The Takeaways, Week 2: Washington at Arizona
September 22, 2020
by Steve Thomas
This game was a disappointment, but also went pretty much as I thought it would. Very little redeeming qualities can be found in the Redskins’ Washington’s effort against the Arizona Cardinals this past Sunday. Washington proved that this team just isn’t ready for prime time, and that last week’s victory was probably due more to the sad state of the Eagles than anything else. Terry McLaurin was the lone true bright spot in this game, although Antonio Gibson continues to show promise and J.D. McKissic also had a run of nice plays in the second half. Other than that, it was mostly downhill, folks. Washington still has a long way to go to progress up to the ranks of the consistently good. I believe that they can get there, but significant time and effort will go into that goal. Here are your takeaways for week 2:
Ron Rivera quit on his team
This game was Ron Rivera’s worst moment of his short tenure as the leader of the team’s football operations. By not using his three timeouts during Arizona’s final possession, Rivera told his players that he didn’t believe in them and didn’t think they were good enough to win the game. It was a critical mistake. And then, to top it off, as my colleague Jamual pointed out on our Hog Sty postgame show, after meekly surrendering and getting the ball back with less than 30 seconds left, he ironically called a running play instead of just taking a knee and ending the game. I realize that Rivera said during his postgame comments that decided on this course of action in order to spare the players from injury risk, but honestly: what a bunch of crap. Think about this – Washington had just scored two straight touchdowns in the 4th quarter to make the game look somewhat respectable. Granted, those scores happened mostly in garbage time and the odds of winning were very low, but still, the chance was there . . . just quitting was a terrible choice. Rivera’s actions tonight were a signal that he doesn’t believe in his players. It was cowardly and not something a strong leader does. If I were a player, I would have been offended by his lack of faith. I lost some respect for Rivera’s coaching abilities on Sunday.
Scott Turner’s playcalling stunk
Offensive coordinator Scott Turner seems to be dead set on making Carolina’s offense work here in D.C. The problem is that neither the Pro Bowl tight end, Greg Olsen, and the MVP-caliber running back, Christian McCaffrey, are here, and for that matter, Cam Newton isn’t either. Look, I like Antonio Gibson and said so in my study of his college film (click here to read), but it was always very unfair for everyone – fans, media, and coaches alike – to insinuate that Gibson would “fill the McCaffrey role” here in Washington. Gibson is very, very raw: he played in just 19 games in college, and had a total of 33 carries compared to McCaffrey’s 37 games and 632 carries. On top of that, Gibson’s abilities as a receiver were not at an NFL level coming out of college in terms of his footwork, route running, and experience. Gibson will hopefully get there, and he has shown promises and flashes both this week and last, but the simple fact of the matter is that he isn’t a serious threat yet. It’s also becoming pretty clear that Logan Thomas hasn’t yet made it to the level of “critical receiving threat” at tight end. Despite that, what does Turner do? He makes Thomas the second-most targeted receiver this week, and Gibson the focus of the running game, weirdly minimizing Terry McLaurin’s role until late in the game. Turner needs to focus his offense more on the threats that this team actually has right now, not what he wants them to have. Plus, none of this is helping Dwayne Haskins very much, as I’ll discuss in the next Takeaway. It was a bad day for Turner.
Dwayne Haskins isn’t getting it, yet
It’s true that the offensive line is a disaster, and that disaster was exacerbated by the injury to Pro Bowl right guard Brandon Scherff. And as I mentioned above, this team has a problem with their offensive playmakers, the problem being that they lack any not named Terry McLaurin. However, I wouldn’t be honest if I also didn’t point out that, for his part, Dwayne Haskins hasn’t been a good, consistent quarterback so far this year, and it isn’t just the fault of the people around him or the playcalling. On Sunday, he missed some reads, made poor throws, held the ball too long at times, and generally didn’t consistently look decisive or confident on the field. As I said, it certainly doesn’t help that Scott Turner and Ron Rivera aren’t putting him in the best position to succeed, but the bottom line is that Haskins isn’t getting it done and at some point this season, the murmurs about his future are going to get louder. He’s still very young and has only played 11 games, but 58% completion percentage and about 100 yards passing in three quarters isn’t going to cut it. The saving grace in all of this is that Haskins hasn’t been throwing interceptions, and that’s keeping things somewhat respectable. I’m rooting for him, but I need to start seeing improvement.
The offensive line is a disaster
This line wasn’t good even with a healthy Brandon Scherff, and now with his status in question thanks to a right knee injury . . . yikes. They did Haskins no favors on Sunday, allowing him to be under constant pressure all day, and did not produce a consistent run blocking effort. This group is a serious problem that most likely isn’t going to get any better until next season
The secondary is a mess
The Ronald Darby Experience didn’t produce top quality results on Sunday and Troy Apke had another typical Troy Apke-like day. Jimmy Moreland and Fabian Moreau weren’t specifically terrible, but on the whole, the Cardinals were able to mostly do whatever they wanted in Washington’s defensive backfield. This group is frighteningly lacking in elite-level talent beyond Landon Collins, and I’m not sure that Collins deserves that label either.
This was a bad matchup for the front 7
The front 7 failed to produce the same game-breaking effort that they pulled off against the Eagles. The reason for this is that the Cardinals were always a bad matchup for them. First, Arizona’s offensive line, while not great, is much better than that of the Eagles. More importantly, the strength of defensive front 7 is their ability to blitz, and Murray is the human anti-blitz cheat code. The Cardinals play a very quick strike, short pass offense, and Murray routinely uses his outstanding agility to find rushing yards right through the interior of opposing defensive lines. Chase Young, Montez Sweat, and the linebackers had to stay home quite a bit in this game in order to guard against Murray’s rushes. It didn’t work, but that was clearly the plan, and it negated the defense’s best skill.
That’s it for The Takaways for this week. Hopefully these won’t have to be so negative next week. Washington faces the Cleveland Browns next Sunday, so I’ll be back with another edition after that contest.