Official Game Day Thread: Redskins @ Vikings

[tshile]

It's probably because we didn't practice for castle.

 

[Ax]

Vikes had two backup olinemen playing too.

No pressure, at all.

 

[tshile]

Tony Kornheiser said it perfect this morning.

27 points, 0 offensive turnovers, +1 turnover differential, on the road

Not many teams lose like that.

 

[tshile]

More i can't believe we were this bad analysis

The defense didn’t stop Minnesota once on its own. The Vikings scored on 6 of 8 drives and the only two times the Skins' D got off the field was because a receiver fell down on a third down throw and Ponder threw a terrible pass on the first drive of the game. Other than those two drives, the defense got torched.

 

[Burgundy Burner]

Vikes had two backup olinemen playing too.

No pressure, at all.

And a depleted secondary.

 

[Henry]

More i can't believe we were this bad analysis

Yeah it was that bad. When your offense scores on it's first five possessions, all long time-consuming drives, and goes up 13 points in the third quarter against a team starting Christian Ponder and then Matt Cassell at QB, there is no way you should lose that game. We made that putrid Viking offense look like the greatest show on turf last night.

Wanna hear something really sad? Ponder's passer rating this season is 77.6. Before last night his best passer rating this year was 86.4.

Last night his passer rating was 113.1.

This loss was all on the defense. Terrible terrible night from them. Just awful.

 

[tshile]

ponder and matt castle

it's like a sick joke is being played on us

 

[Henry]

Lanky, I was apoplectic after the Denver game at Kyle because I thought he should have run the ball more. I think this game last night was different. There were a few individual plays (near the goalline especially) where I probably would have run Morris once or twice more, but overall, I actually thought Kyle called a nice game. I thought we did enough to keep their secondary backed off the LOS to keep them honest with some of his calls. The execution just wasn't there in the second half. Not sure if it is a lack of killer instinct or what, but had our offense executed just a hair better in the 3rdQ, that is a different ballgame.

Having said all that, imo, this loss rests on the D. Ponder is not a good QB, but we made him look well above-average. What was distressing to me was that we got virtually no pressure on him all night. Not sure if that was because of good pass pro, or a lack of blitzing or what, but the more you knock Ponder around, the more likely he is to turn it over. We did a really nice job bottling up AD, but give credit to their OC, he called a nice gameplan too by not over-relying on Petersen.

This one hurts. A lot.

Yep. We ran the ball just fine. We had a nice balance all night. There was one series where I would have liked to have seen a run on 3rd and 3 and we threw an incomplete pass, but that's not why we lost. Hell, we even kept running, and running well, down by a TD with four minutes left. I don't think the playcalling was the big problem here.

My one criticism of the offense, and I'm not sure who's to blame for this, is that even when we were moving the ball Griffin was getting killed all night long. Maybe that was the Viking's game plan or maybe our game plan doesn't protect Griffin enough, but they were just crushing him every play. That's gotta change no matter how much we score. It would have been nice for Bob to have earned a win for his effort last night. He really deserved it.

At least he seems to be his old self, and he even looked pretty comfortable in the pocket. That TD to Reed, with the pocket collapsing ... that was a beautiful play. And all that criticism last year that he couldn't convert on third down, that he couldn't pass without play-action? I think he's figuring it out.

That's about the only positive I can take out of this one. Terrible loss. Bleh.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

http://www.espn980.com/blogs/kevin.php

Why? Seems pretty obvious to me after we, I don't know, LOST!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

 

[Henry]

why try to be "balanced" when your stud RB is getting 5-7 yards at a time and not slowing down?

We have 2 great backs and we throw some stupid WR screen in there. that play may have worked last night but its the worst play in the book

Those WR screens were KILLING the Vikings. Gracon was turning 5 yard plays into 30 yarders. The screens were fine. The pass was working just as well as the run so it would be silly to go one-dimensional, just cuz.

It sucks to lose and there are lots of reasons why we did but I don't think the play-calling was the reason this time. We had the Viking defense on it's heels most of the night. If our defense made ANY kind of stop at any time during that second half we win that game. Just an outright terrible night for the defense.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I'm astounded by the excuses made for the offensive play calling. Yes, defense was bad, but they are generally bad. Not to mention we couldn't buy a holding call...Kerrigan was hog tied three plays in a row on one series, and no calls.

18 carried in the first half, 9 in the second half. Inexcusable.

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[Boone]

I would like to see us commit more to the run, but you could also argue that at least some of the reason we were getting great gains when we ran it was because they had to cover the pass as well. I think that's a fairly obvious thing. You run it every down in the NFL and teams are going to stack the box and stop you.

Henry is 100% right. We drove it up and down the field on them almost all night. Our problem was primarily that we let them do the same thing to us.

 

[Goaldeje]

Yes. YES. Look at the reverse. The Vikings beat us because Ponder was able to, he played a great game, I didn't think he had that one in him, personally. We stacked the box, selling out to stop AP, which we mostly did. Ponder was able to make throws, good for him. Not sure that's something that would happen again any time soon. Had we not thrown at all, especially those screens, the running lanes might very well not have been there.

Kyle had nice balance, good gameplan most of the night (and I have been one of his harshest critics) with a couple of exceptions.

