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Offensive Review: Giants

Another game, another 17 point day. You can win games with 17 points, but if the goal remains 21 PPG, then, well, there's a little bit more work here before they realize their true potential.

When the Redskins aren't throwing interceptions or fumbling, it makes sense to say that the defense needs to do more to help them. And the way that the defense gave away third down conversions and field position, well, yeah, the offense was going to need to be darn good to score more than three times.

But the when the offense commits two turnovers, then they are putting the defense in bad situations. It just so happened that Osi Umenyiora's strip-sack-recovery-touchdown was a worst case scenario that prevented the defense from going out there to get a stop, so the defense never inherited a bad situation. The offense fumbled, and it's inherent in the nature of football that every so often, innocent mistakes become 10-14 point swings.

Do the Giants win if Jason Campbell never fumbles? Are the Redskins ever in the game if Eli's fumble was properly called a 15-yard facemask on Andre Carter? This review will answer half of that question, and the defensive review will attempt to answer the other half.

But first, I think we'll start up front.

[B]Experimental Lineman Yards

[/B]This year, instead of running play success rate, I'm going to be calculating a highly experimental stat that can only be done with game film: lineman yards. The goal is to borrow the adjusted line yards concept from football outsiders, and instead of calculating how well the line does as a whole independent of long runs, I'm going to try to divide the yards gained by the blocker who earns them. Ideally, I'll be able to make a statement like: Derrick Dockery is worth 4.5 YPC on front side runs. But again, it's going to be a lot of work for something that probably won't hold up as a legitimate evaluation method, so I might ditch it.

Right now, I don't feel comfortable saying that I won't change the methodology ever so slightly to make this feel more accurate. The idea for lineman yards is borrowed in part from Football Outsiders (the Adjusted Line Yards calculations they do provide baselines for my work here) and also from KC Joyner's POA metrics, but as far as I know, I'm the first person to try to do this at an individual level.

I'm currently developing a methodology for downfield blocking that I hope to introduce next week. Here's the Lineman Yards from the Giants game, displayed in a yards per carry form of sorts:

[LIST=1][*]Derrick Dockery 4.22 (9 attempts)[*]Fred Davis 4.00 (3 attempts)[*]Mike Sellers 3.88 (8 attempts)[*]Chris Samuels 3.73 (11 attempts)[*]Randy Thomas 1.38 (2 attempts)[*]Chris Cooley 1.33 (3 attempts)[*]Casey Rabach 0.95 (5 attempts)[*]Stephon Heyer -0.88 (4 attempts)[/LIST]The Redskins still run almost exclusively to the left, which makes sense, since Chris Samuels is their best blocker. The Redskins also run all their plays off tackle or end, which skews Rabach's numbers, since he's only at the POA if Portis has to cut back. Heyer suffers from a sample size issue, since if you allow one six yard loss in only 4 runs, it's going to look really bad.

In pass protection, Heyer may be the weak link of the group, but he held up pretty well against Justin Tuck all things considered. What was really impressive about the Redskins offensive line is that all of the cohesion problems of last season appear to be in the past. The offensive line only had one or two hits on Campbell that could have been picked up, which is roughly 500% better than it was last year.

Randy Thomas and Casey Rabach were major culprits last year, but Rabach has been a bit improved over what I saw last year from the preseason through week one, and Thomas just looks like a leader on this line. Heyer made some mental errors, some misreads, but Thomas always seemed to have his back. Randy Thomas might not have had many oppertunities to blow open a hole for Portis, but his job on the line in pass pro was the difference between a winning pass blocking unit, and the Giants being able to confuse Stephon Heyer with exotic rushes. With his physical abilities in decline, it was a real positive to see him take up for the 25 year old like that.

[B]Passing Game

[/B]Both of the big errors came in the passing game. If the Redskins were going to lose the game, it's probably a good thing that Jason Campbell's mistakes actually resulted in turnovers. He's getting pretty close to realizing his true potential, and if stepping up in the pocket away from the Giants DE duo is the difference between winning the division and not winning it, it will be a tough pill to swallow. But you have to think that the next time a similar situation occurs, Campbell will approach it differently.

