Take on Atlanta Game

Looking at the schedule we have some rough games coming up. We don't catch a break until face Cleveland towards end of the year.

The offensive line here is the biggest hole after the secondary. Everyone I talk to that is an out of town fan that watches other teams and happens to catch a Skins game seems to agree on that point.

Why folks here have such a hard time finding the forest for the trees is beyond me.

Trent Williams is really the only OL the Redskins have that would be of any interest to another NFL team.

The rest of the OL are all castoffs. We got Montgomery on waivers, Polumbus had been cut by 3 other teams, Lichtensteiger had been released by Denver and then Cleveland, where you know they had a dearth of quality linemen. And then there is Chris Chester, who Baltimore decided at 28 was not worth a second contract.

If that cumulative line turned out to be a strength of the Redskins, it would mean that our front office was that much smarter than teams like the Eagles, Ravens, Broncos, etc. who got a look at these players and said 'pass'.

I don't think we are quite that good.

I'm not saying our line is good. I'm saying we can get by with it for now. Of course it needs to be upgraded, but we're not losing games because of the line right now. Plenty of QBs roll out at the goal line to extend a play and find an open receiver. They don't usually try and turn upfield rather than throw the ball away when there's nothing there. The hit that knocked Griffin out was not the line's fault.

The fact is, as terrible as our line is, Griff is not taking a ton of sacks and we only called one QB run all day and he ran out of bounds. Sure he took that blindside hit, but every QB gets one of those once in awhile. Griffin is only 16th in sacks taken this year. His sack percentage is better than the career percentage of Ben Roethlisberger, Alex Smith, Michael Vick and is comparable to Aaron Rodgers and Sam Bradford.

Good QBs cover for a lot and Griffin should be able to cover for our line until we can shore it up. To suggest we can't possibly succeed until that happens, when we have one of the most potent offenses in the league so far, I think is bit reactionary to a disappointing loss and an avoidable injury.

But imagine what we would be doing to other teams if we had just one top quality interior OL. If we had a RG or C who could dominate, who could hide deficiencies of the others, there'd be a pocket that would give griffin some time to throw the ball, we would be able to have a QB who could stay in the pocket. This would add to the threat of him running...double edged sword.

I watched the Colts Packers game yesterday and was blown away by the OL play by the Colts in the game-winning drive. Luck had a real pocket develop around him and when Matthews was about to get to him, he simply stepped up in the pocket and completed crucial passes.

The Colts!

I understand you want to run a ZBS and it requires more agile OL, but the guys we have are definitely a problem. The pass game didn't get going yesterday when a good run game should have provided the opportunity...Why? Their corners aren't that good.

Everybody is right....and wrong.

The OL can't protect against even a 4 man rush in pass pro. Just can't. Or doesn't anyway. Run blocking is not bad---pass pro on any kind of 5 or 7 step drop just isn't NFL standard.

We need a legit interior lineman and a RT. Until we get them, we're not going to get to see what RG3 can do with time to drop, scan and step into throws. We're just not.

Doesn't mean we can't win games this year though. It's just going to be up to Kyle, Mike and Bob to find ways to quick-pass, play-action and misdirect their way in the pass game, and for Morris to keep making hay whenever he gets the chance.

Two upgrades on the OL--one interior and a RT--and we could see a serious improvement next year in the passing game, particularly with the QB having a year of experience and another full offseason under his belt.

Bulldog's Twin said:

The offensive line here is the biggest hole after the secondary. Everyone I talk to that is an out of town fan that watches other teams and happens to catch a Skins game seems to agree on that point.

Why folks here have such a hard time finding the forest for the trees is beyond me.

Trent Williams is really the only OL the Redskins have that would be of any interest to another NFL team.
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Click to expand...

Elephant said:

I watched the Colts Packers game yesterday and was blown away by the OL play by the Colts in the game-winning drive.

Click to expand...

These provide what, to me, is the key element that has been missing in most assessments I have seen of Redskins players. Would they start for somebody else? Would they be at least equal to their corresponding position on a playoff level team? A team with a winning record at the end of the season? Even an average 8-8 team?

Would any of our secondary be starting for anyone other than a bottom-feeder pass D? Hard and uncomfortable questions, I'll grant, but in all honesty I have for a long time felt that the Redskins, although populated with several excellent to fabulous players at various positions have across-the-board-comparing 53 man roster to 53 man roster-have been in the bottom half of the league for over 20 years.

We've had crappy coaching, crappy FO operations but I consider the inability to get and maintain a stable of at-least-average to pro-bowl level talent, starting, second-string, and third string has been the most crippling downfall this team has had and until that is somehow fixed no coaching staff anyone could care to come up with has much of a chance of ultimate success unless they are skilled enough to fix this particular area.


Having said that I must give credit to the Shanahan/Allen leadership for making the most valiant attempt I've seen in quite some time to addressing this situation that, IMO, was likely the most dismally far behind in terms of overall available talent in the league. They've made big mistakes occasionally but I really doubt if anybody else who was available at the time who could have done noticeably better.

This is why I am more patient with Mike Shanahan than most seem to be also. He was presented with mess that took him a year to grasp. He seems to have at least some kind of a handle on things in terms of fixes-nowhere near perfect-but unless we kidnap the Newsome/DeCosta team from Baltimore casting about for someone who can do better is, IMO, a serious crapshoot.