Game Recap: Redskins Notch Third Win in a Row vs. New York, 20 – 13

The Redskins stuck to the script on Sunday against New York, cranking out yards on the ground and dominating on defense long enough to earn their 5th win of the season. There were no surprises in this one; the Redskins should have won, and they did.

There’s a fire sale on NY’s defense right now, but if I were John Mara I’d consider extending that to the offensive line. Chad Wheeler and Nate Solder, the Giants’ left and right tackles, are graded out among the worst active offensive line players in the league, and they played like it. Ryan Kerrigan continued his resurgence this year with 1.5 sacks. Matt “The Greek Freak” Ioannidis notched 2.5. Daron Payne, Josh Harvey-Clemons, and Jonathan Allen all got one as well. All together, the unit generated 10 QB hits in addition to the sacks, and tons of pressures.

A little disappointing, then, that NY was so productive through the air. Eli finished the day with 316 yards and a TD. Two guys – wideout Odell Beckham Jr. and rookie RB Saquon Barkley, received for 136 and 73 yards respectively. Stats like that should give you some pause. After all, in a year when the Giants are known to be prolific in the passing game but unable to score, you have to ask: how much of this performance was the Redskins D shutting them out vs. the Giants just, well, being the Giants?

It’s a little of both. First of all, OBJ may well be the best wideout in the league. You’re rarely going to shut him out completely. The best you can do is prevent the big chunk yardage plays and the deep ball TDs and keep the opposing offense out of the red zone – a task the Redskins rose to on Sunday. This year opposing offenses score in the red zone about 60% of the time against Washington (although it’s been better in the last 3 games), so it’s key we stop drives early. Turnovers help with that, and Washington got two on Sunday. This, plus the QB pressures, plus NY’s DOA run-game, got it done for us.

Barkley now joins Christian McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott, David Johnson, Mark Ingram, Aaron Jones, and Jordan Wilkins in the pantheon of running backs who have managed only poor to middling days against us on the ground. That’s not a bad crop of running backs to snuff out. Not bad at all. I’m a believer in this defense, and will continue to be until they really give me reason not to. Atlanta next week will be a fantastic test.

I don’t want to talk too much about the defensive backs because they had issues on Sunday outside of Swearinger’s INTs. NY’s passing stats should make clear Redskins DBs were susceptible on Sunday, though again it’s important to note that NY owns the 8th ranked passing offense and some genuine talent in Sterling Shepard and Beckham. Eli has weapons, and when he has time he’ll get the ball to them.

And now I’ll finish like I always do: by harping on the offense. It’s tempting to just write “Adrian Peterson” over and over again for an entire paragraph, because that’s really all there is here. I don’t think the offense dies out completely without him, but I do think a lot of these plays look very, very different with a guy like Thompson, who tends to bounce things even further outside and avoids the head-on collisions AP likes to initiate. AP needs to stay healthy. I’ll leave it at that.

Alex Smith put in his typical 1 TD, sub 200 yard performance and slept through most of the second half. Give me reason to say something else about you, Alex. Please. Remarkably, Josh Doctson caught all 5 of his targets, which is great since historically he’s a 3 for 6 or 1 for 3 type of guy. Other than that, this was a completely par-for-the-course passing performance. Again, we have got to find a way to make Alex Smith a legitimate mid-range passing threat. Right now, he’s really only good for the short stuff. To that end, I’m glad we’re forcing the issue with Reed – he got a season high 12 targets against NY – but nothing’s materializing from it and I’m a little confused why Smith has such poor chemistry with his TEs. Something’s gotta give there; they’re our best hope in the passing attack outside of the running backs.

Once again this week we got a win against a division rival. I love it. But once again it was close, and NY’s chances were very much alive until the final whistle. When you play a team that can rally late, this just isn’t going to be enough. I’m tired of typing that, but I’ll keep doing it until something changes. If it doesn’t, we’re destined to be regular season heroes and post season zeros.