Redskins’ Smith is trying to find balance in passing game

Last week the Washington Redskins struggled to find a rhythm in a sloppy 21-9 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

Washington struggled in all facets of the game but offensively is where the problems stood out in front of a disgruntled FedEx Field crowd.

The Redskins offense was stymied on the ground and through the air. A week after gashing the Arizona Cardinals for 180 plus yards on the ground and over 200 yards through the air, the Redskins were only able to muster three field goals on the day against the Colts.

Washington needs to find a balance on offense and must mix up their passing plays to not be confined to check-downs.

Today while speaking to the media at the INOVA Sports Performance Center at Redskins Park, quarterback Alex Smith talked about the need for balance in the passing game.

“Yeah, I mean I think every guy on the team, certainly every guy on offense went through the game and what plays could I have done differently to help us,” Smith said. “For me, in the first half of the game is maybe when I went through that in my head. Could I have taken a shot here? You know, all week we talked about being patient. The way they play defense, be patient. Let the shots present themselves. You don’t anticipate in the first half that you’re going to get in the second half and still be trailing. In the second half, very apparent, I mean they were not going to let anything get over their head or get behind them. It was so soft. Hence, a lot of the underneath stuff was open. So, then you do look back at that and you’re like ‘well God maybe this one play in the first half should I have held it a tick longer and taken a shot or could I have looked this off and gone here?’ That’s kind of the game you play with the what-ifs, you know, in a situation like that. It’s hard though when you have limited opportunities. You expected to have more opportunities and we didn’t have them. Then, obviously, in the second half [we] kind of got one-dimensional.”

In-game adjustments were needed Sunday against the Colts but didn’t appear to be made by the Redskins coaching staff. Nothing seemed to work and Smith touched on looking back ‘what could have been.’

“I mean any time, anything, something doesn’t work or you’re out of rhythm, out of sync like that, certainly the next day, in hindsight, you’re always kicking yourself,” Smith said. “Shoot we could’ve done this, could’ve done that, I could’ve done this, things like that. What’s tough in that game, it felt like you also wanted to tell yourself to stay patient with some of that stuff. Stay patient with the run, stay patient with some of those things because the look was still there. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to capitalize on those things. Combination of a lot of things, certainly yeah, could we have done things differently? You know, maybe. [We] could have executed a lot better too. A combination of all those things I think put together and it’s a fine line. You fight that battle, right? Should we stay patient with this, we want to stay patient with this. Then the next day, you’re maybe saying ‘hey maybe I should’ve gone a different direction quicker’.”

The Redskins will have to find balance and adjust to what the Green Bay Packers (1-0-1) try to take away from them on Sunday if they are to be successful.