Eagles-Redskins: Happy Days Aren’t Here Again for Washington
October 27, 2009 by dwil
The “new” Washington Redskins entertained the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football. In their first six games before Sherm Lewis took over the play-calling for the Redskins, the offense average 13.2 points per game, 24.5 rushing attempts, 32.5 pass attempts, and 294 yards per game. Monday night the Redskins – we’ll go backwards, here – gained 308 yards, attempted 49 passes, had 19 pass attempts, and scored a whopping 3.8 points more than their season average.
All of which means, Washington lost 27-17 to the Eagles and looked like a team in disarray just as they had the first six games of the season.
Alleged head coach Jim Zorn spent much of the first half of Monday night’s affair pacing on the sidelines with his dual-communication headphones placed firmly on his head babbling to no one in particular, staring at a multi-colored, laminated sheet of paper that looked like a take-out menu from a Cuban restaurant. And just after the last play of the first half Zorn looked up somewhere in the distance of the Fed Ex field luxury box area and pointed to someone, who well could have been the delivery person who had just informed him over his headphones that his black beans and rice with spicy shrimp had arrived and was awaiting him in the locker room.
After the game, Zorn did little to dispel the rumored food ordering escapade:
It was difficult for me. You know, it was difficult to stand and watch. You-you know, but I was involved with — the hard part is to keep your mouth shut. You know, because the play-caller has a, you know, you get in a rhythm, a-a-a-a-mo — you know where you wanna go, and uhhh, that’s why I would definitely —- uhhh, yeah, we’ll talk, y’know we’ll talk, how did it go?
One play summed up the Redskins effort. With 4:42 remaining in the game and Washington down 24-10, the offense had a fourth and goal at the Eagles four-yard line. Jason Campbell was in the shotgun. Center Casey Rabach snapped the ball ———— off his own leg. And the ball was recovered by Philadelphia.
Zorn’s sideline look entailed taking a few steps this way, then a few steps back to his original position, stand and stare balefully somewhere into space, and repeat his pacing back and forth, back and forth, to and fro, to grandmother’s house we —– oh, never mind.
The best thing that can happen to the Redskins is for the team to lose the remainder of its games. Hopefully this is enough to shame team owner Daniel Snyder into ridding himself of head of player personnel, Vinnie Cerrata and the entire coaching staff, and start anew with someone like former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach, Bill Cowher.
On the bright side of things, DeSean Jackson score on a 67-yard reverse and a 57-yard pass from Donovan McNabb. The rookie from Cal is the most explosive weapon McNabb has had with him since Terrell Owens.
Whoops, that’s Eagles news.
Dan Synder needs to go ahead and fire Jim Zorn right now. The Redskins are definitely lost on offense. Even though Jason Campbell has received his share of criticism, but what about Clinton Portis? He has been virtually non-existent and injury prone for nearly three years. Now he has been quiet for the most part and hasn’t publicly criticized his team, but I think the Redskins need to go in another direction in regard to their running game.
Portis isn’t the same explosive player that was when he was with Denver several years ago.
Campbell needs a consistent power running game and I don’t beleive Portis is the answer at this time. The Redskins do have O-Line issues, but it is generally easier to run-block than to pass block, but Campbell is throwing the ball way too many times per game.
It also reminds me of the Terrell Pryor situation at Ohio State. Pryor, just like Campbell is on an ‘island’ of uncertainty and the running game is absolutely non-existent. To me it starts with the running game. In Atlanta last year, to protect Matt Ryan, they drafted the 245 lb Michael Turner in New York, Brandon Jacobs had been the feature back along with Ahmad Bradshaw to help protect Eli Manning.
Patrick,
If you look at Michael Turner’s numbers in Atlanta, the question about the tread left on his tires has to loom large though. He’s not old by NFL standards, but he did tote the rock a BUNCH last year to keep defenses honest, which means he took a lot of dings, nicks and hits to save Ryan from both injuries and the rookie errors that help lose games. Are the extra carries from last year having an effect?
As for the Redskins, Joe Theismann does a radio show here in the DC Metro area, and he said that Gibbs brought in Campbell to run JOE’S offense. Sadly, that offense that Joe runs is not predicated on West Coast Offense principles. In San Diego when he was the OC for Don Coryell’s teams? He had Fouts, Jefferson, Joiner, Muncie, and Winslow at WR, RB and TE. And they went up and down the field with a high-wire act that was fun to watch. When he got to DC, he used three different QB’s with the same counter-gap/counter-trey running play to highlight a ball control offense. Basically, the model for Gibbs is like Earl Weaver’s old baseball teams that preached picthing, defense and the three-run homer. Gibbs’ teams was running the football, defense, and throwing the ball outside to Art Monk and Gary Clark.
Why Gibbs gave up draft picks for Campbell is a mystery seeing as how he tried to shoe-horn the guy into an offense he’s not suited for anyway. Campbell’s a seven-step drop guy. But that only works if there’s a running game to keep the front seven honest. While he’s dropping back, those front seven guys are coming hard with the down four and the linebackers are barely dropping, so there’s very little underneath….
DJ’s no rookie.
Blake Griffin might be karma to Donald Sterling, then this is karma for the Redskins keeping their name in court.