It might feel like the season is over, but the Redskins still have eight games left to play.
Fasten your seatbelt. This drive could get bumpy.
That said, the Washington Redskins knew, entering the season, that they weren’t signing up for a sunset cruise. This is football. Every year, injuries happen. The Falcons responded to their injuries by running the Redskins out of their own stadium last Sunday. Now, it’s up to Washington to will themselves to compete.
Last year, we saw Jay Gruden direct his team through a number of resilient short-handed performances. The team won on the road in Seattle with a makeshift offensive line. They took the New Orleans Saints, a perennial Super Bowl contender, to overtime.
But the 2017 Redskins never legitimately found themselves in a place from which they could compete after injuries derailed their season. The 2018 Redskins, however, are still in first place in the NFC East, at 5-3. The injuries will make it challenging to maintain whatever success they’ve had, but the 2018 campaign is not unsalvageable.
That said, the Redskins will need to make some changes if they are to keep the foot on the gas through the next eight weeks. Our Ingredients for Improvement this week stem past the Buccaneers matchup on the horizon, and instead provide a blueprint of how Washington can will its season forward.
No. 5 – Get the most explosive players involved on offense
The Redskins offensive woes this season have been well-documented. Alex Smith has not been the yard-churner that Kirk Cousins was from 2015 on, and with the offensive line growing thinner by the minute, steps must be made to stymy the unit’s demise, in order to keep their playoff hopes alive.
Ignore the cheesy rhyme. I couldn’t resist. But in the coming weeks, Jay Gruden will have to resist sticking to the ground-and-pound style that’s fueled Adrian Peterson’s late-career resurgence.
Adrian Peterson still has some explosion at 33 years old; we saw such explosion against the Giants just two weeks ago. His short area quickness is impressive, but with the injuries on the offensive line, Washington’s original ‘clock siege’ tactic won’t be as effective in the coming weeks.
Thus, they’ll have to get creative, and involve their most explosive players on offense. Whether it’s Kapri Bibbs, or Jordan Reed, or *gasp* Maurice Harris, the Redskins need to get the most out of their personnel. That’s on Smith. That’s on Gruden. That’s on the team as a whole. The offensive production must improve, in spite of the injuries to the line.
No. 4 – Rehash communication in the secondary after loss
After the nightmarish loss to the New Orleans Saints, a particular emphasis was placed on communication in the secondary. D.J. Swearinger held the defensive backs accountable. Montae Nicholson refocused. And for the next few weeks, the unit played as one.
It was believed that the embarrassment under the lights in New Orleans had done enough to illicit a lasting change in the defensive backfield. But that notion was lost in a flash, when the Redskins’ secondary let Matt Ryan throw for 350 yards and four touchdowns in Week 9.
Next week, the Redskins play the No. 1 passing offense in the league, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Todd Monken has brilliantly reaped the utter maximum out of Ryan Fitzpatrick, but even still, Fitzpatrick is not immune to Fitz-Tragedy. This is a game the Redskins can win, and therefore, a game they must win. They can’t collapse again.
The Falcons bested the Redskins with scheme just as much as skill, but there were plenty of occasions where the Redskins defensive backs simply got beat. Communication was an issue, and in the time they have before the Buccaneers game, the Flight Marshals need to have a staff meeting, to get back on the same page.
No. 3 – Scheme away from offensive line deficiencies
Just two weeks ago, in Week 8 against the Giants, the Washington Redskins were known for having one of the meanest offensive lines in football. It was a line that had enabled 33-year old Adrian Peterson to resurrect his career, and a line that turned an anemic offense into one that schematically suffocated teams out of the game.
It’s amazing how quickly things can change.
We’ve now past Week 9, and the Redskins will be without All-Pro caliber offensive guard Brandon Scherff for the rest of the season, and they’ll be without Trent Williams for at least three more weeks. The engine of the offense, once manned by Scherff and Williams, a top-tier tandem, will now feature players such as Ty Nsekhe and Luke Bowanko. In fairness to Nsekhe, he’s been very solid in relief of Williams, but the depth of the team is shot, and as a unit, the line will be limited without its two best players.
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In both the running game and the passing game, the Redskins will have to scheme away from their deficiency in the trenches as much as they can. They won’t be able to simply run the ball and win the time of possession battle anymore. They’ve been outmuscling defensive units, but with Trent Williams and Brandon Scherff both out, they’ll have to keep them on their toes instead.
In the running game, this could spell the end of Peterson’s rumbling campaign, or at least the end of a chapter in 2018. Holes won’t come as often, and lanes won’t stay open for long. The quickness of Kapri Bibbs, or Chris Thompson, when healthy, now better suits an ailing blocking unit, and when the time comes when Washington needs to churn out tough yards on the ground, Peterson may have to create for himself.
As for the passing game, seven-step drops may now serve as sack sentences. Alex Smith is a distributor, and in the next few weeks, it will be Jay Gruden’s job to make it easier for Smith to distribute without as much time. Whether that means quicker developing plays, or shorter drops, or more screens with Josh Doctson and Michael Floyd clearing the line of scrimmage, changes will have to be made. Gruden had a strategy that worked, and it got the Redskins five wins in seven games. But now, halfway through the season, that strategy’s key piece, the offensive line, is hurting. Adjustments are necessary.
No. 2 – Repair the damage to the Alabama Wall
What happened to the Alabama Wall?
In the weeks leading up to Washington’s bout with the Atlanta Falcons, the Redskins’ defensive line, referred to as the Alabama Wall, hadn’t given up more than 61 rushing yards to a rusher yet this season. They came into the game as a top five run defense. Against a Falcons line ailing from its own injuries, it was assumed that the Redskins’ front would have some success.
Instead, Tevin Coleman rushed for 88 yards on 13 carries. Ito Smith ran for 60 yards and a touchdown on ten carries. And the Alabama Wall was left behind in a cloud of dust, battered, uneven, and defeated.
The Falcons used clever run designs to negate the Wall’s impact, running to the outside and exploiting Mason Foster and other linebackers. That said, it wasn’t the finest outing for the Wall’s members. Matt Ioannidis logged a sack, but the unit as a whole was shut down for most of the game. Jonathan Allen, in particular, was handled rather easily by the Falcons’ interior.
This week, Jim Tomsula has to bring the urgency back into the trenches, and resurrect a defensive line that used to make plays all across the field. When Washington’s front is on, the defense is utterly unstoppable. But as Sunday showed, when they aren’t, it makes the opposing offense’s job that much easier.
No. 1 – Preach resilience in the face of adversity
It’s in times like these, when the outlook seems grim, and the losses begin to add up, that a head coach has the opportunity to transcend the circumstances, and emerge victorious regardless.
In the past, we’ve seen Gruden command his team to single victories under these kinds of circumstances, but we’ve never seen him fall under these circumstances with a division lead, halfway through the season. Now, it’s up to Jay Gruden to preach resilience in the face of adversity, take advantage of the games they can win coming up, and maintain their lead. It takes a team with a certain culture to achieve such a feat. With any luck, it’s the culture Gruden has helped cultivate.
Without the talent of players like Scherff and Richardson, it won’t be as easy to compete, but the team can’t mourn those losses forever. They travel to Tampa Bay this weekend, and there’ll be no time to think of what could’ve been when the league’s absolute worst pass defense lines up on the other side of the line of scrimmage.
The Redskins have an opportunity to transcend the circumstances. To be resilient. These are the times when Jay Gruden earns another year, or loses one instead.
The most important stretch of Gruden’s career begins now.