The Redskins Are Close

[44Deezel]

Campbell hasn't even been close on any ball that has had to travel longer than 20 yards in the air. I don't necessarily blame Zorn, although he's not earned even the benefit of the doubt at this point. But it's not like he only calls plays where every route is 5-10 yards deep. There's an intermediate to deep route on just about every pass play, but Campbell is not one to force a throw into a tight spot. That's good and bad. Good in that he doesn't turn the ball over often and bad in that it forces his team to put together excruciatingly long drives in order to get into the scoring zone. This leads to less possessions, higher degree of difficulty (more plays = more chances for something to eventually go wrong) less pass interference calls (they were last in the league last year) and abysmally low scoring. Bad becomes worse in the end zone, where precision, accuracy, touch and a little aggressiveness is required. Hard to expect a guy who plays it ultra-safe between the 20s to all of a sudden change who he is in the red zone. And the red zone problem is nothing new. The Skins were 4th worse in the league in red zone scoring last year. Yes, Suisham was part of the problem, so spare me the retort.

We've seen Campbell in multiple systems now, and in each he's a plodding down the field 5-10 yards at a time kind of QB. The fact that he protects the ball is AWESOME and would be especially awesome if he played on a team with a dominant running attack and a nasty, all-time great Defense. In that scenario, he would be Trent Dilfer on steroids. The Skins could go undefeated. But as it stands, he plays for a team that needs him to do more, and up to this point, he's proven incapable or unwilling to step up.

And like I said, don't blame Zorn or even the receivers. Even in the Rams game Campbell missed an EASY TD pass on the first play of the game, threw a ball 5 yards out of bounds to Devin Thomas and on his longest throw attempt of the day almost knocked the beer out of a fans hands. Same in the Giants game. His bomb to Santana Moss wasn't within 15 yards of him. Seems like all he's comfortable with right now is the 5-15 yard pass down the middle of the field. Don't tell me Zorn wouldn't have opened up the playbook if Campbell hit Kelly on that first play of the game. Campbell's got to give the coach a reason to have faith in him.

As for Receivers, a lot of teams do exponentially more with shittier receivers. Show me the jump balls they're not getting to first, and then I'll start to believe they're the problem. Tight, single coverage is OPEN to most QBs in the league. Not to JC. If you don't have at least 2 steps on the Defender, you're not getting the ball. Period.

PS - File this under RE-HASH

[12thMan]

Originally Posted by 44Deezel

Campbell hasn't even been close on any ball that has had to travel longer than 20 yards in the air. I don't necessarily blame Zorn, although he's not earned even the benefit of the doubt at this point. But it's not like he only calls plays where every route is 5-10 yards deep. There's an intermediate to deep route on just about every pass play, but Campbell is not one to force a throw into a tight spot. That's good and bad. Good in that he doesn't turn the ball over often and bad in that it forces his team to put together excruciatingly long drives in order to get into the scoring zone. This leads to less possessions, higher degree of difficulty (more plays = more chances for something to eventually go wrong) less pass interference calls (they were last in the league last year) and abysmally low scoring. Bad becomes worse in the end zone, where precision, accuracy, touch and a little aggressiveness is required. Hard to expect a guy who plays it ultra-safe between the 20s to all of a sudden change who he is in the red zone. And the red zone problem is nothing new. The Skins were 4th worse in the league in red zone scoring last year. Yes, Suisham was part of the problem, so spare me the retort.

We've seen Campbell in multiple systems now, and in each he's a plodding down the field 5-10 yards at a time kind of QB. The fact that he protects the ball is AWESOME and would be especially awesome if he played on a team with a dominant running attack and a nasty, all-time great Defense. In that scenario, he would be Trent Dilfer on steroids. The Skins could go undefeated. But as it stands, he plays for a team that needs him to do more, and up to this point, he's proven incapable or unwilling to step up.

