A Jabar Gaffney thread

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Jabar Gaffney needs 81 receiving yards against the Eagles to finish with 1,000 yards receiving, while catching passes from John Beck and Rex Grossman.

1,000 yards for a rusher doesn't mean much anymore, but it's still pretty rare for a receiver to get 1,000 yards. Santana Moss has done it three times as a Redskin. Jabar Gaffney hasn't done it in his 10 year career.

He is under contract for next year. But if we're going to actually rely on him for the future, we should extend him now as opposed to waiting for next season and then trying to decide how valuable he is at the end of next year.

Interestingly enough, Fred Davis probably would have gone over 1,000 yards this year had he not been suspended and remained healthy. The Redskins could have (although it would have been unlikely) produced two 1,000 yard receivers this year.

Looking at film, I think our passing game is still pretty limited. It still relies on the opponent playing a lot of zone coverage to create passing lanes. You pretty much have to man cover the Redskins. When you do, you get games like the Jets game where Grossman looks terrible. But not every defense in the NFL is comfortable playing man coverage.

But two different guys approaching 1,000 yards this year is not insignificant, and suggests that the passing game may be improving. Maybe not improving by a lot, but the ability to beat up on teams that play zone is much improved over being unable to beat any team.

Wouldn't you agree this is more of a talent issue than a scheme issue? For example, if we had better talent at the position routes like the deep crosses would be tougher to cover with man coverage. I'm actually looking forward to this scheme with a better cast of characters. Not taking anything away from Gaffney, he's had an excellent year-only noting that if he has 1,000 yards, Davis would have been close or eclipsed 1,000 yards and even with his poor ball security Grossman is close to achieving career yardage totals, the system ain't broke.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

Wouldn't you agree this is more of a talent issue than a scheme issue? For example, if we had better talent at the position routes like the deep crosses would be tougher to cover with man coverage. I'm actually looking forward to this scheme with a better cast of characters. Not taking anything away from Gaffney, he's had an excellent year-only noting that if he has 1,000 yards, Davis would have been close or eclipsed 1,000 yards and even with his poor ball security Grossman is close to achieving career yardage totals, the system ain't broke.

Not being able to handle man coverage is a talent issue, not an issue with the Redskins being unable to call routes that beat man coverage.

The passing scheme is limited by the fact that it doesn't use the whole field sideline to sideline: it's a one-part of the field vertical attack off of play action. It's good because it attacks the safety level of the defense relatively often, and there aren't enough good safeties in this league to stop it. But we don't use the whole field and motion to create match-ups. The only matchups we take advantage of are gameplanned. There are no adjustments-on the fly in the passing game. It's the same thing every week, every drive. Which limits the kinds of looks we can give a defense.

The offensive staff made some awful personnel decisions in the running game, and so we pretty much did not have a running game for the first 9 or 10 games of the season. Now they've added a few wrinkles with end arounds, reverses, and even something as simple as using the toss play off of inside zone blocking to give the defense fits. We've done a good job of attacking defenses on the ground in the month of December, even though it couldn't have made less of a difference to the staff most of the season. That's the bizarre angle.

So more offensive wrinkles have made the Redskins more difficult to defend, which is a big plus. It's also dictating more zone coverage in early downs, when the Redskins like to throw. And in third down and manageable, our OL has improved and our WRs are finally getting open.

But I would say that we're still very limited in the passing game. Limited doesn't mean bad, it just means no margin for error. I don't think our passing scheme will ever go out and just systematically light people up, regardless of who we get at quarterback and who we get at receiver. I think we'll continue to have success attacking the safety level of the defense. And like I said before, the ways to adjust to the Redskins are to increase the supply of good cover safeties in the NFL, or to play a lot of man coverage.

Kyle has not proven that if the Redskins see a steady diet of press man coverage to throw off the timing of the Redskins passing game, that he is comfortable running the ball to win the game. But I think he's calling much more diverse games than he was even a month ago.