Redskins Recap: Team puts together complete effort in win over Raiders

The Washington Redskins were underdogs against the Oakland Raiders, but they emerged victorious. They improved to 2-1 thanks to an all-around great effort.

Before the Washington Redskins game against the Oakland Raiders, many were expecting a shootout. The Redskins quickly put those rumors to bed. They jumped out to a 21-0 lead and never looked back. They played excellent defense, dominated time of possession, and beat the Raiders 27-10 en route to improving to 2-1.

Kirk Cousins was absolutely terrific in the game against the Raiders. At halftime, he had two touchdowns compared to just two incompletions. He looked like the quarterback of old and he was able to lead the Redskins down the field consistently early on. He had excellent accuracy and he had a couple of nice deep balls. One of them went to Josh Doctson and it was a fantastic play.

Doctson looked to be having another game where he didn’t show up. He was seeing a bit of action, but hadn’t done much. Early in the third quarter, he had no catches and a drop to his name. Then, Cousins found him on a downfield pass that went for a 52-yard touchdown. It was a perfect ball from Cousins and it allowed Doctson to go up and make the catch. Doctson should be used as a vertical, jump ball receiver and hopefully this game will help him moving forward.

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Overall, Cousins went 25-of-30 for 365 yards and three touchdowns. He needs to keep performing like this as the season goes along if the Redskins want a chance to win the NFC East. He looked like a franchise quarterback tonight, and that should bode well for the team, especially if he can hit a patented hot stretch right now.

In the run game, Samaje Perine handled a majority of the work with Rob Kelley out. Perine did well and was able to consistently make small gains to help keep the Raiders defense honest. He definitely has earned a role in the backfield, unless his late game fumble or his hand injury will cause Jay Gruden to bench him.

Meanwhile, Chris Thompson continued his excellent start to the season. He hauled in a 23 yard touchdown pass to open the scoring for the Redskins and was able to consistently find open space all over the field. At one point, he took a screen pass 74 yards and almost took it to the house. Thompson has looked elusive and unstoppable at different points. He finished with a whopping 188 scrimmage yards and the touchdown. His game breaking ability will continue to allow him a role in the offense, and it will expand if he continues to thrive.

The defensive unit was absolutely excellent against the Raiders. They thrived in every facet of the game, and in particularly, the front seven was spectacular. The pass rush thrived as Preston Smith and Ryan Kerrigan were able to take care of the tackles for the Raiders. In the interior, Jonathan Allen was very good and helped collapse the pocket from the interior. That helped to rattle Carr early and got him out of rhythm.

Elsewhere, the linebackers did well despite missing Mason Foster. They helped to make critical tackles and on multiple occasions, Zach Brown made key tackles on third downs. In the secondary, they blanketed the Raiders receivers and limited Oakland to 118 passing yards. They also got two picks that came via Montae Nicholson and Kendall Fuller.

Next: Redskins live game blog NFL Week 3

Overall, this was just a complete performance by the Redskins. The only issues they had were a couple of bad fumbles. They deserved the victory and they have a lot of good things to take away from this contest. Here’s hoping that the Redskins build off this for their Week 4 matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs.

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