Monday, September 14: More Of What You Think
Posted by Matt Terl on September 14, 2009 – 10:37 am
Well, I’ve been hearing about this game from you guys pretty much since the final gun went off, and the consensus seems to be that the game was much, much worse than I thought. (The consensus in the comments here, in fact, seems to be that everyone affiliated with the team should be immediately fired, but even among more rational heads the feeling is not favorable.)
Despite Jason Campbell‘s favorable statline and decent quarterback rating — 10th best from the week’s NFL games so far, if you care about such metrics — general opinion has focused on his more questionable decisions: the fumble that went for a TD, the remarkably unlikely illegal-forward-pass-three-yards-over-the-line + interception combo, and the peculiar audible to Ladell Betts in the third quarter.
Or, as Ben Folsom put it writing at The Curly R:
Quarterback Jason Campbell was much worse than his line, 19 of 26 for 211 yards, one touchdown, one interception; this line does not represent his tentativeness at times and also does not represent the boneheadedness of tossing an illegal forward pass past the line of scrimmage AND THEN having it intercepted. Gots to do better.
The defense is also getting plenty of blame. The positives for their performance included:
- only giving up one offensive touchdown, and only six points in the second half
- a strong day from London Fletcher, currently leading the league in tackles
- solid work from some of the less-heralded defenders, including Lorenzo Alexander, Rocky McIntosh, and Reed Doughty
The downsides? Tackling, tackling, and tackling. With the cornerbacks playing as far off as they were, the tackling had to be absolutely sure; it was anything but. This allowed the Giants to extend the drives, which increased their time of possession, which tired the defense further and prevented the offense from establishing itself, and so on and so forth through the game. To his credit, DeAngelo Hall completely owned up to this — “couldn’t make a play to save my life,” he said; now he (and the rest of the team) need to act on that realization moving forward.
There’s still the consolation of knowing that it was the Giants, a game that most prognosticators expected the Redskins to lose. But in the end, a loss is a loss, and this was a loss in a winnable game. But enough from me — let’s hear some more from you.
[UPDATE to note that there are additional polls after the jump. Click "Read More" below.]
More polls after the jump.
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