Breakdown: Redskins-Eagles

[sandtrapjack]

All I can say is WOW, that must have taken a tremendous amount of time to breakdown.

Nice work.

[BDBohnzie]

Thanks GTripp. Excellent as always.

Your breakdown over the last 2 weeks of the O-Line makes me wonder how much different the season would be (if at all) if Jansen and/or Thomas was healthy.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by GMScud

I was disappointed to hear that Rabach has been playing so poorly. I haven't broken down any film, but to hear he has been our worst guy up front is a surprise. He's been so good since he came here from Baltimore. I wonder how much of that has to do with the groin injury.

I should clarify Rabach. It's not like he's been sticking out like a sore thumb and the rest of you just haven't seen it. That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just pointing out that on the running plays that weren't successful, Rabach was either getting driven back, or was getting caught in a double team with Kendall, and neither of them making it to the second level. This, as far as I can tell, has been an issue for him all his career, not just these last three games or his time here in Washington.

On the plays that have worked, Rabach has done his job very well. He's just inconsistent at a position where you need a consistent effort.

[Southpaw]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Two illegal contact penalties made the defensive effort look a lot worse than it was. These things had nothing to do with the plays, and will not be repeated going down the stretch.

The defensive issues are few and far between, but just schematic and strategic holes that the better offensive teams are exploiting, while the worse offensive teams are missing.

Great breakdown. A couple of thoughts:

The first illegal contact call on Smoot was really iffy... There's far more contact on just about every passing play in NFL, and Smoot was obviously trying to turn and run; not impede the receivers progress. That call set the tone early, because the Eagles scored on that drive and gained momentum. It would've been a different game without that call.

I agree that there are not(at least not before Taylor went out) a ton of issues with the defense, but the one major weakness is glaring. The middle/intermediate area of the field is wide open. London Fletcher is a beast, but it seems like he's responsible for the entire middle area of the defense, from the line of scrimmage to 15 yards deep. Even someone with his ability can't be expected to cover all of that real estate. I'm afraid to see what happens with Taylor out this week...

[SmootSmack]

Nice work Tripp. Must have taken a lot of your time and effort, which leads me to ask..."How are your grades son?"

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I should clarify Rabach. It's not like he's been sticking out like a sore thumb and the rest of you just haven't seen it. That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just pointing out that on the running plays that weren't successful, Rabach was either getting driven back, or was getting caught in a double team with Kendall, and neither of them making it to the second level. This, as far as I can tell, has been an issue for him all his career, not just these last three games or his time here in Washington.

On the plays that have worked, Rabach has done his job very well. He's just inconsistent at a position where you need a consistent effort.

I never realized his inconsistency. All the articles I've read, the coaches and players are constantly raving about how good and how tough he is. For that reason I just never paid too much attention to him. I just figured if he was playing we were good to go as far as center is concerned. I'll be watching him more closely now.

[dmek25]

good read. the one thing you didn't mention was the play-calling. i have been very harsh on Mr Saunders, but for this game i gave him a A+. other then going ultra conservative at the end, and settling for a field goal, the redskins offense had a great flow to it.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by dmek25

good read. the one thing you didn't mention was the play-calling. i have been very harsh on Mr Saunders, but for this game i gave him a A+. other then going ultra conservative at the end, and settling for a field goal, the redskins offense had a great flow to it.

I don't like Al Saunders as a play caller at all. With that said, he does it his way, and we've seen his way work in the past, so I'm not going to go out and say that he needs to be fired or anything.

If I was in charge, I'd do it differently. That doesn't make his way wrong, just in my opinion, more difficult.

I think he's called two pretty solid games in a row, but that's the nature of all play calling. You call some good games, you call some bad games. The overall effect of a play caller in the long run is pretty much null.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

Nice work Tripp. Must have taken a lot of your time and effort, which leads me to ask..."How are your grades son?"

Hahaha...oh man. You sound just like my dad!

These milestone posts are getting weirder and weirder for me.

[Gmanc711]

Thanks! Good work! I am going to be watching the offensive line much closer this week, because that is very suprising.

[mheisig]

Thanks Tripp! Awesome work. This analysis is better than anything you can find at any of the "professional" sites. Nobody backs up their in-depth analysis with such solid stats, and all specific to our team.

All the pros will, at best, give you some vague, ambiguous paragraph on the Skins.

Keep it up - looking forward to next week's analysis.

[JWsleep]

Awesome, Tripp. Great work!

(Must have been tough to watch that game again!)

[LaRon + Sean = Hell 4 U]

Great post one of the best I've seen on this site so far.

[skinsfan69]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

I didn't want to go back and review this game, but I eventually did, and I did notice some trends. I broke down every play into successful and unsuccessful, under the same definitions of last week:

• First down plays must gain 45% of the yards to go.
• Second down plays must gain 60% of the yards to go.
• Third down and Fourth down plays must net a first down or touchdown.
• The mark to achieve seems to be around 50% varied for the quality of the offense.

The overall offensive news is all good this week. 72 offensive plays run, 39 plays were successful. That's an impressive 54%. Prior to the Westbrook screen pass TD to put the Skins in a hole, the offense was 38/62 in converting successful plays, a whopping 61% percent success rate.

