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Game 1 Likes and Dislikes

Bulldog

The All-Time Great
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Likes:

1. McLaurin looks like he has a bright future in the NFL. His speed is noticeable and his hands were reliable on short and intermediate routes. 5 catches for 125 yards and a TD is a darn good start, and it could have been 200 plus yards if Keenum hadn't overthrown Terry on that second bomb.

2. Guice is the team's first two way back in re rushing and receiving in some time. If he stays healthy we won't in the future have to carry a third down specialist to catch the ball because our primary rusher is known as only a two down threat.

3. Vernon Davis can still run at 35 and has helped to cover up for Reed's absences for the past couple of years.

4. Jonathan Allen must be even more important to the defense than even I thought going in. When he came out of the game it appeared the entire complexion of the defense changed. It didn't all cascade down at once but over the next drives to halftime and then Quarter 3 the Eagles were able to block Tim Settle, Matt Ioannidis fairly easily when they were inside at DT. More on them below. In addition to the physical loss of a DL that requires a double team it seems Allen's leadership is such that with him off the field these guys really started to question themselves. Perhaps he more than Trent Williams is really the ‘must have' player on this club.

5. The Redskins have excellent specialists in Tress Way and Dustin Hopkins and will rely heavily on them to win games in 2019.

Dislikes:

1. The coaching staff here does not run a program that is long on physicality and mental toughness. One could blame the Redskins collapse after building a 17-0 lead and 20-7 halftime on simply the number of rookies and younger players facing a fired up team on the road who were embarrassed by their early performance.

But then again we have seen this movie before in previous years with Gruden. The Redskins get punched in the mouth after having an opponent on the ropes and seem to fall apart. Guys miss assignments they were meeting earlier, the number of penalties on both sides of the ball increase exponentially. The coaches game plan remains stuck in what WAS working two quarters earlier.

2. On defense, the Redskins were totally outfoxed by Pederson. To start the third quarter he came out with 35 year old Darren Sproles at RB and with a 20-7 deficit the Redskins prepared to drop and defend the pass. Instead the Eagles ran the ball. And then decided to keep running the same two plays to move all the way down the field as Washington never countered what the Eagles were doing and Philly was able to score what I look at as a ‘gift' touchdown.

On later drives the Eagles were able to consistently get DJAX one on one coverage against Nicholson or a rookie like Moreland while the Redskins were instead focused on defensing Alshon Jeffery. But Jeffery was not going to beat the Redskins on his own. Jackson with his 4.32 speed was able to erase the Redskins advantage and give the Eagles the lead before the Redskins had time to exhale. But we have seen this movie before too. The Redskins often seem to ignore the rule about not giving up the quick score. If a team wants to try and move 80 yards in 12 plays fine. But don't give Wentz a clear win with Jackson against a single defender deep.

3. The offense was a mixed bag. Again I thought McLaurin, Davis and the younger receivers played well for the most part. Guice showed a bit of what he can do.

Keenum didn't turn the ball over and he hit on most of the obvious throws early. He missed McLaurin deep on the second pass and failed to see Davis alone down the sideline on what might have been a big play to stem the tide in the third quarter.

But Gruden didn't do him any favors after the half. That expansive playbook had no adjustments for an Eagle defense that learned quickly that stunts had the Redskins OL confused and that by concentrating on attacking Ereck Flowers in pass pro they could get middle pressure and prevent Keenum from stepping up.

Is it just me or is Morgan Moses a penalty machine? I can see Flowers holding because he is playing out of position and may not have the talent to make it as a starter in the NFL. But Moses? He seems to be one of those guys that REALLY feels the pressure in tight games and can't maintain his focus in key situations.

Trent Williams return will help but Flowers needs to be replaced with Martin. If Ereck is going to give us rookie level performances we might as well get a rookie with 45 college starts at LG into these contests.

4. Half-time adjustments remain a big Achilles heel for this team.

After taking a decent lead against the Eagles and surprising them with the quick passes, McLaurin deep and the early accent on Guice and Davis as a receiver, we needed to recognize that Philly would find counters to those plays and present them with some change-ups.

Moving away from running on first downs would also have helped at various points of the game, even early on.

Pederson couldn't have come up with better adjustments to attack the Allen-less Washington defense in the second half.

He used Sproles to run the ball and then put in Sanders when he threw deep. Manusky and Co. we're still reading off the first half keys in the backfield where Sproles meant pass and Sanders meant run.

