The Takeaways: Week 16, Redskins at Titans
December 25, 2018
by Steve Thomas
What you witnessed this past Saturday was the final death-throws of a Redskins season gone horribly wrong almost from day 1. This team has suffered such an enormous number of injuries over the past 2 years – 24 on injured reserve last year and 21 so far this year (watch for what happens to Matt Ioannidis, Jordan Reed, and/or Colt McCoy this week) that remaining competitive as long as they did in both 2017 and 2018 is an accomplishment in and of itself. So, now it’s over. I acknowledge the fact that prior to the Sunday games, an 8 – 8 playoff spot was still technically possible, but it was over as soon as this game ended. For those of you rooting for owner Dan Snyder to completely blow up this organization (I advocated for that very thing just last week; read it here), don’t hold your breath. Bruce Allen seems to be impervious to harm and Jay Gruden has two seasons left on his contract, and he has injuries and chaos as his built in excuse for retaining his job. Plus, a pretty good sign of stability is that the team cut D.J. Swearinger on Monday in response to his criticism of the coaching staff. That’s not to say that there won’t be changes in the offseason, but a ground-up rebuild probably isn’t in the cards. As far as the Tennessee Titans go, the Redskins executed the gameplan necessary to win right up until the bitter end, but just couldn’t pull it out. It was a real shame, because victory was in the team’s grasp this week. Here are The Takeaways for week 16.
Adrian Peterson’s historic season continues
There aren’t enough superlatives to adequately describe what Adrian Peterson is doing this season for his team. As I’ve said before, his season is historically great for a running back of his age (read the original story here). A 33 year old averaging over 4.0 yards per carry, playing all 16 games, getting over 250 carries, and gaining over 1,000 yards is almost unprecedented in NFL history[1]. Let’s hope and pray that he finishes the season strong and healthy next week, because he’s been one of the few bright spots for a fanbase that has been outright sports-tortured for most of the 2018 season. In terms of the Titans game, the gameplan was clearly to use Peterson as the principal driver of the offense, with quarterback Josh Johnson passing downfield enough to keep the formidable Titans defense somewhat honest. He gained 119 yards on 26 carries, for an average of 4.6 yards per game. More importantly, he was essentially equally effective throughout the entire game, with 12 carries for 60 yards at halftime. Peterson’s yardage totals were not padded by one or two breakaway runs: he was consistently effective against one of the better defenses in the NFL. Doug Williams, if you happen to read this, please consider this my plea to you to make AP an offer to come back next year, Derrius Guice or no Derrius Guice. I suspect Peterson’s legendary work ethic, competitiveness, and approach to the game will rub off on the younger player.
Josh Johnson’s great story finished with a dud
Please don’t misunderstand me: Josh Johnson is great story, a likeable guy, very mature, and seems to have the respect and confidence of his teammates and coaches alike. His presence here in DC, along with Peterson, has made the latter part of the season slightly more bearable for everyone. But the fact of the matter is that his line this week, 13 / 23 / 153, with 1 touchdown, is mediocre at best, and that’s not even taking the two interceptions into account. I can forgive the pick 6 on the final play, because it was a hail mary (for goodness’ sake, tackle next time, offense), but the first interception to Kevin Byard appeared to be on Johnson. Live, it wasn’t entirely clear to me whether the receiver, Josh Doctson, broke off his route instead of continuing downfield, or whether the ball sailed on him. We won’t know for sure until we can take a look at the All-22 film, but my initial impression was that the ball got away from Johnson as a result of pressure from the defensive left edge. He didn’t throw off his back foot, but he didn’t follow through, either, and that caused the ball to sail. Jay Gruden indicted in his post-game remarks that the interception was on Johnson.
Regardless, the point is that Johnson has definintely exceeded expectations, but wasn’t quite good enough to get a victory that was there for the taking; of course, he joined the Redskins with zero expectations, so it was a pretty low bar from the get-go. In my view, Johnson has already earned the right to a spot in next year’s training camp, and the front office would be wise to offer him a shot given the crisis-level amount of upheaval that is going on in the quarterback room right now. But please, people, temper expectations. Johnson’s destiny is most likely that of a solid backup rather than full-time starter.
The defensive gameplan worked for about 56 minutes
We said on our game preview show that the defensive gameplan needed to be to sell out to stop Derrick Henry and force Tennessee to win the game via the pass. The Redskins did a great job on Henry until the final stages of the fourth quarter. They played with 8 men in the box at times, repeatedly kept Henry from turning the corner on the edges, and for the most part kept him out of the second level. Henry only gained 44 yards on 14 carries through the end of the third quarter, which is 3.1 yards per carry, below his season average, and far, far below his production in the last two weeks. The Redskins secondary also kept the Titans from cheap yardage in the air, too. This was exactly what needed to happen, but the team just did not have a full 60 minutes of mistake-free football in them. D.J. Swearinger, who was released on Monday, complained about the defensive playcalling in the locker room after the game, in particular that the Redskins played quite a bit of man coverage, but ultimately, mistakes, not the scheme – most prominently, Swearinger himself had a critical missed tackle late in the game on a swing pass to the right edge that ended up being costly. Swearinger at various times publicly blamed his teammates, the coaches, and, amazingly, the fans, for the team’s defensive failures, but consistently failed to take responsibility for himself. The team did the right thing in cutting him.
Inside linebacker played was improved
Credit where credit is due: the inside linebackers had a much better game this week. Mason Foster at times had quality reps in pass coverage. I didn’t see the glaring, eye-jarring scheme failures or athletic mismatches from Foster that we’ve seen in previous games. Even Zach Brown, who has been a negative in pass coverage since he arrived in DC, had his moments against Tennessee on Saturday. The results showed in the form of Derrick Henry’s relatively slow day. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I think this duo needs to be starting next year, but for once, the inside linebacker group had a decent day.
Blaine Freaking Gabbert won this game
The worst part about this game was that the Redskins defense let Blaine Gabbert of all people, who has been terrible, is currently terrible, and will continue to be terrible, beat them. Gabbert was able to impersonate a competent NFL quarterback on Saturday, and that’s downright embarrassing for a defense that has seen its performance consistently decline throughout the season. Gabbert, he of the career 72.0 quarterback rating, was efficient, passing for 101 yards on 11 attempts, looked poised, and didn’t make mistakes. If you had told me before the game that the Redskins would hold Henry to under 100 yards and 4.0 yards per carry and would knock Marcus Mariota out of the game, I’d have bet the house that that would mean a Redskins win.
Blain Gabbert, victorious. It makes me sick to my stomach have to write that. The season is truly over.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this week. The Redskins will play out the string next week against the Philadelphia Eagles, which ought to be motivation enough to give a full effort, because ruining the season for that team and their obnoxious, awful fans should always make everyone in Redskinsland happy. I’ll see you next week for the final edition of the season.
[1] John Henry Johnson, who played from 1954 to 1966, is the only other player in NFL history to equal Peterson’s feat. He did it in 1962 and 1964.