The two times we were stopped in the red zone, the blocking was to blame. On Sellers' "dive" play, it's clear from reviewing the tape that we just got owned on that play up front. The Eagles, predicting what play we would call, created a pile and the only place Sellers could go was over. Lorenzo Alexander just whiffed on his block from the TE position (this was a reoccurring event).

On the controversial goal line stand by the Eagles, Samuels failed to keep his man out of the play on both the 1st and 2nd down plays. On the first down, it was excusable. He drove his man back to the goal line, but couldn't hold it and his man it Portis short of the endzone nearly causing a fumble. The very next play, Samuels lazily tries to cut Darren Howard, who is unphased and runs down the line to make the hot on Portis. The 3rd down draw call might have worked, but Todd Wade got lost at the 2nd level (another reoccurring theme), and just decided to help Kendall on his man, leaving two unblocked people for Portis to shake at the 4.

The Redskins really broke down once the lead went away. It wasn't any one players' fault, but Todd Wade was the only player to screw up on the drive more than once. Outside of Wade's terrible play, Campbell just didn't overcome the adversity at the end. I still believe that he had his best day as a pro.

Run Game

32 running plays called. Out of those 32, 16 were charted as successful, exactly 50%. A good day running the football, especially considering how many more people the Eagles had in the box each play than the Jets did. Dawkins and Mikell were never more than 8 yards behind the line of scrimmage until Campbell went no huddle and started getting hot. The coverage schemes were similar to the Jets last week, but they always defended us with one more player in the box than NY did last week. We saw some 9 man fronts against our Heavy package.

The cutback lanes were there all day for Portis who ran really hard. Betts' one carry involved a beautiful cut, and of course a fumble on the back end. I would have liked to see Betts carry more times in this game.

Passing game

40 passing plays called, including QB scrambles. 23 of them were successful, 57.5% success rate. No interceptions, two forced fumbles on the QB. The intermediate passing game was working all day, the protection was generally very good, and Campbell laid some absolutely perfect balls into tight spaces. All but three times, the receivers caught what Campbell was cooking. The no huddle stuff was virtually unstoppable. If we are going to consistently use the 4 WR gun, we really have to go no huddle. If the opposition gets the chance to dial up blitzes, we won't have the personnel to pick it up.

We don't have very good pass blocking backs. Neither Sellers nor Portis really does anything more than deter the free blitzer. The fundamentals there aren't pretty.

Those who are thinking that Randy Thomas will come in and fix all the offensive line problems, here's how I would rank our offensive lineman's abilities based on the two games I reviewed every play in.

1. Samuels
2. Fabini
3. Kendall
4. Wade
5. Rabach

Rabach ends up getting driven back into the backfield, missing blocks, questionable holding, and not always accounting for all the rushers coming. He's the big problem up front. Kendall is inconsistent, and Wade is untalented. That's what led me to conclude that Fabini is the second best lineman we have right now. He misses plays every once in awhile, but in general his body of work is pretty impressive.

If Thomas replaces Fabini on the line, it won't fix the problems with Wade and Rabach. On the whole though, this unit is much improved. Everyone is playing better than they were back just 2-3 weeks ago. The run blocking has been pretty damn good, I think. It's just that in crucial man on man situations, someone always finds a way to make it more difficult. Lorenzo Alexander is a big body, but he's not a good blocker.

The other really interesting observation I made had to do with Sellers' role in the offense. We our miles and miles beyond our own offensive efficiency when we play from the single back. That doesn't mean Sellers is useless. When he lines up at TE, or as the back in the single back, we have enjoyed a lot of success. When we run from the I, or the offset I, there are usually too many men in the box, and Portis has no place to run, even when Sellers gets his block, which is never a sure thing. Our best play with Sellers in is a PA pass. Running from the I just tends to be something Portis struggles at.

Overall, things are looking straight up offensively. We will not play a defense better than Dallas the rest of the season, so this week will be a great measuring stick as to where we are.

A few defensive observations:

• The QB running is killing us. McNabb beat us with his legs almost every time we rushed too far upfield. Normally, Carter was to blame for this, but on the biggest run of the day, it was actually Demetric Evans who took himself out of the play. Kedric Golston also vacated his lane on the play, but he did so because he thought he read screen, and probably saved a big checkdown play to Westbrook by doing so. The point is, we should never, EVER rush 6 guys (Prioleau and Godfrey came also as the blitz-contain guys) and allow a QB scramble.
• Two illegal contact penalties made the defensive effort look a lot worse than it was. These things had nothing to do with the plays, and will not be repeated going down the stretch.
• Brian Westbrook may very well be god. We could have done a better job picking him up at times, but he's just a very good player on a very good offensive team, and he beat us on Sunday.
• L.J. Smith had a big day. We have had trouble defending TE's this season.
• The defensive issues are few and far between, but just schematic and strategic holes that the better offensive teams are exploiting, while the worse offensive teams are missing.

Very nice breakdown. There are alot of reasons we lost this game. But let's also give The Eagles some credit too. Let's not forget they had alot riding on this game as well. Let's not forget that they are a good team too. We always tend to say what we did wrong instead of giving the other team credit. I'm not saying we didn't help them cause we did. But they did make some plays at the end to win the game.

[12thMan]

This is why I say Warpath is head and shoulders above the rest.

SS, you need to get Gtripp an interview over at ESPN one day.