Washington Football Team: Studs and duds from Week 2 loss to Cardinals
Dud 1: The offensive line
One of the reasons that Haskins wasn’t able to get going early was the performance of the team’s offensive line. The unit simply doesn’t look good and may need to be completely overhauled in the not-so-distant future.
On the day, Haskins was sacked four times and was hit eight times. Some of that was related to him holding onto the ball a little too long, but most of it was related to the team’s offensive line just struggling to contain Arizona’s average defensive front.
Notably, Brandon Scherff had a tough day. He allowed two big-time pressures on Haskins. The first one resulted in a strip-sack in the red-zone that was caught by the Cardinals and became an early turnover. Later, he would allow another sack where he just couldn’t corral the defender in front of him before exiting with a knee injury.
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Elsewhere, nobody outside of Chase Roullier was solid. Geron Christian and Wes Martin struggled on the left side of the line. Morgan Moses had trouble with Chandler Jones, as anticipated, and committed his first penalty of the season, killing the team’s momentum on a red-zone drive.
Washington simply lacks the talent up front to have quality blocking. They will have to scheme around it a bit and test out some of their other options at various positions including Saahdiq Charles, David Sharpe, Cornelius Lucas, and Keith Ismael to see if any can help upgrade the unit.
But until they find some sort of answer, Haskins will be under pressure and the run game will have trouble finding lanes against solid defenses. Expect to see the offensive line listed among the duds frequently this season, unless something dramatically changes.