Thoughts and Observations From the Redskins vs Colts Game

1. There are serious issues in our secondary:

-There is no doubt the Redskins are faced with a number of daunting issues this coming offseason, but perhaps the most troubling is what is going on in the secondary. Andrew Luck absolutely torched the Redskins secondary and it was a down right embarrassment just how many times and how many guys were running free back there. The sad part is these issues occur just about every week, but most QB’s the Redskins have played haven’t been able to take advantage of it on the same level that Luck did. One can look back to the Viking game and think that a more experienced QB could have hung 45 points on the Redskins defense in that game as well. What’s really troubling is that one of the biggest culprits with the secondary and coverage lapses this year has been David Amerson, the 2nd year second round pick who is supposed to be the future at CB for this team. Each week that outlook is more and more murky as he continues to blow simple coverages.

2. Colt played well, but at best he’s a short term answer:

-Colt McCoy by no means lit the world on fire with his play yesterday and Redskins fans definitely shouldn’t be ordering up his jersey’s any time soon. McCoy struggled a considerable amount in the first half (with the exception of one really nice drive) and for the most part his play wasn’t that much better than Robert Griffin III‘s was the previous couple of weeks. In the 2nd half though that began to change as McCoy played much better and was running the offense at a competent level. McCoy was able to use his playmakers (though for some reason Pierre Garcon remained invisible) and move the ball down the field. It wasn’t a great performance and it clearly showed that QB wasn’t the only issue on this offense (not sure many people really thought it was), it also showed that Jay Gruden made the right call because McCoy clearly could run this offense far better than we’ve seen from Griffin this year (as a whole). McCoy should continue to start this season for the Redskins and could possibly earn himself a shot as the starter next year as the team looks to rebuild and fix the other issues on the team.

3. The Offensive Line continues to be a major issue:

-Trent Williams is no doubt one of the toughest players in the NFL, but he shouldn’t be playing right now on a bad knee. Not only does he potentially risk a more serious injury, but his level of play is drastically reduced. The Colts don’t have any premier pass rushers, yet Williams consistently struggled in this game. Now Williams was hardly the only issue along the line, but since he normally plays at such a high level, his performance was scary for the Redskins. The rest of the line did what it normally does as Guards Shawn Lauvao and Chris Chester routinely ended up in the backfield (both on pass and running plays), Kory Lichtensteiger was solid, but still had some mistakes and RT Tom Compton just couldn’t get the job done. The Redskins are going to need to find 3 or 4 starters this offseason to go with Trent Williams and until they do it will be tough going for the offense.

4. Where was the pass rush:

-The first play of the game Ryan Kerrigan sacked Andrew Luck and forced a fumble setting up the Redskins offense inside the 20. In Andrew Luck‘s remaining 27 dropbacks he wasn’t sacked once, was only hit twice and rarely was under pressure. The pass rush made one big play and then they disappeared. While it is tough to sack Andrew Luck because he does an excellent job of feeling pressure, it’s something a team has to do if they want to beat the Colts. And even if you don’t sack Luck, hit him, pressure him, do whatever it takes to get him off his game. The Redskins couldn’t do that and Luck made them pay. The sad thing is the Colts don’t have a particularly good offensive line. They have a good (but not great) LT, but their LG is a rookie, their center is an undrafted rookie, their RG was a back-up and their RT (who has struggled this year) has been dealing with an injury. Despite that the Redskins couldn’t take advantage and Luck had all day to pick the Redskins apart.

5. Redskins can’t take advantage of opportunities:

For as bad as this game was on the final scoreboard, the Redskins had some chances to make it look at least respectable if not somehow get a win. In the first half the Redskins defense forced 3 turnovers, yet the Redskins offense did nothing with it and only managed a FG (they were already in FG range). In the 2nd half the Redskins had the ball at the one yard line and they couldn’t score a point (turnover on downs), their next drive they again got it inside the Red Zone, but failed to get a TD, having to settle for a FG at a time when the Colts were scoring TD’s at will. Now whether or not these drives would have changed the course of the game is definitely up for debate, but if the Redskins at least scored TD’s on the two drives they had to settle for a FG and on the drive where they were stopped at the 1, this would have been a game.

6. Where do they go from here:

-Well despite some issues, Colt McCoy was able to get the offense moving a little bit. It wasn’t great and early on it looked awful, but the Redskins were able to get some things going offensively behind McCoy that they haven’t in recent weeks behind Griffin. That being said it is still not enough from this offense which has seen major investments of resources in recent years. The Redskins need to continue to look at tweaking the line-up and trying to find some pieces before the start of next year. Defensively the Redskins need almost a complete overhaul as they just can’t point to a number of players who are playing at a high level right now. With so many issues on this team, it’s tough to see the Redskins squeaking out more than one win the rest of the way.