Redskins Ingredients for Improvement after Week 1 loss to Eagles
By Ian Cummings
Avoid drive-killing penalties on offense
Drives are already on life support when Jay Gruden runs on first and ten, then again on second and long. But there were a couple instances where, when the Redskins did have a successful play, penalties brought them back.
The Redskins, in total, had ten penalties on the offensive side of the ball, with most of them coming in the second half, when they were already stalling from play calling alone. Case Keenum had one penalty credited to him, but the other nine were holding and personal foul calls on other players.
Donald Penn and Morgan Moses accounted for six of those nine penalties, and Moses in particular was picked on by defensive linemen when his hands got him in trouble.
Penalties only compound offensive inefficiency; they dig the hole deeper, and that’s just one of the momentum-killing problems the Redskins ran into on Sunday. The line needs to cut down on penalties if they want to maximize their chances of winning.