The PDBIP kicked off the 2014 season with a thud yesterday. Facing the league's worst team from last season, Washington scored 1st but watched Houston score the game's final 17 points. If I go in paragraph form, I would probably drone on and on forever about the dreck that is my boyhead team, but hopefully bullet form will keep this more brief. Some observations from yesterday...
1. You have to let RG3 be RG3 at least a little bit. I'm all for making Griffin more of a pocket passer and protecting him from big hits, but if you don't let him use his legs at least a smidge then you might as well start Kirk Cousins (or anyone else). I didn't have a problem with RG3 dinking and dunking his way down the field, as some people did. It was working, especially when the Texans' corners were giving DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon a huge cushion almost every play. But the "fake" read-option hand-offs, the boot legs, and other play action fakes aren't nearly as effective when Griffin never tucks the ball and runs ever. And Griffin got pounded from the pocket all day anyway, so you might as well let him get hit while running down the field, ball in hand once in a while too. (Which leads to my next point...)
2. No one could f***ing block JJ Watt. Watt wreaked havoc in the Washington backfield all afternoon. He pressured and hit Griffin, sacked him, tackled Alfred Morris behind the line of scrimmage a few times, recovered a fumble, and even blocked an extra point attempt for Pete's sake. I shouldn't say no one, because I think the Texans kept Watt clear of tackle Trent Williams. But they smartly kept scheming ways to have him work against the Redskins much weaker right side in Tyler Polumbus and Chris Chester. Jay Gruden continously kept dialing up plays where the blocking scheme called for one of them to block Watt 1-on-1, which ensued in Watt wrecking several plays all by himself.
3. How could Washington's special teams be this bad? I admittedly didn't see every play (or even every box score) from every game yesterday...and we've established that Watt is a beast...but did any other team have an extra point blocked yesterday? Or a punt blocked and returned for a touchdown? I'm pretty sure no one else f***ing did. The PDBIP had maybe the worst special teams I'd ever seen last season. Is it possible they will be worse this year?
4. Turnovers were where the game was lost. If you watch enough football coverage, turnovers (and related terms) are mentioned enough to make you numb to the idea. But if you look at win-loss percentages based on who wins the turnover battle over the years, they are pretty staggering. Watching yesterday's game, it actually felt like Washington was dominating. But there were basically 5 game-deciding plays in my humble opinion that all went in favor or Houston: the 2 Washington fumbles inside the red zone, the p***-poor tackling effort by Bacari Rambo on Houston's 2nd touchdown, the blocked punt for a touchdown, and the blocked point after attempt (it could have been game-altering if any of the 4 other plays mentioned didn't happen at least).
5. Washington is completely irrelevant on a national scale. Aside from the issues stemming from the team name, no one cares about the PDBIP. They got what was in effect the last place Fox broadcast team yesterday to cover the game. There was zero mention of anything Washington-related on my hour long drive into work this morning. And there is basically nothing on yesterday's game aside from Clowney's apparent knee injury on ESPN's NFL homepage. What's the one thing worse than being bad? Irrelevant...and Washington has earned a 1st class ticket into sports irrelevancy as of right now.
