Landover, Md. – It wasn’t quite the game most had envisioned for the Washington Redskins. When the team streamed off of the field after the 45-14 whupping handed to them by the New York Giants, the fans were shaking their heads and, most likely remembering a November Monday night in 2010 when another division opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles, popped the Redskins 59-28. At least Washington scored a few more touchdowns in that game. At this point, the Burgundy and Gold is 0-4 at home on national television in the last few years. Seeing their team play at home at night is not a good way for Redskins fans to spend their time and money.
While quarterback Kirk Cousins played surprisingly badly, make no mistake… this was a total team effort, this loss.
Between penalties (11 for 88 yards), turnovers (2 fumbles, both lost; 4 interceptions), losing the time of possession battle (Giants had the ball for 37:17 to the Redskins’ 22:43) and third-down inefficiency (Washington had one conversion out of eight chances whereas the Giants converted 11 of 16) and not-very-good defense; it just was a bad effort all around by Washington.
Redskins head coach Jay Gruden described it various ways in his post-game presser last night.
“We didn’t have our team ready to play. They outplayed us, in every phase – offense, defense, special teams. Third down, they were better offensively. We were abysmal, offensively and defensively. It showed. Turned the ball over, six times. They had one turnover. Most dominated performance by them, and congratulations.”
And;
“[We had]… poor play calls, poor play design, forced throws, poor protection, [the Giants had] good defense.”
And;
“We by no means can put the blame on Kirk for this game. This was a total team debacle and total domination by the Giants in all phases.”
And the ultimate description;
“Turnovers, lack of turnovers, third down, lack of third down conversions offensively, lack of getting off the field defensively. Not a lot to say… the game was pretty evident. Total butt-kicking from offense, defense, special teams.”
The misfortune began early. Not only did the Redskins have a roughing-the-passer (defensive end Jason Hatcher) penalty on the New York Giants’ first play of their first possession of the game, there was another penalty on the first punt that the Giants sent down the field by the special teams (defensive end Clifton Geathers – illegal-use-of-the-hands) that put the ball on the six yard line – a bad place to start the Redskins’ first drive.
In a nice start to the series, tight end Niles Paul caught a 13-yard pass from Cousins to give the offense a little breathing room. Then running back Alfred Morris had a nice four-yard run. In the next play, Cousins did a decent imitation of injured starting quarterback Robert Griffin, III and ran for 12 yards on a read-option play. But that was it for that for that series because a couple of plays later, Cousins was sacked on his own 24-yard line for an eight-yard loss and fumbled the ball. New York recovered and that’s kind of how the rest of the game went.
When the Giants took the ball on their own 34-yard-line, the Redskins’ defense did exhibit some of the same good tackling they’ve been showing this season but that was the sum total of the unit’s good play for the most part. Of course, it’s hard to stop a team when they have to only go 34 yards to go to score. It took the Giants six plays and quarterback Eli Manning to throw a five-yard pass into the middle of the end zone (where no Washington defensive player was) to New York tight end Larry Donnell. Neither of the Redskins’ safeties Brandon Meriweather or Ryan Clark; or linebacker Keenan Robinson, were close enough to get to him. To top the short series off, Washington incurred a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty (Geathers again) for “jumping up on an opponent and trying to block the kick.” What official calls that?
For much of the rest of the half, the Redskins looked lost against the Giants offense and their defense. The Redskins did score once on an 18 yard pass to wide out Andre Roberts in the second quarter — his first touchdown as a Redskin — but did not do much more. Manning connected twice more with Donnell for two more touchdowns and it was obvious that the Redskins’ defense was not ready for the Giants new short-and-controlled-west-coast-no-huddle offensive scheme.
Washington’s booth did not help things when it challenged two rulings on the field with zero success on either. Earlier this week Gruden told the media that President and General Manager Bruce Allen lives up in the booth on game day with a major input to challenge flag decisions. The Redskins are now 0-4 on that front and Allen needs to give that part of his job up to someone else.
Throughout the first half, it didn’t help Washington that New York’s offensive line did their fair share of holding without being caught but the officials seemed to really pick on the Redskins.
Washington’s first drive of the second quarter had some bright spots. Paul was huge early in the quarter, contributing on the drive that culminated on the pass to Roberts. He ended up catching three balls for 60 yards until he got hit really badly on a 28-yard reception. He caught the ball and was hit on both sides by Giants’ safeties Antre Rolle and Quintin Demps (the latter incurring an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty). He was down for a scary several minutes, unmoving, but finally was escorted out and very obviously concussed.
There was no pass rush to speak of during most of the game. The one time the Redskins defense FINALLY got to Manning was when linebacker Ryan Kerrigan sacked him with 15 seconds left in the first half.
But between the Redskins inability to really move the ball and the Giants’ up-tempo offense (sound familiar?), by the end of the half, the score was 24-7, Giants.
