Before I get started on this train-wreck of a game let me begin a
tirade on the tards working the NFL's corporate offices. The NFL is rich. The
economy has not touched the NFL's revenue in any significant way. Through the
sales of ridicously overpriced merchandise, insane television deals and revenue
from all 32 teams the NFL is clearly one of the biggest financial powerhouses
in the country, all because of a game called football. This begs the questions,
why don't they pay the original refs?! I mentioned in one of my preseason blog
posts about how the season would fare with these replacement officials and
yesterday's game is clear sign that the future does not bode well.
They botched so many calls I made from my couch at home. You can't challenge a play that's automatically reviewed. A late hit is only late if the hit is made AFTER the player is out of bounds. An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a touchdown play means the score counts and the 15 yards is assessed on the kickoff. In a case where multiple players are fighting the one who instigated it gets the flag along with the one who retaliates. The inability and sheer stupidity of these officials, who look like deer caught in the headlights every five plays, is slowing down games and ruining a good season of football.
In terms of the game, we played like Skins of the last decade. If not for Robert Griffin III's altheticism and sheer brilliant quarterbacking the score would have been 45-7 Rams, the only Skins score coming off the defense. Its a typical Redskin thing to do to lose to team you're beating 21-6. The defense gave up yards but got lucky and held them to field goals in the first half. Come the second half they gave up touchdowns to a weak receiving core and made Danny Amendola look like Jerry Rice and Randy Moss wrapped up in a nice white shell. 10 catches for a 130 yards in the first half? It should have clicked in WAY before then that dropping 7 and playing zone IS NOT WORKING, but no they continued to give up yards through the air.
And our vaunted front seven? What happened to them? My grandmother could have walked through the holes Jackson had to run through. But he got benched before halftime. In comes a 7th round rookie who looks like Jackson's clone, ripping our defense for 83 yards on 15 carries. The time of possession and all the statistics made it look like the Rams ran away with this one, all stats except one: the score.
In spite of all this the defense forced a strong 3 turnovers, two by ageless stud London Fletcher. You gotta love Fletcher, he played a great game and had this to say afterwards: “You know what, defensively we didn’t play well enough to win. I take responsibility for that as a captain of the defense, and I don’t feel good about that.” said LB London Fletcher. “We need to be hard on ourselves. We have to look at the film, see what mistakes we made and come back and be ready to play next week.”
That is the attitude the defense needs to have, especially after losing defensive anchors, Brian Orakpo and Adam Carriker for the season.
The special teams unit had another blocked punt. This is unacceptable. Teams are watching film and seeing that they can expect to get a blocked punt per game, when it should a max of 1 per season. I don't know whose fault it is but special teams coach Danny Smith needs to fix it before it costs us a game.
There were some brightsides. Robert Griffin III was being abused by the Rams defense, taking hits (some of them uncalled late), a sack and being consistently pressured by a combination of a strong Rams defense and porous offensive line. But kept cool and was an efficient quarterback, hitting Leonard Hankerson on a bomb and hitting Aldrick Robinson in the hands with another. He rushed for 82 yards and 2 scores. Totaling a lovely 30+ fantasy points. He kept composure, rallying the team at the end of the game for a game tying field goal. I think all the start Kirk Cousins fans are putting their RG3 jerseys back on.
Speaking of composure, the last Redskin to catch a pass from RG3 that game didn't keep his. In a physical game where emotions ran high, Joshua Morgan caught a pass to put the team well within Billy Cundiff's field goal range. After the ball was caught he took a shove in the helmet from big mouthed cornerback Cortland Finnegan and instinctively threw the ball at him. You never throw the football at someone, and it was a penalty so obvious even the replacement refs called it. (Although the case could be made the both Finnegan and Morgan deserved a flag, both of which would offset.)
From my days as a benchwarming quarterback I learned that a player who can't control his emotions is never good for the team. RG3 kept his cool, and scored 3 times. Morgan didn't and cost his team a game. Whats left now is to learn from this, and make up for it by whacking the potent Cincinnati Bengals in the mouth.
And because I hate Cortland Finnegan so much, here's a video of him getting dogged by Andre Johnson. The fun starts at 0:43.
As always thanks for reading!
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