Redskins 16-Steelers7: Game Analysis

All things considered, the Redskins played very well tonight.  Now, I understand that last season in the first preseason game, we blasted Buffalo 42-13 or something like that.  I will be the first one to tell you that at the end of the day, nobody remembers what you did in the preseason, especially the first game (I say immediately after quoting a score from the first preseason game last year...keep the jokes to a minimum).  The bottom line is that when the games start  to count, this will mean nothing at all.  Nevertheless, I have to say I am happy with what I saw.  We only got in the end zone once (a Grossman pass to Santana Moss), but we had several drives longer than 80 yards.  Our first drive of the night started at the 1 yard line, and Sexy Rexy marched them all the way to the Pittsburgh 10, only to see the drive stall there and watch Shayne Graham absolutely shank a 27-yarder. 

The starters played pretty much the whole first half.  Grossman took all of the snaps as John Beck is still trying to push his groin (since he already pulled it).  By and large, Grossman's passes were on target, if not perfectly accurate, and Tim Hightower ran the ball effectively.  In fact, our running game all night looked pretty good, which is saying something considering how we avoided contact in practice at all costs.  Now, I don't know how well-conditioned the Steelers' defensive front was, so let's put it all in perspective.  Defensively we looked pretty sharp as well, albeit somewhat lucky.  Ben Roethlisberger played only one series, but had Mike Wallace wide open on a 9-route down the left sideline.  Somebody blew a coverage on that side of the field, but Big Ben overthrew his man by about 5 yards.  Byron Leftwich had several overthrows during his time in the first half as well.  On special teams, Shayne Graham was 0-2 missing from 27 and 49 (missing from 27 badly).  Graham Gano was 3-3.  Two of his makes were in the 30-yard range, and his last kick was 45.  Kickers need to be perfect inside of 40 yards if you ask me, so I'm slightly impressed.  So in the early going Gano is in the lead in the kicking competition.  Brandon Banks had a good night returning kicks, including one kickoff he took 7 yards deep in the end zone and ran it out past midfield.  The last guy tackled him saving a touchdown.  I'll talk more about kickoffs shortly. 

The new guys made some impressions, both good and bad.  Leonard Hankerson had his dropsies return, just like I saw at practice on Wednesday.  Now, none of the drops came from perfect passes, but if it hits you in the hands (or the numbers) you have to catch it, period.  I think he is scared to come across the middle...alligator arms.  The new guys at running back were impressive.  Roy Helu showed some good quickness in the second half, and ran through a few tackles.  Evan Royster showed some good burst as well, especially going around the edge. 

I have a few things to say about the new kickoff rule.  This past offseason, the competition committee voted to move kickoffs from the 30 to the 35 yard line, only allowing the coverage team a 5-yard run up as well.  Naturally, this would mean the number of touchbacks would increase significantly, and every kickoff in this game was a touchback (with the exception of Brandon Banks' runout as I mentioned before).  The rule was put in place ostensibly for player "safety."  Reducing the number of kickoff returns reduces the chance at injury.  Well, it's pretty easy to make kickoff returns safe when you take them out of the game all together.  Just put the ball at the 20 and cut out the formality, why don't you?  One of the most exciting plays in football is the kickoff return for a touchdown.  Now, the likelihood of that happening this season is virtually zero.  What you are going to see is players like Brandon Banks and Devin Hester running kicks back that they field 7, 8, 9 yards deep in the end zone, just to give them a shot at a runback, even when judgement may be the better part of valor.  You watch, in 2012, the kickoff will be back at the 30, but the rules will not be the same as they are now.

Overall, I can't really complain with what I saw tonight.  All things considered, we looked pretty good.  We didn't turn the ball over once (but we didn't take it away either), and we were only flagged for I think 3 or 4 penalties: pretty good considering how sloppy I was expecting the game to go tonight.  I'm not booking my flight to Indy yet by any means, although I'm sure Kevin Sheehan is.  We have 3 more preseason games to examine, and the starters will have a little more time to work.  We will see our fair share of mistakes.  We are sure to make many.  We still need to see what John Beck can do as well.  At the very least, they gave me a reason to watch the next game next week.