The Redskins Are Back

PETE NEXT TIME BAT IT THE FUCK DOWN

Takeaway drill: making lazy mistakes, killing your own momentum, letting a measurably inferior team get a road win, congratulations offense you just screwed the defense and blew an easy game with playoff implications.

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Monday walkthrough: on a sunny October day and looking a lot more like the inconstent teams that gave up leads and made silly mistakes in 2006 and 2007 the Washington Redskins have the inevitable letdown after four straight wins, lose 19-17 to the St. Louis Rams, fall to 4-2. The turnover troll finally found the team, canceling the excellent performance by the defense.

The Redskins took the ball to start the first quarter and things started well enough with a good run, a good pass and a Rams penalty, before the first Redskins mistake, a false start by Jon Jansen, the team could not recover, stalled at midfield and punted. St. Louis was pinned deep on a good punt and Chris Horton blew in on the first play and stopped Steven Jackson for a yard gain. On the next play Marcus Washington gets a hand on Steven Jackson who fumbles and the Redskins recover, on the first play Clinton Portis went in for a three yard touchdown, an extra point later it was Redskins up 7-0. The Rams got the ball back and three and outed, on third down of the next Redskins drive St. Louis cornerback comes through the left side unblocked and sacks Jason Campbell. The Rams get the ball back and go 29 yards but stalled and Josh Brown banks a 51 yard field goal off the left upright to make the game 7-3 Redskins. When the Redskins got the ball back they moved at will going 33 yards on five plays when Chris Cooley caught a slant route, Rams cornerback OJ Atogwe pulled it out as Chris struggled for extra yards, it was recovered by St. Louis, two plays later the quarter ended with the Redskins ahead 7-3.

The Rams continued with the ball to start the second quarter but stalled at their own 46 and punted. Washington's fifth drive of the game started with Ladell Betts knifing through the middle for 13 yards, the Redskins moved 46 yards, including a fourth and one pick up by Clinton Portis, to the St. Louis 34 yard line when Casey Rabach's snap to Jason Campbell is low, it gets behind Jason and is recovered by Rams rookie defensive end Chris Long (Wahoowa!). The Rams though turn in an uninspired drive and punt. Washington then holds the ball almost four minutes, featuring a 19 yard scramble on third and eight to keep the drive alive, tight end Chris Cooley is then flagged for a false start and the drive cannot recover, Durant Brooks' punt is a weak 35 yards and boos cascade from the stands. The Rams are weak and three and out and the Redskins get the ball for the seventh time with 2:02 left in the half, two great catches by Chris Cooley and two great runs by Clinton Portis and one holding call on left guard Pete Kendall and Washington was on the St. Louis 16 yard line. With 26 seconds left in the half Jason Campbell dropped back to pass, his throw was batted at the line and fell into left guard Pete Kendall's hands. Foolishly Pete tucked the ball up and tried to advance upfield, Rams linebacker Pisa Tinoisamosa hit Pete right on the ball and out it popped, St. Louis cornerback OJ Atogwe, having a good game at this point, scooped it up and ran 75 yards for the touchdown, an extra point and the Rams were up 10-7. The Redskins fielded a meaningless kickoff with nine seconds left and just like that the half was over with the Rams leading 10-7.

The Rams had the ball to start the third quarter and moved downfield fairly easily, this drive featured a great play by Chris Horton to come across the field and stop Steven Jackson four yards short on third and fourteen. Leading by three with more than 12 minutes left in the quarter St. Louis opted to go for it on fourth and four... and Marc Bulger connected with Torry Holt for seven yards. Once inside the red zone St. Louis stalled at the Redskins 7 and Josh Brown kicked a 25 yard field goal to move the game to 13-7 Rams.

(more to come here)

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Soapbox: at the coarsest grain this game fundamentally came down to two plays, the Rams fourth and four at 12 minutes left third quarter, if the defense holds St. Louis is looking at a 54 yard field goal or a punt, leading by three. Instead of holding and getting a chance to take the lead back St. Louis adds three more points.

The other play would of course be the 43 yard Marc Bulger to Donnie Avery pass at the end of the game, to put the Rams in field goal range. Leigh Torrence was on coverage and it was not a terrifically thrown ball, perhaps as a Redskins fan I am accustomed to Jason Campbell's strong arm, many of Marc Bulger's passes seemed not to have much zip, this pass in question was a little fluttery, Avery adjusted and got back under it. If the Redskins defense makes that play, stops that catch then the Rams are looking at fourth and 13 in their own territory down by one, that is a tough fourth down play to make.

