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Upon Further Review: Game 1 - Dolphins 17, Redskins 10

Om

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Goal, this is your fault.

Upon Further Review: Game 1 - Dolphins 17, Redskins 10

The Washington Redskins
opened the 2015 regular season at home last Sunday with a 17-10 loss to the Miami Dolphins.

What did we learn? Debatable, given the whole "sample size" thing. But two things I think we can safely surmise, at least for the moment, are:

1. That the home team did not make the transformative leap forward that fans, at least privately, once again had quietly been asking of the Gridiron Gods on yet another opening day. I admit it—when TE Jordan Reed caught that sweet fade pass from QB Kirk Cousins in the corner of the end zone, capping off a 17-play, 88-yard, 8:49 drive, and giving the Redskins a 10-0 lead late in the second quarter of a half they had dominated in the trenches, I allowed myself to look directly into the sun.

When I squinted just right, I could see a 27-10 throttling of those overrated, overhyped Dolphins, and a sweet Monday morning spent poring over local and national media stories by pundits falling all over themselves telling us how they saw it coming all along.

Ndamukong Who? The Redskins Are Back!

But ... by the time the Redskins allowed Miami to cruise easily back down the field to score an answering TD of their own in the closing minute of the half ... and after the Redskins then methodically shot themselves in the proverbial cleat enough times throughout the second half to let Miami to leave town a relieved winner, we had learned something else...



Click link above if you have nothing better to do
 
The first paragraph was 900 words, yet only two sentences. Yet, it said. "For a few seconds, I had hope."

Also, why did you stare into the sun? Shouldn't you have stared at the horizon? The horizon means you feel hope. The sun means you are on mushrooms and are burning out your cornea. Fix yo metaphors! (Also, if you are doing an homage to Hunter S. Thompson, you should have worked in "right kind of eyes.")

Anyway, everyone is doing one of these "Hey, things aren't so bad" deals right now. I feel like this was just a replay of last year's opener. A frustrating loss to an average team built around mistakes and special teams disasters.

The positive is that the clear talent gap between the Redskins and average football teams seems to have shrunk from "overwhelming" to "sizable." Having draft picks again is a good thing.

Verily, it has come to pass that upon the gridiron has sprung forth a man - nay a vessel - and ....I'm too tired to do this.
 
I really don't think you can compare a Dolphins team that is likely a 9-7 or 10-6 football team with the Houston Texans that finished what, 2-14 last year? :)

I agree with Chris Cooley that the bright spots on this team were the younger players like Brandon Scherff and Morgan Moses that exceeded expectations and are improving at a nice clip under perhaps the organization's best coach in Bill Callahan.

I also agree with Chris that Game 1 was an OK debut for Kirk Cousins as the declared starter. It was a tough defensive opponent and DeSean Jackson went down early and erased the game plan to use an effective running game to attack the corners with play action down the field.

Cousins survived. He made some nice plays getting the ball out under pressure, he also failed to get first downs in the second half. Part of that you can put on Gruden's ultra-conservative game planning where he had the team running the ball in third and long situations.

Over the next few games Gruden has to let go of the apron strings and let Cousins impact the game more with his arm.

Without Jackson, that may mean running 3 wide receiver sets on early downs and finding mismatches.

It may mean using Rashad Ross.

It may mean using BOTH Jordan Reed and Derek Carrier on the field at the same time and throwing out of a familiar formation we saw under Joe Gibbs I.

But Gruden has to do something to help out his offense in the absence of Jackson.

There is no holding down the fort for the next 5-7 weeks until he is ready to come back.

We need to find something else that works.

I thought Jamison Crowder was a real threat on crossing routes and plays in the intermediate zone.

Get him in there.

Giving Andre Roberts time to me is a WASTE of time.
 
I really don't think you can compare a Dolphins team that is likely a 9-7 or 10-6 football team with the Houston Texans that finished what, 2-14 last year? :)

I'm pretty sure the Texans went 9-7 last year. Perhaps you are thinking of 2013?


In any case, nice write up Om. A little rosier than I would have been about it, but you know me. I've become quite the curmudgeon these days. :)
 
Verily, it has come to pass that upon the gridiron has sprung forth a man - nay a vessel - and ....I'm too tired to do this.

And we're very thankful for that.
 
Thanks for the reads ands comments, gents. Even you, LKB. Flattered you followed me all the way over here to throw peanuts from the balcony again.

I'm pretty sure the Texans went 9-7 last year. Perhaps you are thinking of 2013?

In any case, nice write up Om. A little rosier than I would have been about it, but you know me. I've become quite the curmudgeon these days. :)
Just goes to show how differently we all see the world. As I was writing that, at one point I thought I'd become a grumpy old Skins fan like my good friend. :)

The fact that any read of that could be framed as 'rosy' - that's scary :)

Mark, don't know if it's hacked or not, but the Om Field link loads your blog, but then opens up this webpage for me: https://iqoption.com/promo/advance_en/?aff=3338&afftrack=may
Word.

Yeah, looks like that site buried a link somewhere deep in the BlogSpot html. It's harmless, but I'm hunting it down as we speak. Thanks for the heads up, brother.

Is Albatri a real word ?
Probably not. But it should be.
 
Nice work, Sir.

If I might add some of my reviews...

If DJax is such a huge part of the game plan, that losing him early in the game forces another reach into the excuse box by the head coach, I would question the wisdom of not having the only other WR approaching his speed, Ross, active. I realize hindsight is 20/20, or was that, 50/50? But I saw it as a poor decision on Gruden's part. Not Earth shattering. But it hints at one dimensional thinking.

I know the recent history of the ST's, so I'm not trying to let them off the hook. But I lay half the blame for the return on an offense that put a known ? mark, in such a precarious position. I do not fault Tress for putting a foot in it to try and switch field position. Guys were in place to make the tackle, but ultimately failed. We weren't the only ST's to surrender a TD Sunday. Not gonna bury these guys, yet. I also understand the logic of sacrificing Forbath as a scapegoat. But I would point out that we didn't see anything Sunday we didn't already know. No real reason to wait until now to make the move. Smells of the Norv Turner era.

Was very pleased with the overall play of the defense. Though I envisioned more aggression than we saw Sunday. Maybe yet to come. If we can ever get a week with our full compliment of CB's. God Damn the NFL and it's Keystone Cop timing of discipline. I would have given the defense a B+, had it not been for the lackluster, look of a quitter, butt****ing they surrendered to on the last play. Would have been nice to see one more shot taken. Miracles do, and have happened. But on the one play that was "life or death" they got punked like a little bitch. Very discouraging. Dropped them to a C-, IMHO.
 

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