As mentioned deciding NOT to double cover Jackson was a mistake with a 13 point lead after their first TD. Jeffery and Agholor are good receivers but they are not the quick strike threats that Jackson has been.

5. Montez Sweat has a long way to go. Any thoughts his size and speed were going to make an early impact were perhaps too optimistic. When he came in for more reps after Allen departed, Sweat appeared to be easily blocked by the Eagles. He seemed to play upright and a bit stiff, never good for a rusher.

6. Ryan Anderson still looks to me like a middle backer in the 3-4. He's a good straight up tackler and runs well laterally but he has ZERO pass rush moves and doesn't play with leverage around the end.

We won't be playing teams as deep as the Eagles each week but a number of these things in re the coaching, adjustments and utilization of certain players has you shaking your head.
 
Well, I definitely liked the first half better than the second half. I also like that Vernon Davis at 35 is still in touch with his emotions, and not afraid to cry like a baby on national tv after scoring a TD. Took his helmet off and everything. I liked number 55 at middle linebacker and the rookies in general. There's plenty of young talent on this team but they'll all be crap by the time The Big Dummy is done with them.
 
Likes: Overall player talent is good enough to win.

Dislikes: Coaching talent doesn't measure up.
 
Right then...

Unpopular opinion as this might be, I still believe yesterday was a statement game by the Redskins. And while we didn't walk away with the win, I do think we gave all those haters saying we were a bottom-feeder ball-club reason to re-evaluate.

I think when we look at this game, it's important to put it into context about where in the season it is and who we were playing.

If we'd pulled out this kind of game against the Miami Dolphins in Week 6 of the season then I think I'd be more mad. But this was against the Eagles, a team many pundits are tipping as a Superbowl winner this year. They have a touted Defensive Line, a solid O-Line, are loaded at the Skill positions and have a Quarterback in the upper echelons of the rankings. Also this is a Divisional game, AND the Eagles were at home. There was no way we were supposed to be able to compete with them on even terms this year, and even in our predictions many of us were figuring we would only really win if we kept it low scoring. Even Vegas had us with NO CHANCE in this game. 10pt underdogs.

So with that as the backdrop...

Things I liked:

Our Offense looks to be more explosive than previously thought. Considering McLaurin was banged up in practice and barely played pre-season, his game performance was phenomenal. Keenum isn't afraid to sling the ball, so give them a few more games to perfect the chemistry and we could really have something. Keenum also proved that he can protect the ball too. The Eagles D is highly thought of, and didn't get a turnover from us, which is encouraging considering the rookies and new players we have across the board at skill positions.

And we can score. Or it looks like we can. Put it this way... Last year we topped 27 points only ONCE all season. Week 3 against Green Bay. The rest of the year we couldn't crack 24 points. Game 1 of the season with Keenum and a bunch of rookies and we scored 27. Yes we had some hiccups after halftime, but it's game 1. I have hope that we can use this as a base to grow from. I think the players will gain confidence from this game even if we did lose it.

Vernon still got it. :D Trey Quinn started looking like the WR we thought he could be. I think his role will grow over coming weeks.

And Talking about McLaurin... on the long TD pass on the replay... did you see that shift of gears from him? The DB is with him, with him, with him, then.... poof. He turns on the burners and he's gone.

Tress Way... best punter in the league.

Guice looked pretty good. His stats may not show it, but I think this game was always going to be an uphill struggle Run-wise, and play calling did him no favours. I'm still expecting big things from him.

The pain of losing. Keenum looked genuinely pained that we lost. The Defense I think will be pissed and Jon Allen won't let them forget it. I think this game will grate at them, which is something past teams have paid lip service to, but I never really believed it. I think this group genuinely is going to hate what happened this week.

Our first half D looked good too. We may not have got sacks on Wentz, but he was protected by a highly touted line and he's got veteran savvy and mobility. Still I was expecting/hoping for more sacks... which brings me to...



Things I didn't like:

The Defense collapse in the 3rd quarter. Especially in regards to DJax. He practically single handedly was the one to turn the game around for them. I'm not blaming Moreland here, he's a rookie and DJax is a vet with speed he's probably never had to guard against in anger before, but honestly... Once he took the top off, we sat back in coverage and opened up the underneath for them. Which they then exploited all half.

