After their Week 1 dominance over the Arizona Cardinals, the Washington Redskins had hoped to clear another hurdle by earning a second win by beating the visiting Indianapolis Colts. Not only did that not happen, it ‘didn’t happen’ in a rather startling manner. While the Colts did not dominate the Redskins the way they Redskins dominated the Cardinals, they came close and Washington lost to Indy 21-9.
An instant analysis of the defeat indicates a couple of things:
1) The Colts might be better than everyone thought and;
2) Washington still has a lot of work to do all over the place… offensively, defensively, on special teams and in its coaching
Indy sets the tempo early with its ground game in that, a few times, the Colts ran the ball right at the Redskins two Alabama studs — defensive linemen Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne. There’s been so much talk about the duo… apparently, Indianapolis decided to test them. They didn’t pass.
To add insult to injury, the Redskins front seven just could not get to Colts QB Andrew Luck for a while and it was too easy for him to move the ball. This is even more baffling because of the state of the Colts’ offensive line.
When Washington had the ball, RB Adrian Peterson couldn’t get going. No rushing rhythm was ever established from either him or RB Chris Thompson.
Throughout the game, QB Alex Smith was harassed by the Colts defensive front. He couldn’t get into a passing rhythm because he had no time to throw the ball. In fact, he was sacked three times. The offense could not convert third downs.
Intensity continues to look like an issue in Washington but it’s hard to make that concrete assertion without going back and watching the film (this author reserves the right to do so). Execution was lacking on both sides of the ball but it was worse on the offense, especially along the offensive line.
The Redskins just couldn’t run or pass the ball long with any consistency. The Colts secondary took everything but the dink and dunk out of the equation and their linebackers played better than most thought they would.
Whether that is because the Indy coaching staff dissected and analyzed the Redskins film from last week so well that they knew how to stop Peterson and the long passing game; or they are simply a better defense than people thought. Again, film must be reviewed to determine if the problem was one or both things.
But the O-line couldn’t keep Smith out of trouble, Peterson wasn’t nearly as effective as he was last week and both Josh Doctson and Paul Richardson, dropped passes that should have been caught.
On the other hand, there were a couple of bright spots.
As the game went on, Washington’s defensive front hit home a few times and, between the front seven and the ILBs, did stop Indy’s run game. Unfortunately, even as Redskins safety D.J. Swearinger played well, snagging two interceptions, Luck gashed the secondary too many times.
There were a couple of runs that Peterson had that really illustrated his afterburners. On one play in the third quarter, he found a nice hole between the tackles and it was surprising how quickly he got up the field once he was clear.
Tight end Jordan Reed continues to be a matchup nightmare for linebackers and safeties. It’s too bad that Smith had a hard time getting the ball to him because of the Colts’ defensive pressure.
The final stats are a good indication of how bad the game was. Smith completed 33 of the 46 passes he threw for 292 yards and no TDs. His longest pass was 34 yards (to Richardson). Peterson had 11 rushes for 20 yards and a stunning 1.8 ypc average. RB Chris Thompson had four rush attempts for a yard (0.3 ypc) but was typically reliable in the passing game (13 completions off 14 targets, 92 yards). Reed had six catches for 55 yards, Doctson had four completions for 37 yards and Richardson had four catches for 63 yards.
Washington converted five of 15 third downs… a 33 percent efficiency rating. Ouch.
“Well, I think they were executing and we weren’t, period,” head coach Jay Gruden said after the game. “You know, hats off to them, like I said. They did a good job. We didn’t do a very good job out there in the second half. We weren’t on track. We were off track a little bit, lost our balance… never really had it, really. We were kind of one-dimensional throughout the game. Our running game suffered and we were pretty much one-dimensional.”