If the adage, “In close games between good football teams, the team with the ball last wins” is true, then it could be suggested that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin, III should not have passed the ball 30 yards to wide out Santana Moss on a second-and-six at the New York Giants’ 30-yard-line. With a little over a minute and a half to go in the contest and New York ahead by four however, the Burgundy and Gold needed the points. I guess they just should not have scored them so quickly. In the end, the Giants scored one more time and beat the Redskins 27-23.
It was a nice play though, and you get the feeling that any time Griffin is on the field; this team has a chance. With receiver Pierre Garçon out with an injury, a veteran guy like Moss is valuable.
“[San]Tana [Moss] is a guy who’s seen it all… done it all,” Griffin said after the game. “Whenever you have a guy out there who can do those kinds of things you want to get the ball in his hands. But like I’ve talked to him and talked to a lot of other people, you try not to force it to him because teams do know…. I mean, it is Santana Moss so if he’s open, I’m going to get it to him.”
Had the Redskins taken more time to score, Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning might not have had time to complete a 77-yard touchdown pass to his star receiver, Victor Cruz, which put them right back on top.
“You feel like your defense is going to go out and shut them down and then something like that happens,” Griffin said about the touchdown pass to Cruz, “and you just have to move on. We went back on the field and felt like we still had a chance to win the game and we didn’t do that so… Right now it’s kind of hard to know what to think. You gotta just keep pushing forward and move on to the next week.”
The too-quick pass to Moss certainly wasn’t the reason that the Redskins lost this game. Heck… the Giants’ scored so quickly (the pass to Cruz was the second play of a series that took 19 seconds to complete) that Washington got the ball back anyway and had time to score again. Unfortunately, when Moss caught a ball in that final series, he fumbled it and back it went to the Giants. There you have it then: in close games between good football teams, the team with the ball last wins.
The New York Giants sure have gotten good at performing that “Victory Formation.”
The turnovers in that game – Washington lost three fumbles and Griffin threw an interception – were a problem and in the third quarter, the ball traded hands like a hot potato. The first two series of the quarter were non-eventful with the Redskins receiving the half-time kick-off and punting after a Griffin scramble for 11 yards and three plays that pretty much went nowhere.
The Giants had their shot at doing something but did not, punting after their next five plays.
Once the Redskins got the ball back, the fun began. On their sixth play of the series, running back Alfred Morris fumbled the ball. New York linebacker Michael Boley recovered and the Giants started their next series on their 39-yard line.
After five plays, Manning threw a pass to his left, intended for Cruz, and it was intercepted by an alert Redskins’ cornerback Josh Wilson, who returned it for seven yards.
Six plays after that, Griffin threw a deep ball to tight end Logan Paulsen that was intercepted by Giants’ safety Stevie Brown. A few plays later, the quarter ended. Unfortunately for Washington, the Giants took advantage of that turnover and scored just a couple of minutes into the fourth quarter.
Turning the ball over four times in a game is unusual for the Redskins in 2012. So different from last year, up until this game, Washington had taken care of the pigskin well. Including Sunday’s ball-trading, their turnover ratio is still +7 with five fumble recoveries and 10 interceptions in seven games.
The biggest challenge for this team continues to be the secondary and, after that Manning-to-Cruz connection, Twitterdom was in full “Off-with-His-Head!” mode with regard to Redskins’ defensive coordinator Jim Haslett. There have been times when the corners and safeties have gotten beaten in the past because players are out of position and simply not fast enough once the play is established (i.e., bad execution). There have also been times when they were getting beaten because they were not in the right coverage for what opponents’ offenses were giving them, i.e., when they should have been in man-to-man but were in zone (i.e., coaching issue).
Against the Minnesota Vikings last week, the defensive backfield looked to have shored things up a bit. And, for much of the game on Sunday, the safeties and corners did a good job. What happened on that long pass to Cruz can be explained simply by poor execution. These types of mistakes by the Redskins’ secondary were legendary earlier in the year and the cost to the team this past week was anything but simple….
Even though the combination of turnovers and the problems in the secondary likely cost them the first-place position in the NFC East this week, there is a lot to be optimistic about with regard to this Washington Redskins team… especially because they were matched up against the Superbowl champion New York Giants.
On Sunday, Washington was three-for-three on fourth-down conversions, they logged 480 total yards (to the Giants’ 393), averaged seven yards per play (to the Giants’ 6.6), had 248 rushing yards (6.5 yards-per-carry, compared to the Giants’ 64 total and 3.4 yards-per-carry) and held the ball for 32:43 compared to the Giants’ 27:17. In the future they must protect the football and not let great receivers get behind the secondary… especially when there is less than two minutes left in the game.
Robert Griffin, III was ready to go back out on the field and lead the team to a victory and, if not for the fumble, he might have. Had the Redskins not lost the ball with 30 seconds left in the game, they might have scored – if not to tie it with a field goal and go at it again in overtime, then with a touchdown to win. They would have kept the ball in their hands and so had a chance.
“When the game’s on the line you want the ball in your hands and you believe that you can do it,” RGIII said in his post-game press conference. “There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we’d go win that game.”
Thinking like that will take you places… like to 4-4 after a win against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Hail.