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After Some Thought…
I’ve decided I’m just not going to break down yesterday’s loss. It just isn’t worth bringing people down. Yes, I could talk about how we only had 9 yards of total offense in the 3rd quarter. Yes, I could talk about Casey Rabach’s two late penalties that ruined the final drive. I could talk about inconvenient injuries to Santana Moss and Rocky McIntosh.
But you know what? It isn’t worth it. We’ve got two weeks now to straighten things out. We’re 2-1 and ahead of two teams in the NFC East. All the things we were good at before last week still exist. We’ll adjust.
There are two things I would like to talk about. The first is Jason Campbell. We have to cut the kid some slack because he’s still young, but one of the problems before the final drive was that he was a bit impatient. He threw long and deep a lot (and usually ovethrew) like he felt like he had to get it back all at once. This is the price for starting a young QB and he’ll learn to be a tad more patient. The good news is that during the final drive he made some very good throws and got the team in a position to win.
The other thing I wanted to talk about can’t be chalked up to youth. This is the coaching staffs’ time management and general confusion in pressure situations. Last week was the delay of game at the end of the first half. This time it was the final drive. Compare both of those drives to what the Broncos did to get a field goal off in 8 seconds against Buffalo and you’ll see a problem.
My concern is that there may be too many geniuses on the staff. Gibbs, Saunders, and Don Breaux all have the title that would allow them to make those final decisions (HC, Asst. HC-Offense, Offensive Coordinator). We know that Al Saunders makes the play calls, but Gibbs likely makes the call as to what type of play to call there. And this is my concern. I’m wondering whether there are too many links in the chain here. Too many people talking. Obviously, teams do this all the time. Head coaches with defensive specialties obviously have to create a way to still be on top of these situaitons while still trusting their play callers to get the right play in. But as of now, I really wonder what Gibbs et al do when these things come up and whether they don’t need to practice them better.
Sometimes I miss the old, sleeping in a cot in the office, calling his own plays Joe Gibbs. But we’ll work it out.
-DW
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