And like I said, don't blame Zorn or even the receivers. Even in the Rams game Campbell missed an EASY TD pass on the first play of the game, threw a ball 5 yards out of bounds to Devin Thomas and on his longest throw attempt of the day almost knocked the beer out of a fans hands. Same in the Giants game. His bomb to Santana Moss wasn't within 15 yards of him. Seems like all he's comfortable with right now is the 5-15 yard pass down the middle of the field. Don't tell me Zorn wouldn't have opened up the playbook if Campbell hit Kelly on that first play of the game. Campbell's got to give the coach a reason to have faith in him.

As for Receivers, a lot of teams do exponentially more with shittier receivers. Show me the jump balls they're not getting to first, and then I'll start to believe they're the problem. Tight, single coverage is OPEN to most QBs in the league. Not to JC. If you don't have at least 2 steps on the Defender, you're not getting the ball. Period.

PS - File this under RE-HASH

Okay, let's be real. We're talking about two games! Someone please tell me EXACTLY how many long balls Cambpell hasn't connected on so far? This year?

Anybody?

[44Deezel]

Originally Posted by 12thMan

Okay, let's be real. We're talking about two games! Someone please tell me EXACTLY how many long balls Cambpell hasn't connected on so far? This year?

Anybody?

It's not that he hasn't connected necessarily. It's that they haven't even been close. And it's not just this season either. His long ball accuracy wasn't that great last year and was borderline pathetic for most of the pre-season. There was 1 long pass to Moss against the Giants that was ridiculously off and 3 against the shitty Rams Defense - Kelly on the first play, DT along the sideline and a bomb to the end zone that almost left the stadium. Do you really think opposing Defenses have any respect for the Skins passing attack at this point?

[Skinny Tee]

Originally Posted by 44Deezel

It's not that he hasn't connected necessarily. It's that they haven't even been close. And it's not just this season either. His long ball accuracy wasn't that great last year and was borderline pathetic for most of the pre-season. There was 1 long pass to Moss against the Giants that was ridiculously off and 3 against the shitty Rams Defense - Kelly on the first play, DT along the sideline and a bomb to the end zone that almost left the stadium. Do you really think opposing Defenses have any respect for the Skins passing attack at this point?

uuuuggh!...You just brought back some bad memories from last game that I was suppressing. He threw the last one you talked about from like the 30-40 and you could tell during its ascent it was out of the endzone.

We work with what we have I guess.

[GTripp0012]

I do think that Campbell's deep ball accuracy is quite overrated, and that's fair game to criticize him over.

[53Fan]

JC's first pass as a pro was a deep ball that hit Brandon Lloyd right in the hands.....and he dropped it. Doesn't seem like JC had too many opportunities after that. I agree with 12thMan, maybe he'll get better the more it's part of the gameplan. I doubt he practices a lot of plays that are not gonna be called. He does seem a little off.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 53Fan

JC's first pass as a pro was a deep ball that hit Brandon Lloyd right in the hands.....and he dropped it. Doesn't seem like JC had too many opportunities after that. I agree with 12thMan, maybe he'll get better the more it's part of the gameplan. I doubt he practices a lot of plays that are not gonna be called. He does seem a little off.

The other thing is that defenses in the NFL today are notoriously conservative. You think there's a reason no one ever goes deep against our defense? It's not because we have an elite secondary, it's because we'll give them the short stuff but take away the long stuff.

Conseqently, going deep for the sake of going deep is usually a horrible offensive strategy. The teams that can push the ball downfield can do so because they can put safeties in a bind with complex down field routes. If you have Larry Fitzgerald and Steve Breaston, you can specifically choose to attack a safety who you deem to be not a great coverage player by trying to get him to bite on a shorter route. In fact, this is exactly what the Cards did to Landry last year, and the result was Fitzgerald vs. Doughty 1-on-1.

If you don't have those guys though, you have to be able to pick your spots. We have the ability to get downfield passes if we can catch the other team in a blitz or something, but when you only have 3-4 oppertunities a game to actually get a play downfield, a lot can go wrong on those plays to give you zero deep ball production.

The short versions of the prior three paragraphs is that we just aren't a great deep ball team, and most of our really big plays in the passing game come on screens.