The Offensive woes in the 3rd Quarter. This kind of feels like we had this odd scenario where both sides of the ball decided to play their worst ball at the same time. I mean, if our D had been cold in the 1st quarter when our O was red hot, then we could have navigated it. Vice wersa is also probably true. But to go through a scoring drought at the same time the D falters was a recipe for disaster. It's just one of those things. Not many offenses score on every drive, it's just mostly they're balanced out across a game. We were all front loaded and the Eagles all back loaded. I hope that as the season progresses and players (especially our rookies) get more comfortable, we'll start to see consistency in the game.

Penalties. This feels to me like the primary reason we lost. I think we had something like 90yards in penalties and all of them were offense (or seemed to be!). It was the main killer for drives in the second half.


Disclaimer!

Of course if the Eagles turn out to be trash this season, then this game doesn't look as good as it does. But if they turn out to be the Superbowl champs this year, this game could be looked at as one where we came in as huge flawed underdogs, a rebuild in progress and punched them in the mouth and almost hung an embarrassing loss at home on them.
 
Yeah, plan A was working beautifully. Then those Philly bastards adjusted.

Game over.

There is no plan B.

Ever.
 
The roster in 2014 was largely garbage so you could give Gruden a pass.

But this team has physical talent.

Younger players that need to be lead and toughened up by a coach that won't accept losing.

That's not Jay.
 
I wasn't able to watch the game, but just following the scores and reading the play by play on ESPN. My likes are LB and an ex-Tar Heel Cole Holcomb and WR, Terry McLaurin

Dislikes: Gruden
 
Yeah, I have been harping on it but Gruden was ready to go into the Eagle game with no legitimate option in case Guice went down early.

His roster mismanagement boggles the mind.
 
1. Manusky must go. The team knew this during the off-season and tried to shed him. Of course, getting quality coaches for this team, independent/strong willed sorts, will not happen so long as Brudan are in charge. Not us!

2. Davis notwithstanding, the TE corps for this team eats it. For years now other teams have been building strong, big pass catching machines at the TE position. Not us!

3. I didn't pay enough attention during preseason - Keenum has a strange passing motion on longer passes. Not his long suit.

4. What was the thought process on AP? I don't think that's been answered truthfully yet.

5. Sweat does look like a mediocrity out there. Major disappointment. Let's hope it's poor coaching. It doesn't even look like he's going all out.

6. No pass rush.

7. Secondary is still making dumb communication mistakes. They were bad last season and by all appearances look to continue that tradition on into this season.

8. Gruden can't coach worth a dang. While it would be nice, the heck with adjustments - at some point he needs to gather the troops and inspire dominant performance. Since he arrived I have not seem him do so. Whatever else he might be, good or bad, one thing is for certain: Jay Gruden is a loser. He doesn't demand excellence and can't inspire it.Not in the NFL anyway.

Having talent means nada, zip, less than zero if the coaching doesn't know what to do with it, the players aren't bright enough to learn and execute, the FO isn't committed to winning vice marketing and power. There will be some peaks and a lotta valleys. What top tier coach in his right mind would want to come coach here next season? What talented players are going to want to weather the long haul here without a better, drama-free singularly committed to winning culture?
 
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Everyone was worried about Haskins but right now Sweat is the bigger question mark in my mind.

Haskins can make all the throws and has down the field accuracy.

Sweat so far just looks like a ripped guy in a football jersey.
 
You guys forget that Sweat had a late pre-season injury. He's not 100% and for God's sake it was his first NFL game. Get off his ass :)


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Boone...perhaps off his back?

Hope you're right. I had higher expectations for this character than any other draftee.
 
Pick whatever body part you want :) But let's apply some common sense. Kid has just begun, and as I mentioned has been injured.


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Haha, yeah, at least Sweat is a rookie. Kerrigan was non-existent, sadly.
 
Kerrigan is a solid B player as Chris Cooley indicated in his evaluations last year.

His greatest assets are durability and consistency.

But he is no Von Miller.

He needs others to step up and since 2011 they have never been able to get those other OLBs to rush the qb.

Preston Smith was OK. Inconsistent at times, played the run well. But wasn't a dynamic rusher.

Ryan Anderson is not a 3-4 OLB.

Why we took him in Round 2 for that role is beyond me.
 
Maybe Kerrigan should spend less time making hype videos and more time figuring out how not to get dominated and shutdown at the line of scrimmage.

If there were ever a team for which smack talk should be a finable offense, it's these guys.


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