The Takeaways, Week 8 – Cowboys vs Redskins
October 31, 2017
By Steve Thomas
The Redskins most certainly suffered a devastating, demoralizing home loss to the hated Dallas Cowboys in week 8 this past Sunday. As much as we all would have liked to have seen a win, at least we can still get we’ll euphemistically call “learning experiences” in spite of the loss, right? Right? Please don’t misunderstand: I’m not advocating for the concept of a “good loss” – all losses are bad. However, we can learn from failure. And there’s really no sugarcoating it: failure is precisely what occurred here. With that having been said, let’s move on to this week’s Takeaways.
A Bad Injury Situation Got Significantly Worse
The Redskins exited their week 7 contest against the Philadelphia Eagles with an enormous number of injuries, particularly along the offensive line. Starters Trent Williams, Morgan Moses, Spencer Long, and Brandon Scherff were all injuries. In the Cowboys game, the injury parade continued, with third string tackle T.J. Clemmings and remaining starter Shawn Lauvoa both suffering injuries, along with star tight end Jordan Reed, wide receiver Jamison Crowder, and several more on defense, including defensive tackle Matt Ioannidis, and many more – check out our website for the complete list, because it goes on and on. In particular, the injury to Ioannidis has now bringing the defense line close to a critical mass as well: given that rookie Jonathan Allen is already out for the year, this is now two mainstays who are out. Word as of this writing is that Ioannidis needs hand surgery and will mass a couple of weeks at a minimum. The point for your watercooler talk this week is this: has the injury problem become so severe that it’s time for the Redskins to “fold up the tent”, so to speak, and put some of these players on IR (looking at you, Trent), make some trades to find some young players, and start planning for the future? Or can the team push through this and salvage a shot at a wild card slot? Right now, that looks like a long shot if some of these players don’t come back very soon.
Mistakes Doomed the Team
Any shot the Redskins had at winning this game was ended through a series of mistakes, including fumbles by quarterback Kirk Cousins and Chris Thompson, inopportune penalties, poor passes, an ill-timed drop by Josh Doctson, and worst of all, a blocked field goal attempt that was returned 85 yards and converted into an Ezekiel Elliott touchdown shortly thereafter. Even taking the injury situation into account, this was a sloppy, poorly executed, undisciplined game by the Redskins. The special teams, in particular, is disconcerting, because we’ve seen multiple fumbles already this season from Jamison Crowder, and now Thompson added to party this week. While I can maintain composure over the blocked kick, somewhat, due to the terrible weather, although it’s certainly not good, there’s really no excuse for the fumbles. It’s tough to win an NFL game on the most favorable weekends, but when you compound massive injury problems with silly mistakes, you are reducing your win probability down to close to zero.
The Running Game was Almost Totally Ineffective
The Washington Redskins have gained exactly 124 rushing over the past two games. That number includes 18 yards of scrambling by Kirk Cousins. In other words, Redskins running backs have gained a total of 106 against two teams. 106 yards is equal to one good, but not great, game by a quality feature back. The lack of a running game, which no doubt was exacerbated by the massive injury problem along the offensive line, had a direct effect on the ability of the offense to sustain drives even before the team had to go into all pass mode in the fourth quarter. Lead running back Robert Kelley did have a touchdown run from the 1 yard line, but otherwise did essentially nothing for the rest of the game. This does not appear to be a problem that is going to be fixable until the offseason.
Jamison Crowder Finally Showed Up
Jamison Crowder led all receivers with 9 receptions for 123 yards; the Takeaway here is that Crowder, finally, for one day at least, was the impact player once again that he was so often during the 2016 season. This season has been something of a disappointment for Crowder prior to this game, but his effort against Dallas was a completely different story. Jamison demonstrated both the quality route running and explosive separation ability that made him so valuable out of the slot position last season. Let’s all hope that this is a harbinger of things to come for Jamison in the second half of the season. The wide receiver corps desperately needs someone – anyone – to step up and start catching footballs, particularly in light of the injuries to the tight end group.
Defense No Had Ability to Stop or Slow Ezekiel Elliott
Despite a slow start to the season, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott got his sea legs back against the 49ers a week ago, running wild for over 200 yards from scrimmage, and those results continued against the Redskins. Washington’s defense line allowed Elliott to consistently penetrate into the second level and extend Dallas drives time after time; in fact, penalties called back other additional long runs that would have made his numbers look that much better. The watercooler talk point is that this is really the first time this season, including the Kansas City Chiefs game, that the Redskins front 7 allowed a running back to thoroughly dominate them. The extensive injuries most certainly contributed to the problem. Let’s hope that this trend does not continue.
What else to you think are valid Takeaways from this game? Let us know. We’ll be back next week with another edition of Takeaways from the Redskins contest with Seattle.