I agree about the refs, they were brutal. Normally I can look objectively and say they missed calls for both teams, but I can't think of anything they missed in our favor off the top of my head. They were terrible, TERRIBLE. But our D was terrible too.

 

[Ax]

Our defense never stopped them, one...single...time.

This loss is 99% on the defense.

All other reasons combine to make the 1%.

Not one...freakin...stop.

 

[Henry]

the screens were fine? They start 4 yards negative and if you dont have Garcon beasting it we end up with 3rd and long. they rarely work and just because he was able to shake 3 tackles to get 30 yards doesnt meant they are good.

slants, RB screens, post patterns. those things work. WR screens are usually cluster****s and end up with negative yards.

Mike, that's like saying we shouldn't run a pitchout because Morris starts a few yards further back, and that if Morris doesn't break tackles running the ball doesn't work, and therefore we shouldn't run that play. The screen is set up that way for a reason. And they work just fine. We did not lose this game because we threw screen passes.

and what the heck is silly about sticking to a run game that almost gets you a 1st every time you rush it? No, to me, silly is thinking we need to be clever when we are set up to smash people in the mouth and pound the rock down their throats. silly is Kyle thinking that having Griff run to the flat on 3rd and try to hit Young with a bullet pass is a good idea. Having Griff sit in the pocket for 5 seconds when we all know our OL is ridiculous is the very definition of silly.

What's silly is saying we don't need balance because the run game was working, as if the fact that the pass was working as well had nothing to do with it. Should we be saying that since Griffin was averaging 8.5 yards a pass with a 140 passer rating in the first half and that throwing the ball got us all of our TDs, that therefore means we don't need balance and should just pass it in the second half?

Of course not. The balance was what was working. We ran the ball 20 times and passed it 21 in the first half, and that worked very very well. We ran the ball 16 times and passed it 20 times in the second half, including when we had the ball at the end of the game with no timeouts and were down a TD.

pound the rock, get the first. lull them to sleep and hit them over the top. its worked in DC for decades and it doesnt need to stop now with the group we have protecting Griff.

Mike, I'm a huge fan of running the ball and the play-action ... but NOTHING has worked in DC for decades.

 

[Henry]

I'm astounded by the excuses made for the offensive play calling. Yes, defense was bad, but they are generally bad. Not to mention we couldn't buy a holding call...Kerrigan was hog tied three plays in a row on one series, and no calls.

This was easily .... easily ... the worst performance of the year by the defense. Against a terrible team with no viable starting QB, we had two stops the entire night. Hell, we couldn't even stop Matt Cassell from getting into FG range. If we had done only that, we still win the game.

Our defense is not generally this bad. No defense is.

18 carries in the first half, 9 in the second half. Inexcusable.

It's called we had to punt the ball in the second half a couple times. Our run/pass balance was the same the as the first half until we were forced to pass at the very end of the game. The only thing we could have done differently, I suppose, was not run Griffin and Helu as much in the second half and just give the ball only to Morris. Given that Griffin averaged 6 yards a carry in the second half and Helu 4 yards a carry, I don't think that was the problem.

 

[direrabbit0317]

This was a protest game. Plain and simple. The odds were stacked against us. We must lose because we wont change the name..

 

[Henry]

gee, you nailed my thoughts on the pitchout, too! good job!!

why do you need balance when one thing is working so well? You are acting like Kyle here. Why do you need to change a formula that is working to perfection in the first half? Because you want to risk an incomplete, INT, or getting our QB hit? Im really baffled why you feel like we have to get away from running the ball.

Mike, re-read my post. What was working in the first half was balance, not going run-heavy. With balance, we scored on our first five posessions, something we hadn't done since 1985. So I ask you, why go away from what was working, literally, to perfection in the first half?

Why abandon that balance?

Because Portis ran for a lot of yards back when we had crappy QBs and we never won a damn thing?

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[Ax]

You're dead on the money Henry. Balance on offense got us the lead. And balance is the key going forward. I don't recall the run picking up a single 3rd and long in the first half. And there were plenty of them.

You are wrong, however, for giving our defense credit for two stops.

In both instances, it was the Vikes stopping themselves.
A horrible lame duck gimmie interception.
And a receiver slipping and falling.

 

[Henry]

Ax, I do recognize that it could have been worse for our defense had we been playing a better team, which would have been any one of 25 other teams in the league. But the fact is our defense did get two stops, even if we lucked into them.

yeah, we didnt make the playoffs in 05 and 07 either.

Mike, I don't exactly consider two sixth seeded divisional losers over the past 20 years to be an example of 'working for decades.'

Also, both of those teams had top ten defenses. Something this team ... well. Not similar.

18 rushes in the first half compared to 9 in the second. we definitely got away from the run. we definitely moved away from what was working to perfection.

27 rushes from your primary back isn't enough. Don't know what to tell you. In those awesome '05 and '07 seasons, a total of 32 games, Portis ran more than that three times. Hate to tell you this, but you have to be able to spell your primary back. Fortunately we have a starting quality backup and a QB who runs for 6 yards a clip. So we used them in the second half. The two of them averaged over 5 yards a carry filling in for Morris, so ... again, that wasn't the problem.