Steelers Dominate as Skins Drop to 3-5

For those wondering yes a pun is intended with the title.

The Redskins got handled in all three aspects off Sunday's game. They posted a season low 12 points and this was the first game that didn't come down to the last possession. The defense was picked apart like orange chicken from the teeth of a fat guy at Panda Express. The Steelers scored on EVERY possession of the first half. They didn't even punt until the second half. But even in the second half they still failed to contain a strong Steelers offense, giving up 27 points by the end of the game. They also failed to get a single turnover, another first for the defense this season.

The offense was uncharacteristically slow. But it's not because the rookie wonders got shut down. Alfred Morris and RGIII were doing good as usual. It was the 10 dropped passes, most of which were in the end-zone or for third down conversions. Coming in to the game they had a combined 11 drops. They nearly matched it in one game. I don't care if the ball was wet. You have gloves for a reason. If RGIII can sling a wet football into your hands then its dry enough for you to catch it. The drops kept the offense from scoring or sustaining drives, and kept the under-matched defense on the field. It was like watching a college quarterback pick apart a high school team. Simply pitiful and by far the worst game of the season. And its not just scrubs who were dropping passes, starting receiver Leonard Hankerson had a sure touchdown he just let slip, Santana Moss had multiple dropped passes, most of which were for first downs. All culminating in a season worst 12 points for the game.

Even the special teams had problems, the field goal unit had a kick blocked; although it looked like Kai Forbath should've angled it a bit higher since it was only an extra point. Sav Rocca shanked a punt for twelve yards that led to another Pittsburgh score. The punt coverage unit gave up a touchdown to Antonio Brown that was called back by a penalty that wouldn't have affected the play.

The Redskins faltered in all three phases of the game and make it a painful 3 hours of football. Hopefully they can get it together at home against Cam Newton's 1-6 Carolina Panthers.

You thought I was done? Nope, got one more thing I want to get off my chest. DeAngelo Freaking Hall.
I told you guys last week he needs to shut the hell up and play football. This week he did neither.

Dear DeAngelo Hall,

You are a starter in the league's WORST pass defense and have 2 interceptions on the season only because you've gotten beaten so many times that quarterbacks feel safe throwing it your way. Despite this you feel the need to mouth off at some point every game. I'm not sure why, because in the end you keep getting burned for catch after catch. Its a miracle it took 8 weeks for you get penalized for it.

There is no reason for you to be cussing out anyone, much less a referee who has the authority to take your ass out of the game. The ref didn't do anything, he didn't give up catches on third down, you did. Your teammates shouldn't have to keep restraining you game after game because you can't control yourself. Man the hell up, and let your football do the talking. If you like the attention you're getting because of it then pack your bags and head out and chill with T.O and Chad Johnson on the free agent list. There are no roster spots for divas in Washington.

In summary, shut up and play some football.

-Sincerely
Disgruntled Redskins Fans Everywhere

Redskins Fall From 1st to 4th In NFC East in 15 Seconds

A sobering end to such an intoxicating show of offense

I'm not going to bother telling you what happened...well maybe just little. Despite our defensive weaknesses and offensive turnovers the Redskins were up 23-20 with a buck fifteen or so left on the clock. Captain Clutch Eli Manning threw a 70 something yard bomb to Victor Cruz who salsa'd his way into the endzone for the win.

The Redskins have hope, but stupid mistakes keep pulling the curtain on the slightest glimmer of victory.

Week 2: RG3 drives down the field for a game tying field goal, unsportsmanlike conduct penalty makes it a 62 yard kick. Loss by 3.

Week 3: After coming back from 24 point deficit the offense couldn't get anything done in the beginning of the second half, and the defense broke, giving up two scores. The Skins made it a one score game but a false start and another unsportsmanlike conduct penalty later the driving Redskins offense had to settle for a hail mary from their own 30. Loss by 7.

Week 5: One the top if not the top team in the NFC, comes to Fedex field. Defense holds them to 7 in the first half. Sadly, a pair of interceptions by the backup quarterback and a defensive meltdown led to another defeat. Loss by 7.

Week 7: After coming back from a 4 point deficit and leading the game by 3 the defense gives up a huge touchdown pass that seals the win.

My point? The elite teams don't make these mistakes. Every single game we lost was winnable. A playoff team doesn't make those mistakes, they make plays. If the Redskins made plays, we'd be 7-0. Plain and simple.

A safety, a cornerback and all our injured players back will make the Redskins a dominate team.

In other news Fred Davis tore his achilles, a season ending injury. The bright-side is that Captain Chaos aka Chris Cooley is BACK! Everyone is eager to see if #47 is still the reliable monster he was before his knee injuries.

Pittsburgh is a winnable game next week, but by no means an easy one. Alfred Morris will need to continue his dominance in order give RG3 play action and keep the Redskins defense off the field.

And finally DeAngelo Hall needs to SHUT THE HELL UP! I'm sorry but every game this guy gets burned by someone and ALWAYS mouths off at some point. He needs to focus that energy on his coverage skills, not pissing off opponents and refs.

