The Takeaways, Week 12: Redskins at Cowboys
November 24, 2018
by Steve Thomas
I can’t understate how important this game was and how much this loss affects the Redskins’ season. I’m not going sugarcoat a poor performance and crushing defeat against a division rival on Thanksgiving Day in front of a national audience. This was as bad as it gets for a regular season contest, and the Redskins just dramatically changed their season for the worse. What could have been a stranglehold on the NFC East has become a tie, by record at least, with Dallas and the Eagles looming with a chance to close the door on the Redskins’ chances this year. This really was a big loss, unfortunately, and what’s more is that Washington will go back to being irrelevant in the view of the national football media. A win over Dallas would’ve forced the NFL world to start paying attention, whereas now, this franchise will fade back into obscurity and mediocrity for the season until they prove otherwise. This was a major failure that has major impact upon the season. It’s fixable, for sure, but things just got a whole lot harder. Here are The Takeaways for this week.
The defense was terrible in every way except pass rush
As we said in our game preview show and as I put in writing for the written preview, in order to win the Redskins needed to (a) slow down Ezekiel Elliot and make him inefficient, and (b) keep Dak Prescott in the pocket and force him to beat Washington with his arm. The Redskins utterly failed to contain Elliott, who was averaging over 6 yards per carry for most of the game up until the end. They actually did a pretty decent job of keeping Prescott in the pocket – with one major, highlight reel exception that went for a touchdown – and putting him under pressure, but Prescott responded by picking the Redskins secondary apart. The number of missed tackles was a serious problem, particularly in the secondary. No area of defense did their job effectively Thursday with the exception of the pass rush. The defensive line did repeatedly get into the defensive backfield on passing downs, which was great, but unfortunately Prescott responded. The final 8 point difference in score may not reflect it, but this game was up there with the Saints and Falcons game in terms of poor performance by the Redskins defense. Also, the X factor all year has been turnovers, and Washington’s defense was unable to come up with any against the Cowboys.
The secondary had its worst game of the year
Allow me to be blunt: the Redskins secondary was atrocious. Quinton Dunbar was clearly not himself, healthwise, and was unable to perform at an acceptable level. Prescott was able to spread the ball around with impunity. This group repeatedly missed tackles and allowed Dallas receivers to get huge chunks of yards after the catch, including on Amari Cooper’s 90 yard touchdown. The combination of Josh Norman, Quinton Dunbar, and Fabian Moreau is better than what we saw on Thursday, but if this group can’t figure out how to tackle better, frankly it’ll all be for naught. Even D.J. Swearinger, who’s been the heart and soul of the defense all year, did not have an impactful game on Thursday. Other than Julio Jones’ performance in week 9, Amari Cooper is the first receiver who has truly had his way with the secondary. This group has talent, but they didn’t show it today. The secondary gets an “F” grade.
Colt McCoy looked like the backup quarterback
A certain segment of Redskins fans have been clamoring for Colt to start over Alex Smith for several weeks. You guys finally got what you wanted – feel better now? While I think Colt is better than what we saw on Thursday, the truth is that there might just be a reason he’s a backup. McCoy repeatedly made poor decisions with the ball against Dallas and also made multiple bad throws to compound his errors. McCoy missed reads and tried to force throws he never should have made. It’s true that he was under a significant amount of pressure almost the entire game, but regardless, he did not perform well. His 63% completion percentage (24 for 38) belies his poor day under center and was only padded by his stats at the end of the game. McCoy is a more talented quarterback than his game against the Cowboys, and he will only improve with a week of actual practice. It was certainly a tough situation to have to face a division rival with literally no practice time, and I don’t want to be overly negative. McCoy’s highs are probably higher than Smith’s highs, but his lows are much, much lower and overall I don’t think the team is best served with McCoy playing over a proven vet like Smith over an entire year. That having been said, I think McCoy can effectively lead this team for the rest of the year. But he failed this week.
The offensive line was poor in both run blocking and pass protection
The offensive line is admittedly beat up as bad or worse than last year. Trent Williams had to leave the stadium in an ambulance, for goodness’ sake (update: he’s fine). They’re starting guys who were on the street less than two weeks ago. Every original lineman not named Chase Rouiller is beat up and looks like they shouldn’t be playing. Nevertheless, this game against Dallas was a big failure by this group. The Redskins’ strength early in the season was their running game. The line was opening up running lanes for Adrian Peterson, who is talented enough even at his age to take full advantage of it. Against the Cowboys, and for that matter, the past several weeks, those rushing lanes not only have disappeared, but Peterson is being hit in the backfield. Against Dallas, the line failed to allow any sort of a running lanes with the exception of one carry by Kapri Bibbs. The yardage gained by Peterson was by and large created by Peterson. In pass protection, quarterback Colt McCoy was constantly harassed. Dallas blitzed relentlessly all day, and the Redskins did not handle it well. This group needs to get better quickly if the season isn’t going to fall apart; otherwise, the Redskins aren’t going to win too many more games.
Jay Gruden’s offensive playcalling was bad
I realize that Jay Gruden really likes Colt McCoy and believes in him, which is great, but the number of times that plays calling for long 7 step drops was pretty stunning to me. Particularly against Dallas, McCoy needed to dink and dunk his way down the field, not try and sling the ball all over the field. And while, as I said above, the offensive line was bad, Gruden made far too little effort at getting Peterson – who is a guy who gets better with more carries – rolling. Jay’s gameplan did not match the strengths of his team or the weaknesses of the Dallas defense, in my opinion. This was one of Jay poorer efforts as the principal play caller. Jay needs to do better in putting McCoy in position to succeed, not treat him like Tom Brady.
The officiating was awful; stop blaming the officiating
The officials had an extremely poor and one-sided day. They didn’t call one of the most obvious facemask penalties you’ll ever see in which Colt had his head literally yanked sideways early in the game; they ignored an open and obvious helmet-to-helmet hit against Jordan Reed that should’ve been a 15 yard penalty at a minimum, and maybe an ejection. They missed a pretty easy pass interference, and called a hold against Morgan Moses that was simply not close to being holding. The officially performed extremely poorly, to the detriment of the Washington Redskins, and that comes on the heels of a blown holding call and a missed pass interference against Houston that essentially cost the Redskins the win last week. So I get it, you’re frustrated. But, please, stop claiming that there’s a conspiracy either against the Redskins or in favor of the Cowboys, because it isn’t true, and at least this week, it didn’t cost the Redskins the game. The Redskins cost themselves the game via their poor play, not the officials. Last week? Sure, but not this week. I think the officials have just had two horrible weeks in a row. I do not believe that there’s some sort of conspiracy against Daniel Snyder or the Redskins. That’s absurd. But all the same, I beg the NFL to do something to improve the quality of the officiating, because it’s terrible and it’s hurting the on field product.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this week. Next up are the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, which I’m sure will be a barrel of laughs given the Redskins’ history in prime time games.