It's pretty pathetic when the best highlight your team has in the last 2 weeks is a field goal.
OK, so we didn't get shut out again yesterday, but if you consider meaningful points, we are still looking for some. I don't count the 59 yard field goal (although that WAS impressive), and the TD late in the 4th quarter was a throwaway. Neither of those scores were meaningful because they didn't really do much to give the Redskins momentum and you can't expect that a 59 yard field goal is going to happen. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, the scoreless streak continues. I could pretty much cut and paste my analysis from the Buffalo game for this one here and it would still be true, so I'll spare you the details this time and keep it short and sweet.
The Redskins are not good. The issues with the team go far beyond quarterback (although quarterback is a BIG problem). The offensive line is not cohesive and it has no depth at all. The defense now looks more like the defense from last season, not opportunistic, and very yielding in the middle of the field. Frank Gore rushed for over 100 yards by mostly going up the middle. The secondary is not good at all. How do you let a backup tight end get behind you to score a touchdown (on the first play after Roy Helu fumbled near the end of the first half no less)? It wasn't even Vernon Davis who scored it. If Vernon beats you, OK fine. He's big, strong, and creates severe mismatches, but who is B. Miller? Give me a break.
I get the feeling that should I decide to continue this item for the duration of the season, I'm going to be writing pieces very similar to this one. This team is not fun to watch, and quite frankly, I think the Shanahans are not really concerned about the team anymore, at least based on how they were calling the game. Mike knows that Danimal has an itchy trigger finger when it comes to canning coaches. He also knows that he is probably safe, but sonny boy Kyle may very well be on the chopping block. By calling very vanilla plays, with absolutely no risk taking whatsoever (did anyone see a single pass that traveled more than 10 yards?), Mike is protecting Kyle from the chopping block. TMQ believes that coaches prefer to shift blame to the players when teams are not going well, and I have a sneaky suspicion that this is what is going on here. They say all the right things in press conferences, but when it comes to game management, they call the simplest game possible so that they cannot be blamed for taking ill-advised risks. Football is a very high-risk high-reward game. By playing so close to the vest, it's hard for the coach to look bad because he is always making the "safe" call. Players don't execute, therefore, the blame usually be shifted to them.
The Shanahans don't want to break up their little oligarchy at the top of the Redskins' coaching food chain. The whole reason Kyle was brought on in the first place was that he led a productive offense in Houston, and Grossman got to tag along because he "knew it." As I said last week, I could have been a prolific offense if I had Matt Schaub throwing to Andre Johnson. Now in Washington, where the pieces are not quite as good, he really has/had a chance to prove that he could cut the offensive mustard. Kyle has failed, people. Yes, I understand that we don't have any good players to execute, and no offensive system is good unless you have the proper personell to run it. However, when the playcalling is such that you have absolutely no faith in the system itself and all you're trying to do is protect whomever is calling the plays from getting fired, it's time to get a new system.
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