This is not to say it was the defense's fault, no indeed far from it. The offense coughed it up three times, one of which was a direct score by the opponent. So in that sense you could just as easily say the Pete Kendall fumble was the play of the game since the defense would not have been in the same position if that play had not happened. It's all relative.

At the finest grain everybody is at fault here, some poor individual effort and a little questionable playcalling, not a total trainwreck, everybody just took a game off, the stats do not look bad, in fact they look quite comical. St. Louis had eight first downs, 200 total yards of offense, committed 10 penalties, Steven Jackson under three ypc. St. Louis gave up 22 first downs and 181 yards rushing, almost six ypc. Jason Campbell had a 93 passer rating.

The Redskins were still pretty good while they were being as bad as they have been since game one. I hope they learn from the experience, all pretty correctible stuff.

That said...

Fundamentals people! Jason Campbell (second quarter), when you get a bad snap like that do not try and scoop it up to save the play, fall on it! Pete Kendall (also second quarter), in the first place if you see a batted pass by your quarterback in your airspace YOU BAT IT THE FUCK DOWN. M'kay so anyway if you do decide to catch it then great, now you have the ball so go ahead and FALL THE FUCK DOWN ON IT. One thing you DO NOT do is tuck it up and play tailback because you know, you don't really have training on ball handling and those kind of fuckups are the ones that lead to touchdowns by your opponents' defense. That was the bonehead play of the year, coach please work on situational awareness this week.

This game most closely parallels game six of the 2006 season against the Titans, Tennessee was 0-5 and Washington was 2-3, we still did not yet know how bad the Redskins were going to be that year, after that game we knew, this game was so bad it took three bitter installments on Curly R to wrap the game. The twist is that in that game it was the defense that let the team down, in this game it was the offense, the Redskins defense was not sloppy at all in this game.

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Chattering class:

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Omnibus: seconds before Jon Jansen's false start on the first Redskins drive of the game, Daryl Moose Johnston reinterated to his co host Kenny Albert that this Redskins offense quote they do not do anything that beats themselves unquote, an ominous foreboding.

Shawn Springs did not start, Fred Smoot took the field with Carlos Rogers to open the game.

Marc Bulger hit LaRon Landry right in the hands on the Rams' second possession, a teeny tiny hit by Torry Holt caused him to lose it, LaRon needs to pull those in. London Fletcher had another sure interception at the start of the third quarter and could not hang on to it.

Seems like Chris Horton is everywhere on every play. He is shaping up to be a steal of the 2008 draft.

Despite the fumble and the poor recovery of the bad snap, Jason Campbell still showed some niftiness in the pocket to dodge tacklers.

At 14:00 left in the half sideline reporter Tony Siragusa said he did not see much of a killer instinct from the Redskins. About four game minutes later Tony said the Redskins were letting the Rams hang around, that the St. Louis players looked energized.

Jim Zorn did it again though without the win it may not be remembered as a Jim Zorn moment of playcalling zen, second quarter facing fourth and one near midfield and leading 7-3, coach opts to give it to Clinton Portis who barely makes the first down.

On the first play of the last Rams drive of the half, a short Steven Jackson run to the middle, London Fletcher lost his helmet, he was calling for a penalty, he was arguing that his helmet had been deliberately ripped off in the pile. There was no penalty and from the main camera we could not see what happened on his side of the pile.

Two plays before Pete Kendall made the dumbest play evar, Pete was flagged for a hold, replays showed clearly that both Pete and right tackle Jon Jansen committed flagrant holds. On the play immediately after the holding call tight end Cris Cooley made a spectacular over the shoulder catch with contact and he held onto it.

On Pete's dumb play, here are the errors:
1. A tipped or batted ball at the line should be batted down, this kills the play. There is too much that can go wrong when players take their eyes off Pete caught the ball, then had to make a decision about what to do.
2. Now

I know it was Marine Corps day at Redskins Stadium, I heard it on the radio and saw a snippet of the pregame activities on the broadcast at halftime, the fighter jet flyover and the silent drilling with the gun toss were cool but seriously the Iwo Jima reeanactment? Something about that seems inappropriate to me.

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Nontitillating Zorn:

Shooter:

Coltrolled:

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Washington Post / AP recap, box score, play by play, photos. NFL recap, box score, full play by play, Gamebook (PDF), photos.

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OJ Atogwe about to scoop up Pete Kendall's fumble: Reuters Pictures from here.