After that opening 83-yard opening drive of 2nd half, there was a minute when one might have thought: “Is this going to be A ‘Tale of Two Halves’?” but it wasn’t to be so. That was pretty much THE highlight of the half for Redskins fans… because things got worse very quickly.
On the Giants’ first third quarter drive, the Redskins’ defense pressed and caused the G-Men to punt. When Washington got the ball back, it looked like things might be looking up. The team had a couple of decent plays, starting with a 26-yard pass to Morris plus a five-yard run by #46. But on third-and-three with decent field position (43-yard-line) Cousins opted to throw a short pass to rookie wide out Ryan Grant rather than Roberts, who was beyond the first down marker and in front of the Giants’ defender. Grant was being covered by New York cornerback Prince Amukamara and the defensive back grabbed the ball right out from in front of Grant for an interception. No disrespect to the first-year man but, Cousins had to have been flustered to go to a rookie rather than give one of his proven playmakers a chance to make a play in such an important game.
Fortunately, the Redskins got the ball right back when linebacker Keenan Robinson intercepted what would have been a touchdown pass intended for Giants’ wide out Reuben Randle. But again, on the Redskins ensuing possession, Cousins threw a deep pass intended for receiver Pierre Garçon which was also intercepted. Washington was back in their end zone after the Robinson interception and, after a five-step drop, it’s hard to know if Cousins felt too much pressure or not but, while he had Alfred Morris and fullback Darrel Young open enough to get them out of the end zone, Cousins stared down Garçon, threw it over the wide out’s head and into the hands of the Giants’ safety (Demps).
This is pretty much how the rest of the evening went for the Redskins. In the end, things just snowballed for the backup signal caller and the more mistakes he made, the worse his decision making became. He threw two more interceptions and by the fourth quarter, he was pretty much in a rut so deep, he couldn’t get out of it.
To top the night off, the team left the stadium with the injury to Paul (concussion), defensive end Jarvis Jenkins (rib contusion) and left tackle Trent Williams (knee strain).
Punter Tress Way was a bright spot, turning in a punting average of 58.3 yards. The special teams didn’t have the huge gaff of an opponent returning a kick or punt for a touchdown but their coverage wasn’t great. One of the Giants’ return men (Preston Parker) turned in a 34-yard return and he was always threatening to do more.
The Redskins were simply not ready for this game. It was a short week, yes. But every team has them and not all of them turn in performances like this one. Gruden may have, in an effort to let his team heal (there were 17 guys on the injury report turned in on Wednesday), not practiced hard enough in the four days since the previous game. They had walkthroughs and had been installing the game plan since training camp but maybe that’s just not enough. The Giants were sure ready.
The head coach feels like this loss was a total team effort and it was. Cousins will feel it was his fault as will most of the players if they look hard in the mirror. While ultimately it’s up to the coaching staff to get their players ready, it’s up to the players to play.
“I don’t know,” Gruden said when asked if he could have done things differently in preparation for the game. “We tried to get them prepared. We tried to get them healthy. Went through the walkthroughs and did our things and they just looked like a better team today. [It] looked like they were better coached today… hats off to the coaching staff of the Giants.”
Cousins will have to work hard to get past this one. The team will take some time off to heal and then have to get ready for another nationally televised game next Monday night against one of the best teams in the league, the Seattle Seahawks. Whether they bounce back will be up to the entire team, coaching staff included. The Redskins have to heal and then get back to work.
“We’ve got a lot of injuries man,” Darrel Young said last night after the game. “Got a lot — a lot — of injuries that need to be addressed and we’ve got to be in the training room. We’ve got to check each other; we’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror on Tuesday or whenever we’ve got practice — Monday, Sunday… whatever. Whenever we’ve got practice again we’ve got to look at ourselves and we’ve got to do better. I think if we are going to do this thing, we’ve got 12 games left to decide what we are going to do. Everything without a purpose is noise… [whether] we’re going to talk about it, be about it or go have fun. I don’t believe anybody on this team is sitting here saying that we are going 1-15 at this point. We are going to do some good things. We know what we are capable of doing, we just actually have to go out there and execute. So looking forward from here, everyone wants to put this game behind us, but the reality is for the next week and a half that is all we have to live by. We go into this weekend off looking at, ‘Hey, wish we could have, should have…’ You know, all that good stuff, but we just have to do better. There is no excuse for what happened tonight. They did a good job and capitalized on everything that we did wrong and we need to do the same.”
Is this shocking game a harbinger of things to come for the Washington Redskins in 2014?
Many will say it is. Others will say, “let’s wait and see.” Realistically, last night’s contest was in the “must-win” category and that didn’t happen. The next two games bring huge challenges for Washington in the form of the aforementioned Seahawks (2-1) and then the Arizona Cardinals (3-0). Gruden and his staff have their work cut out for them as do the players. As Young says, they’ve got to look at themselves in the mirror. If they can do that and find more than what they showed last night – and this includes the coaching staff – that could be their only chance.
When the personnel or scheme is new and when the chemistry and talent is developing or even questionable, can heart make up the difference?
Hail.