The Takeaways, Week 12, Texans at Redskins
November 20, 2018
by Steve Thomas
The Redskins’ 23 – 21 loss to the Houston Texans at Fed Ex Field this past Sunday was certain disheartening given the circumstances, but there are some positives that came out of this game despite the negative result. First, Washington maintains its lead in the NFC East and still controls its destiny. If a loss had to happen, the fact that it came against an AFC team is the least-worst scenario. The Redskins have three huge division games coming up and can win their division by doing well in those contests. Losing the starting quarterback to a devastating injury was hard to watch, but the team deserves credit for responding well in the face of adversity despite ultimately losing the game. So, The Takeaways this week will reflect some good and some bad. We won’t have too much time to re-live this contest, though, because what seems to have become an annual Redskins – Dallas Thanksgiving Day battle looms large already. Here are The Takeaways for this week.
Alex Smith suffers a season-ending injury
Statistically, Alex Smith was having his worst game of the season before things went from bad to awful with six minutes to go in the third quarter. Smith fractured his tibia and fibula and had immediate surgery on Sunday. I hesitate to speculate on his future given the seriousness of the injury, so we’ll see, but the nature of his injury as I understand means a long recovery time, but ultimately is not career-threatening. Regardless, I’m proud to say that, so far, at least, we haven’t received any tasteless or disrespectful comments from fans of the Redskins or other teams about this, so thanks for that. We can critique and criticize a player’s on the field performance while not reveling in an obviously devastating injury. In terms of Smith’s game pre-injury, I thought he actually played somewhat better than his stats showed, given the drops by Vernon Davis and the pressure from the defensive line; plus, at this moment I’m still not sure that the pick 6 interception wasn’t more the fault of Jordan Reed than Smith. Either way, get well soon, Alex, and we all look forward to seeing you back with the Redskins sometime soon.
For the first time this season, the Redskins showed heart in a loss
It’s important to note that this is the first loss of the season that wasn’t a blowout. The Redskins looked like they cared and were motivated until the final moment, which is definitely progress from the absolute dreck that we’ve seen in prior losses. I’m not sure what it took to motivate the team, whether it was the shock of the Smith injury, a spark provided by the insertion of a new quarterback, or energy derived from the crowd, but either way, it was a much better effort despite the loss. This represents progress and hopefully bodes well for the remaining 6 games of the season. The Redskins responded well to adversity, which is something they haven’t done up until this week. Even before Smith went out, Washington didn’t let Houston run away with the game despite it seeming to trend in that direction for awhile. If the Redskins are going to get to the playoffs, and then make a run if they make it that far, they are going to have to be able to compete and win games like this, because playoffs aren’t conquered by showing up and watching opponents like the Buccaneers die right in front of you on the field as happened last week. You can consider this game a “hopeful loss”.
The offense looked more dynamic under Colt McCoy
Let’s be honest and say that the offense late in the third quarter and throughout the fourth quarter under Colt McCoy’s leadership looked more dynamic than it had all season. Now, part of the issue was certainly that the Texans hadn’t game planned for McCoy at all, and most likely hadn’t even watched a ton of his film, because there isn’t a ton of recent film. Regardless of the reason, the Redskins played at a faster pace under McCoy, and he took more chances downfield than has Smith. Washington’s offense scored more points in a shorter amount of time than they had this season with McCoy under center. I don’t necessarily think McCoy is a better quarterback than Smith, and I definitely don’t think he has the arm talent of Smith, but if Sunday and McCoy’s personal history is any guide, not only will the Redskins will be fine under McCoy, they might just be successful. Colt is a guy who always seems to be ready when called on, and Sunday was no exception. Incidentally, his last start was an away game against Dallas in 2015, which the Redskins won, so hopefully history will repeat itself.
The Redskins’ run defense continues to regress
Those of you who proclaimed in the first part of the season that the Redskins defensive line was elite and the run defense was one of the best in the NFL were just wrong. There’s no doubt that the run defense is improved over last year as a result of a very significant amount of resources put into the defensive line, but what we’ve seen is that they still have a ways to go before getting to that level. The Texans had a good amount of success against Washington, averaging 4.5 yards per attempt on the ground as a team, with Lamar Miller gaining 86 yards on just 20 carries, and Alfred Blue gaining 46 yards on 8 carries for an outstanding 8 yards per carry. I’m sorry to say this, but the truth is that this is still a soft run defense; it’s just not at the historically bad level that it’s been. That’s at least progress, but if the Redskins are going to be a team that can make a playoff run, they need to stop making guys like Lamar Miller and Alfred Blue look like better players than they really are.
Jordan Reed has a resurgent game
Jordan Reed started this year slowly, for sure, but has quietly started to resurrect his season in the past few weeks and is now getting the targets and catches that we are used to seeing. Plus, this is traditionally the time of year that Washington has to play without Reed, who has usually succumbed to season-ending injury by this team. Not only has he stayed healthy, but he’s starting to find his groove. Reed was targeted 11 times against the Texans, with 7 receptions for 71 yards, which was his best game as measured by total yardage since the 2016 Thanksgiving Day game against the Cowboys. With McCoy, who’s been around Reed for much longer than has Smith, I have hope that he will continue to be a bigger part of Washington’s gameplan, because good things happen when he is. When healthy, Reed is a still a big mismatch for most teams.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this week. A tough game, but as I said above, aside from the injury to Alex Smith, things weren’t all bad, and the team can hopefully build on a loss in which they were at least competitive. It’s baby steps sometimes. This coming week’s Thanksgiving Day game against the Dallas Cowboys is much more important and is now a battle for first place in the division. It’s a must-win affair. I’ll be back for another edition then. HTTR, folks.