RGIII Back to Form as Skins Top Vikings 38-26

Opening Kick-off - 4th and goal - field goal.

Redskins Punt - Vikings 4th and goal - field goal.

Redskins Interception - Vikings 4th down - field goal.

Not too long in the first quarter the Redskins defense had already given up 122 yards and three scores while the offense gained some 7 yards total. The defense gave up yards but held Minnesota to three field goals, keeping the Redskins in the game. With the score 9-0 the Redskins took off.

On the ensuing possession the Redskins drove down the field but a holding call and some Brandon Banks rushes kept them around the 33 yard line. On comes Kai Forbath for his first NFL field goal, a measly 50 yarder. He drilled it down the middle, making it a one score game.

After forcing a three and out the Redskins drove down the field with authority, running the ball, converting third downs and eventually scoring. The Redskins never looked back. They scored a whopping 4 more touchdowns, one of which was the dagger in the hearts of the Vikings: a 76 yard RG3 run for a touchdown. The defense held the Vikings to no touchdowns until the fourth quarter, well after they built a commanding lead.

This game is a perfect example of what happens when all three units of the Redskins work in harmony. The defense keeps the game in range and forces 3 turnovers, the offense takes advantage of opportunities, capitalizing on turnovers and holding the ball allowing the defense to rest, and special teams did their job, containing Percy Harvin on kick offs and keeping punts form being returned (courtesy of Niles Paul) and actually making field goals when the offense can't finish the job.

Heres the punt coverage team at work, sorry for the quality but its the only non nfl.com video up.

Ultimately this synchrony is unlikely to keep up as our defense still has talent issues in the secondary but if they can keep the games manageable the Redskins have a shot at staying over .500 for the season and, with the way the NFC East is this year, are still in the race for the division title, tied for 2nd with the Philadelphia Eagles. 

Next week's game against the Giants, arguably the NFL's number 1 team after their systematic beat down of the 49ers, is crucial. Its Griffin's first division game and a test to see how well the Redskins match up against the best in the NFL. They held the Falcons to 7 points in the first half, the Vikings to 9 and the Bucs to 6. If they keep this up and Griffin does what Griffin does then they might have a shot of making it 3 straight against New York's finest. 

Captain Kirk's Comeback Falls Short as Skins Fall to 2-3

As usual for one o clock games I missed the first quarter due to work but it didn't take a genius to realize the Redskins offense wasn't getting anything done.

The Redskins could move the ball, especially with rookie wonder Alfred Morris's hard running, but come third down they couldn't convert; be they bad plays, bad reads, missed blocks or dropped passes.

The defense played hard, limiting the offensive juggernaut of Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez and Micheal Turner. They gave up a mere 7 points in the first half AND cancelled that out with a pick six by last year's top draft pick, Ryan Kerrigan.

Enter the second half where the offense starts moving the ball down field but fails to convert on the only third down of the drive. Field goal range and in comes Billy Cundiff for a gimmie. As usual he gave the gimmie to defense by hooking it right and missing. Next offensive possession the Redskins drove down field and had a third and goal but RG3 took a vicious hit near the sidelines and suffered a mild concussion. He seems good now is probable to play on Sunday. Cundiff was good on the short attempt.

Captain Kirk's fearless throws show his confidence..
and need for more practice

Atlanta's offense dominated in time of possession and wore the defense down. With the game tied at 10-10 the Falcons drove down the field in 3 minutes and scored on a pass to Julio Jones. Enter Captain Kirk Cousins (props to my boy Naeem for the nickname) who on the previous possession went three and out. Two plays later it's 3rd and 10 and Skins have yet to convert on a third down. Cousins dropped back and threw a laser to a wide open Santana Moss who raced down the field for a 77 yard game tying score. The crowd was jumping and so was I.

Sadly, the defense just couldn't hold on, like a climber stuck on a cliff for an hour he just couldn't hold on for the final few minutes and slipped. The defense yielded a touchdown a 13 yard touchdown to Michael Turner making the score 24-17 with a few minutes left. Could Cousins impress like he did in preseason against the Bears? Throw one more touchdown? Maybe two? Alas Redskins fans were brought down to Earth as Cousins ended the game with a pair of interceptions. He was a fourth round rookie tossed into a high pressure situation with minimal practice time, it would take a miracle for the Redskins to tie and then win the game in overtime. He did admirable with the preparation he had.

My takes from the game:

Good:

RG3's a trooper, I'll give him that but he needs to stay
healthy

1. RG3 was finally welcomed into the NFL. He has to realize that he simply needs to slide or run out of bounds. He's trying to help the team by giving 110% but an extra yard and a vicious hit isn't going to keep a franchise quarterback healthy. (Micheal Vick anyone?) He should learn from this and ease off the accelerator just a bit.

2. Alfred Morris is going to Hawaii. Yup after 5 weeks of football he has run for a little under 500 yards and 4 touchdowns. Good for a 4.9 yards per carry average. Astounding numbers for a 6th round rookie. Additionally, his size, running style and draft position match those of Terrell Davis while his stats through five games outshine him. We have a #1 running back in D.C.

