With a defeat of the Dallas Cowboys in their Week 7 matchup, the Washington Redskins now hold the first-place position in the NFC East with a 4-2 record. The game was hard fought and while some units played better than others, every squad wearing Burgundy and gold contributed to the victory.
That said, it was the big men on the offensive and defensive lines that truly won the contest.
To win this game, the players knew that they were going to have to control the line of scrimmage and that’s what happened. The guys along the offensive line realized that keeping Cowboys QB Dak Prescott and RB Ezekiel Elliott off the field was going to be paramount and to do that; they needed to use up the clock. In order to accomplish that, they’d need to move the chains consistently. To do that required a successful ground game.
Mission accomplished.
With a variety of spread formations and up-the-gut runs, coach Jay Gruden dialed up running back Adrian Peterson 24 times. A.P. responded with 99 yards and a 4.1 yards-per-carry average.
RB Kapri Bibbs only got the nod twice but he made them count, racking up a touchdown on a 23-yard afterburner ignition into the end zone for the team’s first touchdown on their first drive and a 10-yard run for a first down later in the game (a 6.5 ypc average).
The offensive line had Chase Roullier back at center and Shawn Lauvao back at left guard and, despite the criticism that the latter has received from fans, the line was more effective being back as the unit that went through training camp together. Not only did they open lanes for Peterson when needed (most of the time) against a talented Dallas defensive line that included a Pro Bowl defensive end in Demarcus Lawrence; they got upfield and blocked when needed. QB Alex Smith was sacked only once.
“Oh yeah, yeah,” LT Trent Williams said about the cohesiveness of the line with Lauvao beside him and Roullier back in the middle. “That’s THE unit. The five of us is the offensive line. The five of us have worked together for months. Years. That’s no disrespect anywhere but it’s what you want at the line of scrimmage. We don’t want to think too much out there, we need to play. To react. That can be done when you’ve been together as long as we have.”
The offense did have it’s second half scoring issues and again, it was the defense that kept the opposition out of the end zone long enough to hold the lead and win.
Like with the O-line, getting the win started in the trenches, controlling the line of scrimmage and containing Prescott and Elliott.
Prescott was under pressure all game long and was sacked four times, once for a strip fumble, the recovery of that fumble and a subsequent (and immediate) touchdown; care of OLBs Ryan Kerrigan and Preston Smith, respectively.
As well, it was the defensive interior of Jonathan Allen, Matt Ioannidis and Daron Payne that held the day.
While their stats were not eye-popping, they pushed the pocket around and harassed Prescott. They, along with Kerrigan and Smith; and teammates Zach Brown, Mason Foster and Ryan Anderson (who might have played his best professional game) held a leading NFL rusher (in Elliott) to 33 yards on 15 carries for a 2.2 ypc average.
In addition to the four sacks, Prescott was hurried 20 times and eight different guys are credited with those. Kerrigan logged two of the sacks; and Anderson and Allen each had one. In fact, Kerrigan graded out at an impressive 91.6 for his overall performance and he and the rest of the front seven made things much easier for the secondary. Add in a minimum of missed tackles and no offensive turnovers and a win is the result.
“We knew it was going to be on us, we talked about it all week,” Foster said after the game. “We had to come out and win the game in the trenches… be physical. They’ve got a great running back and we did that. Those guys up front were hunting and we were going to play off them. It’s big for us man. We want to get three [turnovers or sacks] a game, change the momentum, get the crowd into it and just play with energy for four quarters. There were mistakes and things that broke down, but you’ve just got to keep playing through the tough times and adversity and things will go your way.”
It is no surprise that the guys in the trenches concentrated on dominating the line of scrimmage… they’d talked about it all week. But it might have been a bit of a surprise to Dak Prescott and Demarcus Lawrence that they pulled it off so well.