[GTripp0012]

I'll offer another possible anti-Campbell argument. Not one that I necessarily agree with, but since we're going to debate the QB position anyway, somebody's got to make the argument against (and SCSkinsfan can't be here all the time).

He's been victimized by drops throughout his career. Just victimized. But, what if what we perceive as being dropped passes are actually plays that Campbell's timing was off on and the end game was a dropped pass.

Specifically, (and not that this was Campbell's fault) the Devin Thomas drop in the end zone occured mostly because (in my opinion) the Rams won the play up to that point. They took away the first two options on the play (Portis and either Cooley/ARE, tough to tell exactly), and got pressure on the quarterback. While I think Thomas could have been quicker to flash in the hole in the coverage, Campbell's throw was low because it had to be low.

So Thomas gets blame for dropping a ball that hit him in the hands, and cost the team a TD. But while we say, "that's another dropped pass that's killing our quarterback" the drop itself was due in part to being a complete last-chance option on the play. In this case, it's not the quarterback being completely victimized, it's just a defensive win on third down.

So while that play was hardly Campbell's fault, the consistently high dropped pass totals is probably partially attributable to the quarterback. In the same way that interceptions are rarely 100% the fault of the QB, dropped passes may be less than 100% the fault of the receiver.

[dmvskinzfan08]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I'll offer another possible anti-Campbell argument. Not one that I necessarily agree with, but since we're going to debate the QB position anyway, somebody's got to make the argument against (and SCSkinsfan can't be here all the time).

He's been victimized by drops throughout his career. Just victimized. But, what if what we perceive as being dropped passes are actually plays that Campbell's timing was off on and the end game was a dropped pass.

Specifically, (and not that this was Campbell's fault) the Devin Thomas drop in the end zone occured mostly because (in my opinion) the Rams won the play up to that point. They took away the first two options on the play (Portis and either Cooley/ARE, tough to tell exactly), and got pressure on the quarterback. While I think Thomas could have been quicker to flash in the hole in the coverage, Campbell's throw was low because it had to be low.

So Thomas gets blame for dropping a ball that hit him in the hands, and cost the team a TD. But while we say, "that's another dropped pass that's killing our quarterback" the drop itself was due in part to being a complete last-chance option on the play. In this case, it's not the quarterback being completely victimized, it's just a defensive win on third down.

So while that play was hardly Campbell's fault, the consistently high dropped pass totals is probably partially attributable to the quarterback. In the same way that interceptions are rarely 100% the fault of the QB, dropped passes may be less than 100% the fault of the receiver.

Good receivers catch the ball whether it is a perfect throw or not. If its within your reach you should make the catch. If it is in your hands you should make the catch. No matter the touch on the ball or the velocity. That's why the players get game checks. That's what they are payed to do. So if the throw is out of reach fine. But if not they need to make the catch. If not they need to find another job. Emphasis on the words "dropped passes". Case closed.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by dmvskinzfan08

Good receivers catch the ball whether it is a perfect throw or not. If its within you reach you shoudl make the catch. If it is in your hands you should make the catch. No matter the touch on the ball or the velocity. That's why the players get game checks. Tha'ts what they are payed to do. So if the throw is out of reach fine. But if not they need to make the catch. If not they need to find another job. Case closed.

Well, yeah. We also don't exactly have a plethora of good receivers. And like I've said, what Campbell has been able to do in spite of having more than one or two NFL quality receivers is pretty remarkable.

I'm just suggesting that, while bad players will drop more passes than good players, it's probably simplistic to think that a drop is 100% the receivers' fault and no one else.

But, I think you and I are on the same side of this issue. While we might have an issue with Campbell and dropped passes, the truth is the players he's been playing with just haven't been very good.

[Slingin Sammy 33]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Well, yeah. We also don't exactly have a plethora of good receivers. And like I've said, what Campbell has been able to do in spite of having more than one or two NFL quality receivers is pretty remarkable.