3. Our defense is getting better. Last week the 26th ranked defense yielded 6 points to the Bucs for most of the game, after collapsing and giving up a total of 22 after the 2nd half was over with.. This week they yielded 7 to the vaunted Falcons offense for the entire 1st half. The offense needs to be able to give them a breather to stop the 4th quarter collapses.

Bad:
1. Billy Cundiff missed another kick. He needs to nail the rest of them for the entire year if he wants some job security. We can't keep throwing away points in close games.

2. Offense's time of possession  The Redskins need to control the clock better on offense to keep the opposing quarterback from shredding the secondary and to give the defense a breather so they have energy for the 4th quarter.

The Redskins are better team that years past but still have some depth issues to address before they become real contenders. Stay strong Skins nation! And lets hope the Nats comeback against the Cardinals. After winning game one of the NLDS they're currently down 1-5 in the top of the 4th. 

A Word About My Posts

In August I posted a whopping 10 times and got around a eight hundred page views from my amazing readers. Then school kicked in, and my September numbers dropped to 5 posts and around 300 pages views. On top of that 3 out of my 5 articles were Redskins articles which don't appeal to my non-football fans out there and for them I only posted twice in the month.

Needless to say senior year is stressing me out and consuming more time than junior year did. With three A.P. courses, a research project and paper and of course, the lovely college applications my time gets eaten up rather quickly and my brain loses its capacity to type coherent blog posts.

In essence, don't have many hopes for anything too good in October, I'll get out what I can but I doubt it'll be good. Expect to see my posts pick back up in January when I'm posting about other things than the Skins games and posting more frequently. In the meantime I highly suggesting perusing the archives for some articles you may have not read. My most popular ones are here, here and here. Check them out if you haven't already!

Also! If you have anything you'd like me to post about or a subject or anything you want me to satirize let me know in the comments! I'd love suggestions as sometimes I just don't know what to write about!

Thank you for choosing The Master Debater and we hope you'll fly with us again soon!

RGIII Leads Comeback as Skins Top Bucs

The #2 rushing offense in the league. They also happen to be the biggest
rookie sensations since...Heath Shuler and what not. 

As the Redskins trotted off to their locker room at half-time Redskins fans had much to be excited for. 21 Points scored by the offense, Alfred Morris averaging over 7 yards a carry against the #1 rush defense in the NFL and, best of all, the defense forcing a turnover and giving up a paltry 6 points. This looked like a team that meant business and made proper adjustments from last week's game. RG3 took only 20% of the hits he took last week. He's running out of bounds when he has to and is fearless down by the goalline. The defense was stout, keeping pressure on Freeman, stuffing the running game and not allowing points to be scored. This looked like a Redskins team we haven't seen since the 80's.

But of course, reality soon kicked in.

The Redskins didn't score a point in 29 minutes of a 30 minute 2nd half. Combined with missed field goals and not being able to drive the ball into the goal line they allowed the Bucs to comeback. Josh Freeman found a rhythm, and staring hitting Mike Williams and Vincent Jackson for huge plays. The Bucs scored and the Skins punted. Before you could blink the score was 22-21 Tampa Bay with under two minutes to go.

The Redskins of old simply wouldn't and couldn't win this game. 2 Minute drills were unheard of for Washington quarterbacks, especially game winning ones. And when they did drive close enough for a game winning or game tying field goal something happened. Bad snap, bad hold, a stupid penalty to move them back (look no further than Week 2 of this season) or a missed kick. But these are the new Skins, led by rookie tandem Alfred Morris and Robert Griffin III. They weren't going to lose three in a row. Backed up at the 20 and with a malfunctioning headset RG3 led a methodical drive, gaining big chunks of yards and managing the clock against a porous Tampa Bay defense. 7 seconds to go and the final timeout is called, setting up a Billy Cundiff 41 yard field goal try. Cundiff had already missed three on the day, one from 31 yards out. This was 10 yards longer. As the fans held their breath, the football watched as the field goal team set up.

Good snap, good hold and the kick squeezed within the left upright. The Redskins came back and made a game winning field goal. Been awhile since anyone has been able to say that.

Looking to next week
Next week includes a tough matchup for the 2-2 Redskins against the 4-0 Atlanta Falcons. This is a tough game but not impossible. For one the Skins are at home and last week proved a tough game for Atlanta, with Cam Newton running the ball and throwing it with good efficiency. Scoring 28 on the Falcon defense. Our offense can compete but the question is how strong our defense is going to hold. Roddy White and Julio Jones tear up defenses on a regular basis and DeAngelo Hall and Josh Wilson aren't shutdown corners and need to keep the game competitive. They can't afford to give up big plays and need to get the offense off the field on third down.

The best defense however, is offense. Matty Ice can't throw a touchdown from the bench and the offense needs to keep him there as long as possible. Its going to be a tough game next week but a test to see if the Redskins are going anywhere this season.