Disappearing Act

A bright spot

Takeaway drill: a great start, a complete second half collapse; no guts on third down; Clinton Portis in the doghouse; the Redskins have two receivers and apparently no more; the Redskins have a return game; despite giving up 21 unanswered points and struggling all second half the game came down the last play; Plaxico Burress is awesome.

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Monday walkthrough: Redskins lose 24-17 to the Giants after losing a first half two touchdown lead to poor execution, bad playcalls and Jason Campbell's inexperience. The Redskins roll into their bye week 2-1 and give away a home game against a division rival, wasting a great day and a record crowd.

As frustrated as I was yesterday upon sober reflection I saw only one structural problem, the offensive line. They need to jell together and get better because if that unit falters the whole offensive gameplan falls apart.

That said, the Redskins played a HORRIBLE second half with many mistakes and still had a chanceto tie it up or take the lead at the end of the game so while we are boo hooing today let's don't forget the Redskins totally collapsed and still just barely lost.

The first quarter saw Shaun Suisham's first missed field goal this season and the Giants turn that into three points. London Fletcher picked up a loose football caused by mean Andre Carter on the sack-fumble of Eli Manning (lol) and the Redskins turned that into a Clinton Portis touchdown, end of quarter was 7-3 Redskins.

In the second quarter Jason Campbell and Santana Moss hooked up on a 49 yard bomb, they have one long pass each game so far and opposing defenses must account for this deep threat. Chris Cooley pulled in three catches including the touchdown. Later in this quarter London Flectcher feathered his nest with his second turnover of the day, an interception on a pass intended for Jeremy Shockey, who may or may not love cocky. The Redskins played that gift conservatively and scored a field goal to end the half winning 17-3.

Then something happened.

The Giants opened the third quarter by going on a 61 yard drive that included three for three on third down and scoring from a yard out. The Redskins three and outed but safety and wildman Sean Taylor saved them on the next Giants drive by intercepting a pass that Eli never should have thrown. The Redskins did nothing, three and outing again and then the Giants started marching when the quarter ended 17-10 Redskins.

The Redskins still had plenty of chances and took alomost none of them in the fourth quarter. The Giants finished their third quarter drive, scoring on another Reuben Droughns short yardage play, the Redskins three and outed then the Giants punted.

Here we go we said sitting around the TV at my neighbors' outdoor tiki bar, time to get hard on offense and regain control of the game. Instead Clinton Portis and Jason Campbell fumbled the handoff on a second down run and former Redskin Antonio Pierce recovered.

Almost as if to say we were not ready for that Carlos Rogers and the Redskins defense gave up a 33 yard touchdown pass to Plaxico Burress who had a big day that could have been bigger if he had not dropped three in the first half.

The next Redskins series was eight consecutive pass calls before Jason Campbell finally fumbled but recovered and the team punted. The Redskins used timeouts and run defense to force the Giants to three and out and only too 17 seconds off the clock.

The long and short of the rest of the game was Casey Rabach fucking it up for the rest of the team - his holding penalty on third and eleven negated a 25 yard catch by Antwaan Randle El to the Giants 11 and then his false start moved them back after a good gain by Santana. While Clinton watched and Santana limped the game ended on bad decisions and good defense by the Giants.

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Soapbox: well what did we learn today?

The Redskins retooled offensive line had its first bad day. Chris Cooley stayed home most of the day to block which is not a good thing. Chris is a receiver and it is a bad sign when the team needs him on the field to catch passes but also to keep Jason Campbell off his backside. Guys, gotta knock off the false starts.

The Redskins' receivers can get open downfield. This is a pleasant change from recent years when if Mark Brunell did not have his main read everything turned into a dumpoff. Have the Redskins even run that receiver screen to Santana that they ran a million times last season? Defenses must respect the fact that Jason Campbell can place it further than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage.

And in that vein we also learned how to rattle Jason Campbell. The adjustments Tom Coughlin made at half time, they worked. The Giants could not run with Santana and Antwaan so they backed off to a zone and clogged the lanes. This in turn forced Jason Campbell to check down to find an open man. Couple this with weak offensive line play and the Giants could pressure Jason into mistakes. Rush him hard and make him think about it.

What was up with Clinton? He dropped a third down pass in the fourth quarter and then on the next possession he and Jason botched the handoff. He did not carry the ball again and the cameras showed him on the sideline as the Redskins tried in vain to get in the end zone for the tying score. Is Clinton in the dog house?

So much for third down efficiency. The Giants offense was 9 of 16 on third down and the Redskins defense looked in the second half like that awful bunch from 2006. A bunch of nicks and scrapes on defense as well, HB Blades was only in the game because of an injury to Rocky McIntosh but he had a hell of a hit on Derrick Ward in the 4th quarter.

We can lose the new uniforms. And I never saw LaVar Arrington in the stands, even though his tenure with the Redskins ended poorly I still blame his agent, I thought highly of his good years and I was sorry to hear about his motorcycle accident and the entire staff of The Curly R wishes LaVar the best as he recovers and attempts to resume his football career.

Plaxico Burress who was supposed to be hurt had the hot hand and if he had not dropped three that hit him on the hands this game would not have been that close.

As Wilbert Montgomery and others can attest I have had a conspiracy theory for some time that the Redskins will return to Washington DC proper and now there is more fuel for this kind of kooky thinking (op. cit.), this is a developing story and Curly R will address it at length here on the bye week.

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Chattering Class: Mike Wise at the WaPo thinks this was a blowed up game: poor playcalling, wrong personnel, bad decisions on the field. He's right and they a week to shake it off.

Tom Boswell also at the WaPo walks through the Redskins' last four plays, the team needs to work execution but also game management.

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Omnibus: the Redskins have a return game dadgumit. Rock Cartwright averaged 28 yards on punt returns and Antwaan averaged 12 yards on kickoff returns including 27 yards on the return that set up the Redskins last desperation drive.

Aside from the missed field goal the special teams played well, and man can Derrick Frost boot it.

The box score literally has only to receivers credited with catches, Santana and Antwaan. I'm telling you all this fuss over who will be number three number four and number five is all irrelevant, the Redskins run a two receiver offense.

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Area 51: Sean Taylor's and LaRon Landry's names are all over this game, they played well and Sean scored an interception, LaRon a crushing 'no layups' hit on Plaxico Burress as he crossed the goal on his 33 yard catch and run. They both finished with six tackles which is as much good play as it is with a weak second half defense the action moved past the line and linebackers and forced Area 51 to pick up the slack. Need to see less of this.

Freddie Your Cruise Director: Fred Smoot was on the inactive list for the second consecutive week with a hamstring. One more week and I will be concerned, we saw Shawn Springs out there limping a bit late in the game and with Santana's hammy, Loveboat Freddie's hammy (both op. cit.) and the Shawn Springs mini-controversy over his hammy from two weeks ago I'm getting a little nervous.

NFL recap, box score, full play by play, Gamebook (PDF), photos.



Other gamewraps: Running Redskins, Bram Weinstein's Covering the Redskins, Redskins AOL Fanhouse.

Note to self: Chris Cooley should not block Michael Strahan one on one. Up next, the bye week and then the Mike Martz, Jon Kitna and the reborn Greatest Show on Turf Lions on 14 October, they just got shellacked by UCLA.

Santana Moss making one of his three catches between Sam Madison and Corey Webster: Greg Fiume / Getty Images from here. Mike Martz and Jon Kitna from here.