We've got Devin Thomas, he's going to be AWESOME!! Don't you agree GTripp?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

We've got Devin Thomas, he's going to be AWESOME!! Don't you agree GTripp?

Everyone is awesome at something.

[12thMan]

Originally Posted by dmvskinzfan08

Good receivers catch the ball whether it is a perfect throw or not. If its within your reach you should make the catch. If it is in your hands you should make the catch. No matter the touch on the ball or the velocity. That's why the players get game checks. That's what they are payed to do. So if the throw is out of reach fine. But if not they need to make the catch. If not they need to find another job. Emphasis on the words "dropped passes". Case closed.

Agreed. A drop is a drop. No need to over analyze it. Campbell can't throw the ball and catch it for the receiver. I've seen Campbell, contrary to belief by some, place countless balls right in the receivers mitts only to see it hit the ground and chalked up as incomplete. How many times last year and the year before have we seen comments posted here on Warpath, if so and so had "caught that ball" or held onto that ball...

Cooley is about the only sure handed weapon we have right now.

[53Fan]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I'll offer another possible anti-Campbell argument. Not one that I necessarily agree with, but since we're going to debate the QB position anyway, somebody's got to make the argument against (and SCSkinsfan can't be here all the time).

He's been victimized by drops throughout his career. Just victimized. But, what if what we perceive as being dropped passes are actually plays that Campbell's timing was off on and the end game was a dropped pass.

Specifically, (and not that this was Campbell's fault) the Devin Thomas drop in the end zone occured mostly because (in my opinion) the Rams won the play up to that point. They took away the first two options on the play (Portis and either Cooley/ARE, tough to tell exactly), and got pressure on the quarterback. While I think Thomas could have been quicker to flash in the hole in the coverage, Campbell's throw was low because it had to be low.

So Thomas gets blame for dropping a ball that hit him in the hands, and cost the team a TD. But while we say, "that's another dropped pass that's killing our quarterback" the drop itself was due in part to being a complete last-chance option on the play. In this case, it's not the quarterback being completely victimized, it's just a defensive win on third down.

So while that play was hardly Campbell's fault, the consistently high dropped pass totals is probably partially attributable to the quarterback. In the same way that interceptions are rarely 100% the fault of the QB, dropped passes may be less than 100% the fault of the receiver.

I can agree with that. In the case of Thomas, it was catchable, but difficult. To take this in a different direction, JC threw it in the split second opportunity he had. If he didn't attempt the throw wouldn't that be perceived as being too cautious? I mostly agree with the thinking that if a receiver gets his hands on the ball, he should catch it. Of course some passes are harder to catch than others but most of the drops ( They're only considered drops if the receiver gets his hands on it) were catchable.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by 53Fan

I can agree with that. In the case of Thomas, it was catchable, but difficult. To take this in a different direction, JC threw it in the split second opportunity he had. If he didn't attempt the throw wouldn't that be perceived as being too cautious? I mostly agree with the thinking that if a receiver gets his hands on the ball, he should catch it. Of course some passes are harder to catch than others but most of the drops ( They're only considered drops if the receiver gets his hands on it) were catchable.

Probably. It's hard to say anymore. Clearly though, it was worth the shot. The only risk was that it bounces off of his body and gets intercepted...which actually almost happened. But that's exactly the kind of risk that you have to be willing to take.

Fans who suggest he should throw into tight coverage are just being naive. But it'd be a different issue if he refused to throw those low (or mid)-risk, high-reward passes because things might go wrong.

I think all drops are catchable passes, but I guess my bigger point is that perhaps just because a pass is "catchable" doesn't mean it necessarily going to be caught. If that was true, you could say that any WR who ever dropped a pass lacks focus and shouldn't play in this league. But then we'd have to break out the 3 TE offense.

Braylon Edwards led the NFL in drops last year by a hefty margin, but now with Derek Anderson temporarily out of the picture, he's actually having a really good start for an offense that is otherwise terrible. Brady Quinn hasn't had any success throwing to anyone else though, but I think that's because of the Robert Royal curse