The shutout by 24 points that the St. Louis Rams handed the Washington Redskins this past Sunday was about as frustrating a game as the team has played so far. Quarterback Colt McCoy was sacked six times. His replacement (when he had to leave the game due to a neck injury), Robert Griffin, III, was sacked as well. The running game was non-existent, the passing game was inconsistent and the defense featured the “same old thing” in terms of secondary breakdowns and poor tackling that spectators have become used to. Washington’s offense left the field having logged only 206 total yards, only 27 of which were from running the ball.
The game against the Rams is indicative of how the entire season has gone and now it’s Week 14 in a double-digit losing season. The team is about to go up against a division opponent in the New York Giants and there are some serious issues surrounding it.
Are these Redskins even motivated to play a competitive game? How do they work hard when history indicates that, even if they do, the results will be the same once game-time arrives? Have the players given up on the coaching staff? What are they going to do about the defense and the miscues? Do they put in enough time on film study after practice?
These are all tough questions especially because Washington’s final three contests are against their three NFC East division opponents and fans always expect a good performance. The aforementioned Giants game is in New York and then comes the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys to FedExField to close out the season. They do need to put up a good fight in these games.
Many questions get asked out at Redskins Park to players and coaches. But sometimes there just isn’t any way to answer them because they can only be answered with time and action. When considering the situation, it’s easy to see why this is. But, credit the players and coaches because, for the most part they try the best they can.
“When McCoy gets sacked,” fullback Darrel Young said this week, “the running back might miss a block, I might miss a block. Collectively everyone [during the Rams game] was doing something wrong in a different place. Special teams is… well, everyone’s played a part. The Rams kicked our butts in all three phases. So, we just have to be better… everything. I would just like for this week to put a game together — a complete game — offense, defense, special teams. You know… go out trying… that’s all I want. And I know everyone in this locker room will, regardless of what happens on the scoreboard. We just haven’t come out on top.”
Asked if head coach Jay Gruden deserved to remain at the position after this year, Young didn’t hesitate.
“Oh yea, absolutely.” he said. “I mean, it’s his first year coaching and it’s all these coach’s first year together. In the running game, in the passing game you see some things differently. So you have growing pains just like when you have a rookie quarterback or a rookie running back you miss some cuts, you miss some throws, stuff like that. So I think it’s growing pains for all of us. But as players we’ve got to help him out. All he can do is call the play; we’ve got to go execute it. Sometimes you just HAVE to make a play and that’s what we’re not doing right now regardless of what play is called.
“Jay is one of the best things to happen for this team so far,” the former linebacker went on. “I’m not just saying that because I’m a player and I want to keep my job and everything. But I like his personality. He’s been honest with you guys just like he’s been honest with us. If anyone wants to know what’s going on in his head or what he’s thinking from an organizational standpoint in terms of where we’re trying to go with this thing, ask him. He’s straightforward, he’s one of those guys I really respect and I’ll never forget about this season… You know obviously the last season and the one before that and all of that too. But, this one more so just because of all of the “sources” and just in terms of all of the noise coming out and three quarterback changes and just so many different things happening in one season. But, I feel like we’re still [together] and, no one is going to believe us but at the end of the day, I know what’s in this locker room, I know what we stand for, I know where we’re trying to go, we just have to go there and as far as everyone starting to believe in us.”
To fix the problem on the field, Gruden and his staff can only keep on coaching the way they know how and try and get these guys ready to play. Recently the head coach made the comment that, if he needs to motivate professional football players to play professional football, he’s got the wrong players.
“Well, I think you still have to come out with a great passion and a will to win and I think our guys understand that,” Gruden also said recently about keeping them fighting. “There’s a lot of teams out there right not that aren’t playing for playoffs or the Super Bowl right now. That doesn’t mean that they are not going to come to work. They are still going to come to work and our players are going to still come to work. They are very committed, they are good guys and they want to see this season end on a positive note. I mean, we are all embarrassed right now. We are not happy with the way the season has gone, but we still do have three division games left and there is still a lot to play for in my mind. Coaches’ jobs, players’ jobs, all our jobs are always on the line every time we step on the field and that’s the way you have to approach it to keep yourself motivated and hungry.”
Most of the players describe their teammates as working hard. They talk of working so hard during the week and the frustration of continuing to lose despite it.
“Yea, I’d say so” McCoy said today to reporters about whether the guys still wanted to play. “No one wants the record that we have. No one wants the season that we’ve had so far. In my mind and the way I approach it is, we have three of the most meaningful games of the year left, all in our division. All teams we play twice a year and, if we play good football, I feel like we can hang with any of them…
“…there’s good guys in this locker room, there really is,” he continued. “There’s guy who compete. There’s guys who fight. There’s guys who work hard at practice and those are the guys who you want on your football team. Those are the guys you want to play with. That’s why I’m doing everything I can to get myself ready to go because I know they’re looking at me to be that too… … I don’t think we need any more motivation, I really don’t.”
They also get asked a lot how they keep the outside world well… out there.
Despite all of the criticism on the defense, linebacker Will Compton feels like he and his teammates are well-prepared by the coaches to go into each game. It’s the situational football that keeps a defense from executing the game plan and how the players react to what an offense gives them. It is this, the details of the situations they find themselves in… the third-and-longs, second-and-mediums, for instance, that must be “won” to be successful. Are we in the red zone? Are we in the fringe area? How much time is left on the clock? These situations are the things that off the field study and extra time in the film room help on both sides of the ball and what every coach hopes his players are constantly trying to learn about.
Hopefully, it is this type of work at their craft that keeps players too busy to concentrate too much on what the negative things that the fans or media are saying.
“I try not to ride the roller coaster and, I don’t know, keep it light,” Compton said of how he handles the drama. “People who follow me know that I’ll shoot out a joke or a movie quote or something like that. But, at the end of the day, you’ve got to be careful about what you let enter into your mind and you can’t let negative things get into you and get to you and you’ve just got to put your head down and keep working.
There was a fight on Wednesday during passing drills between rookie cornerback Bashaud Breeland and fifth year wide out Andre Roberts. It was a pretty good one. A few plays before the fight, Roberts was about to make a nice catch on a pretty long pass from McCoy. Breeland defended it well and broke it up. The guys went down and it looked like the corner might have gotten a foot or knee to the groin. Roberts didn’t look as if he realized it and they went back to the huddle. It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that you could see Roberts advance on Breeland, throwing his helmet off as he walked. Breeland obviously saw him coming and threw his helmet off. You could see the two actually sort of get ready and they went at it. Punches were thrown and a few minutes of melee ensued. Fellow players broke it up and shortly afterwards, the media was kicked out. The bubble stayed inflated for the next few minutes and we assumed at the time that practice went on as planned.
It was good to see the fire from the players that the scuffle demonstrated. They are certain frustrated but Gruden agreed. He commented during his press conference that he ‘liked the competitive nature of the guys at practice.’ Perhaps that will show up Sunday against the Giants.
“We’ve got to end on a good note,” Will Compton also said this week. “We’ve got to focus on New York right now, we’ve got to get a win and we’ve got to do whatever it takes to get that win and just end on a good note going into the offseason.”
While there’s nothing to be done for the playoffs for this team and certainly a winning season is off of the table, it would be a half-way decent end to a terrible season if they won some of these division games.
And a sweep of the Cowboys?? The best case scenario for all involved.
Hail.