Dud: The running game
For all of the excitement surrounding Derrius Guice, this opening performance wasn’t a great one for him between the tackles.
Of course, his performance in that area doesn’t squarely fall on him. It was more of a group effort.
For most of the afternoon, the Redskins struggled to open up running lanes against the Eagles. In fairness to the team, the Eagles have a great run defense and were one of the best run defenses in the league last year even before adding Malik Jackson in the offseason. But still, their offensive line couldn’t generate much push against them. That led to Guice struggling to find open space to make plays in.
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The biggest disappointment surrounding the performance of the running game was how it put them behind the chains and rendered them a bit one-dimensional. With everything falling on the passing game’s shoulders, the Eagles were able to better prepare to face the Redskins in the second half. And that’s part of why they couldn’t score until late in the fourth quarter when the game had already decided.
Perhaps they could have used Adrian Peterson a bit in this contest just to give the Eagles a different look. It will be interesting to see if Peterson gets a chance to be active for the team’s second game to add more diverse options to the rushing attack.
The running game should have a chance to perform better against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 2. But it’s safe to say that their first game of the season was certainly a bit of a dud.