People were apparently actually suggesting that Kirk Cousins be put in the game, possibly with an eye toward starting next week. People are the worst.
Medium
Robert Griffin III – Looked absolutely awful in the first half — probably as bad as he’s looked as a pro, definitely as bad as he’s looked as a pro with two functioning legs. On the other hand, for a guy who just had one leg rebuilt with bits of the other one, and who hadn’t taken a single preseason snap, he got it together relatively quickly. By the end of the game he seemed to be holding out the promise (LOL SHEININ PUN!) of another season of RG3-ness. I’ll take it. (Numerically, this translates as 329 yards passing, 2 touchdowns, 2 picks, plus the terrible pitch to Morris. And 24 yards rushing.)
Leonard Hankerson – Stat line looks great: 5 catches, 2 touchdowns, 80 yards. But he is Leonard Hankerson, so of course there were also the uncaught balls (including one that could’ve been a crucial third down) and double-clutched catches. A good game for him, but still medium.
Kai Forbath – Missed a kick, which he is not supposed to do. Hit all his extra points, which he is definitely supposed to do. Kicked off for touchbacks, which he had not previously done all that much.
Redskins-Eagles Winners & Losers | Mr. Irrelevant, a D.C. Sports Blog by the Brothers Mottram
Winners
People Who Like Subway – Subway spokesman RG3 made his return to his non-Subway second job of “quarterback”, and the @Redskins twitter account gleefully touted a Subway coupon in a loss. With exclamation points! Eat your feelings after the loss, Redskins fans!
FedExField – Crowd was loud. Turf didn’t cripple any franchise players. Grass looked more or less like a grass. By this stadium’s standards, those are all huge wins.
A bunch of Eagles guys, notably LeSean McCoy – After a first quarter where the Chip Kelly offense did everything that all the breathless articles said it would, they settled down notably over the course of the game. But they also racked up really unpleasant numbers in the stat columns and walked away with the win. Hence: winners. Sad but true.
Perry Riley – Even during the awful first half, Riley was a bright spot. Sacked Vick, recorded eight tackles on the evening.
Ryan Kerrigan – Looked Kerrigan-esque. Motor! Heart! Grit! Swatted passes! Left the game to be evaluated for concussion symptoms and should thus probably be downgraded to Medium, but heck with it. I’m hard up for Winners on this one.
Dr. James Andrews – The details of RG3’s performance are irrelevant to the good doctor’s rankings, as are his dumb hat and the vacant look on his face whenever they show him on the sidelines. The fact of the matter is this: when Griffin crumpled to that field back in January, I was terrified that he’d miss this entire season or worse. He didn’t miss a single regular season snap. That is the kind of doctorin’ that makes someone a Winner around these parts.
Losers
Aldrick Robinson – Kept not catching the ball in crucial situations, including a late 4th down. Also did not seem to know how to effectively notify the officials that he was being mugged by the Eagles defenders.
Alfred Morris – Fumbled the first time he touched the ball. Failed to handle a (somewhat off-target) pitch-out from RG3, leading to an Eagles safety. Rushed 12 times for 45 yards. Subjected us all to the announcers telling the story of his Mazda AGAIN. I am so over that Mazda.
Chris Thompson - Looked less like preseason Brandon Banks and more like regular season Brandon Banks. Hopefully it’s just a learning curve and once he recovers from his latest injury he’ll figure this whole “punt returning” thing out.
DeAngelo Hall – Played pretty much the quintessential DeAngelo Hall game: a long defensive touchdown, a couple of decent plays, a couple of … um … less-decent plays, a loooooooooooooootttttt of jawing, and at least one major penalty.
Kyle Shanahan – Sure, the team got it together a bit in the second half, against an Eagles defense that was giving much more of a cushion. But last year’s offensive genius was pretty plainly overshadowed by Chip Kelly’s shiny innovations and crazy tempo. Unleashing the four-QB offense next week will put him back in the guru column.
The Redskins defensive backfield – I don’t have any fancy John Keim details to give, but this group did not look good to my untrained eye. Occasionally they did not even look present on the field.
The fleeting hope of the end of speculative RG3 injury talk – “Should the team have played him in preseason” is the new “should the coach have pulled him out of the playoff game,” and I am already sick of it.
Common sense and human decency – People were apparently actually suggesting that Kirk Cousins be put in the game, possibly with an eye toward starting next week. People are the worst.
Medium
Robert Griffin III – Looked absolutely awful in the first half — probably as bad as he’s looked as a pro, definitely as bad as he’s looked as a pro with two functioning legs. On the other hand, for a guy who just had one leg rebuilt with bits of the other one, and who hadn’t taken a single preseason snap, he got it together relatively quickly. By the end of the game he seemed to be holding out the promise (LOL SHEININ PUN!) of another season of RG3-ness. I’ll take it. (Numerically, this translates as 329 yards passing, 2 touchdowns, 2 picks, plus the terrible pitch to Morris. And 24 yards rushing.)
Leonard Hankerson – Stat line looks great: 5 catches, 2 touchdowns, 80 yards. But he is Leonard Hankerson, so of course there were also the uncaught balls (including one that could’ve been a crucial third down) and double-clutched catches. A good game for him, but still medium.
Kai Forbath – Missed a kick, which he is not supposed to do. Hit all his extra points, which he is definitely supposed to do. Kicked off for touchbacks, which he had not previously done all that much.
Redskins-Eagles Winners & Losers | Mr. Irrelevant, a D.C. Sports Blog by the Brothers Mottram
