Adam Schefter: What's Wrong with the Redskins

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Originally Posted by Beemnseven

But don't you think that was by design? Wouldn't the interior receivers underneath be second in the progressions?

With Cooley especially, I could see how they figured they could take their chances with Cooley underneath knowing he didn't get into the endzone much last season. Ditto for ARE -- they took away Moss and Portis knowing they are the major scoring threats and gave us whatever we wanted yardage-wise between the 20's.

In shotgun formations, the progression generally tends to be inside out. You know the old saying that nothing good happens when you throw late over the middle? Coaches usually teach the quarterback to look inside out because once the inside receivers show the defense what they are running, the window to get the ball in closes pretty quickly.

The time to use the outside guys in the passing game would have been inside the red zone, but given that our two trips to the red zone in this game produced exactly two attempts, not for Kelly or Thomas but for ALL receivers, into the end zone, you can imagine why we couldn't get them the ball.

You can't have two attempts at throwing a touchdown from the red zone in a game. The possession where we scored on the fake FG was proof of this. On first down we ran the ball. On second down, we threw a WR screen to Moss. Zorn needs to pick one, or the other, not both. Campbell had no chance to make a play on third down because the Giants just sent a creative blitz and got a hit on the quarterback. We completely pissed away that oppertunity for a TD, and scored on a gimmick.

The second time, the playcalling wasn't quite as awful, we just tried to run the ball and ended up losing 6 yards on first down. That's going to happen with a young RT like Heyer. But that caused us to use our second down play to get in a managable third down, which we did, except then Campbell didn't have anyone open in the end zone and was sacked.

In hindsight, we got as many points in the red zone (10) as the players earned on Sunday, but it could have been catastrophic if not for the fake FG. That play really bailed us out from a potential blowout.