Let me take you through that decisive play. The Redskins are near midfield after converting a critical third down pass. It's first and ten, and Zorn is looking to attack the defense. They are already trailing 10-0 and last drive, Campbell was intercepted. So you can imagine how the team is looking for a score.

They come out in a power formation, with Fred Davis and Chris Cooley to the right and Santana Moss split to the left with Portis and Sellers in an I-Formation. Campbell takes the snap, play actions a lead play to Portis (the Redskins never actually run a lead play though), and sets up deep, about 9 yards behind the Center.

Here are the routes: Moss is running a skinny post, and is double covered. Fred Davis is running a drag and is not open. Chris Cooley made an outside release and is running the over (the middle) route at about 12 yards. Campbell wants to go to Cooley with the football, and sets up waiting for him to come open. Except, as Cooley heads across the middle of the field, he never does come free. With only 3 receivers in downfield patterns, the Giants have the play defended.

Campbell has room to step up and run with the football for at least three or four yards, but never steps up. At the last second, his eyes go to Mike Sellers to check the ball down in the middle of the field, but as soon as his hands break, Osi gets to the ball and strips him. Normally, the Redskins have a back in the backfield to make the recovery or at very least, the tackle, but on this particular play, both backs were in check down routes. Once the ball is stripped, and Umenyiora got it quickly, there was no one on their feet in position to make a play.

I don't feel Samuels did anything wrong on this play. He did get beat, but I think after Campbell realizes that none of his receivers are going to be open, stepping up in the pocket should be a natural reaction. A checkdown can be thrown on the run.

This play, I think, detracts from the numbers the Redskins passing game produced against what I consider to be the top defense in the NFC East:

[LIST][*]2 sacks given up (not including Randle El's sack)[*]73% of passes completed[*]8.1 yards per attempt[*]6.1 adjusted yards per attempt[/LIST]Here's the statistical truth: a passing offense that gains 8.1 yards per play and turns the ball over twice per game wins between 10-10.5 games a season given adequacy in every other phase of the game. So if we want to figure out if the Redskins are in trouble, we will need to look elsewhere.

[B]The Final Word

[/B]I thought the playcalling left a lot to be desired in the second half initially, but a closer look shows that Jim Zorn did make a half time adjustment to try to force the the Giants defense out of having it's best players on the field: he moved to a series of 3 WR sets. 23 out of 28 offensive plays were run with 3 WRs on the field. What this did was it forced the Giants to take a linebacker off the field on those 23 plays, and put an extra defensive back (rookie CB Bruce Johnson) on the field.

The problem is that no matter what Zorn ran in the second half, the Giants just never seemed to let the Redskins isolate Johnson. He was lined up against Malcolm Kelly most of the game and was given a safety over the top on virtually every play. That meant that Corey Webster was not getting safety help against Santana Moss, making it the key match-up in the game. Moss' stat line: 5 targets, 2 catches, 6 yards, no TDs, one pass intercepted (by Webster).

The third down play at the 8 yard line in the third quarter on which Campbell was sacked by Justin Tuck, Moss completely gave up on route. He drew a safety as well as Terrell Thomas, made a cut to the inside, and kind of jogged over the middle while Campbell went down. I guarentee you Zorn didn't call that route, and Moss' complete lack of effort is very disheartening.

Antwaan Randle El is carving out a niche as a third down machine. You know what, we can sit him on the bench for the first two plays of every series if he can come off of it and extend a drive for us from the slot. The reason the Redskins got more than 8 yards a pass attempt? The complete domination of Terrell Thomas by Randle El. Keep him in the gameplan.

Cooley's seam route for the touchdown was a perfectly executed thing of beauty. Both of Campbell's last two throws on that drive were into a tight defense. Trailing by 13 points, of course the Giants would have let Jason Campbell dink and dunk down the field. But his final two throws of the drive were big time throws against a first string defense trying to close out the game, and can not be discounted by even Campbell's harshest critics. The throw to Randle El was made into the teeth of a Giants blitz, not a prevent defense.

Here are the final numbers for the game offensively:

[LIST][*]5.47 yards per play[*]41% success rate[*]2 turnovers[*]0 offensive penalties[*]Only 3 successful runs[/LIST]