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December 2, 2014 at 9:14 pm #12889
znModeratorTipsheet: Redskins tank while Rams soar
By Jeff Gordon
In Year III after the big Robert Griffin III trade, the Rams and the Washington You Know Whos are going in opposite directions — at warp speed no less.
The Rams are finally realizing their vast potential with draft picks like Tre Mason, Aaron Donald, Alec Ogletree, T.J. McDonald, Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Trumaine Johnson, E.J. Gaines, et al becoming impact players.
For the first time in a decade, the Rams have a team that makes opposing coaches sit up and take notice while looking at game video.
Washington, meanwhile, remains a gridiron quagmire, a sinkhole where football dreams go to die. That once-proud franchise remains hamstrung by a dysfunctional front office under Daniel Snyder, an inexperienced head coach in Jay Gruden and a chaotic locker room.
That team appears ready to jettison Griffin for a middle-round draft pick after sending the Rams a mother lode of picks to acquire his draft rights.
First it was Kirk Cousins replacing RGIII, now he the immortal Colt McCoy.
Here is what folks are writing about that franchise:
Mike Tanier, Bleacher Report: “You know what the umpteenth plot twist in the Robert Griffin III drama has lacked? A financial apology. No Redskins quarterback fiasco is complete until Dan Snyder races down from the owner’s box with some homemade chicken soup and a giant novelty check that knots up next year’s salary cap like last year’s Christmas lights. Shhh, everything’s going to be OK, Bob. And even though it’s Robert’s special day, Kirk, we haven’t forgotten about you. Here are some Hot Wheels action playsets! No team commits resource-arson like the Redskins, who burned through two quarterback prospects in under three months and are now starting a journeyman who is an unrestricted free agent next year. With the Donovan McNabb Memorial Never-Again Third String slot on the depth chart at double capacity, Washington has zero quarterbacks on the roster with any real future potential. (And if you were fooled by McCoy’s three-touchdown stat line in a 49-27 loss to the Colts, then you are either a complete diehard or a member of the team’s front office. Look around and explore your feelings to find out which. Are you surrounded by Redskins paraphernalia and completely frustrated with Snyder? Actually, that does not help at all.)”
Mike Wise, Washington Post: “By default, Jay Gruden is the MVP of another clogged commode of an NFL season in Washington. He’s the only guy with the gumption to say in training camp he liked a lot of things about (DeSean) Jackson as a wide receiver but sometimes D-Jax thinks ‘he’s too cool for school.’ He’s the only person in the organization to publicly acknowledge Robert Griffin III is not a good quarterback right now, and back it up by benching the very player whose career he was partly paid to resurrect. He’s the only transparent decision-maker in the star chamber to have enough confidence in what he believes wins in this league to already have answered the most important question left this season: Does Washington have a face-of-the-franchise quarterback right now able to take this team to a conference championship game in the next two to three years? No, Gruden said, by benching Kirk Cousins, then Griffin and settling on McCoy, the third-stringer now charged with getting Gruden and this beaten-down, beleaguered roster to Dec. 28 with a modicum of respectability. Maybe he knows it doesn’t matter who’s in there — the QB will be sacked, the defense will surrender the land mass of Montana and it’s all about trying to keep a disbelieving locker room together at the moment.”
Judy Bautista, NFL.com: “Robert Griffin III has been benched. Jay Gruden has been brutally candid in his public assessment of him. And when the results didn’t improve Sunday, even though Colt McCoy looked better than Griffin, everything else was cast under the unrelenting microscope, revealing a team with problems that don’t stop at the quarterback position. There are a lot of big-picture decisions ahead for a franchise that has been at a turning point repeatedly in the past decade. Is Gruden, who was chosen from a crowded field, worthy of his post? Can anybody here assemble a well-constructed roster? And whither Griffin? The final four weeks might provide answers to some of those questions — particularly regarding Gruden and McCoy’s viability — but that is only the beginning of what feels like another in a long line of rebuilds.”
Peter King, SI.com: “Eighteen games. Is that enough? That’s how many games Griffin has played since winning the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award 22 months ago. Even if my game plans would be hamstrung by Griffin’s inability to digest the complete playbook right now, I’d still want to see him play, even if he’s capable of only doing 30-40% of what Gruden would ideally like to call. I believe the team’s thinking right now is this: If Griffin approaches the offseason humbled and willing to work hard—and harder in the classroom than he has to at this point—Gruden . . . and Snyder would like to give him another shot to be their guy in 2015. They’d like to see if Griffin can morph into the pocket passer the organization has been trying to mold him into. That’s my view. I think it’s entirely possible that Jay Gruden is trying to save Robert Griffin III’s career, and he feels the best way to do that is to hide him over the next month. It’s a scary thought, and I understand the logic there. But this team needs more evidence to make an informed decision about its quarterback, the most important position in the game. You can’t see that evidence if Griffin is on the bench.”
By contrast, look at the positive press the Rams are getting:
Robert Mays, ESPN.com: “The Rams should formally request to be moved to the NFC South for the rest of the season. The 52-0 drubbing of the Raiders is eye-popping, but they’ve played well throughout the last month. Their 31-14 loss in Arizona included a few garbage-time touchdowns for the Cardinals defense, and the Chargers needed a miracle interception at the goal line last week to sneak out a 27-24 win. It’s impossible to know what the Rams are going to look like at the important spots six months from now — quarterback, head coach — but in their past few games, they’ve finally started to look like the sort of team some people expected coming into the season.”
Frank Schwab, Yahoo! Sports: “I’ll give the Rams credit for this: Most NFL teams would have talked themselves into just rolling with Zac Stacy at running back for another year. The Rams saw a back in Tre Mason they thought was better, and drafted him despite Stacy having a decent rookie year. And it was the right move, obviously.”
Pete Prisco, CBSSports.com: “The Rams have really come together on defense the past six weeks and a lot of it has to do with Robert Quinn getting back to form. He has nine sacks on the season now, three coming against Oakland on Sunday, after not getting any the first six weeks. The Rams will be a feisty opponent for the four teams remaining on their schedule. This team isn’t far away from being good. It’s too bad they lost Sam Bradford early this season.”
Don Banks, SI.com: “The Rams have alternated wins with losses in their past seven games, but that 4-3 span includes victories over Seattle, San Francisco and Denver, and now they’ve proven they can beat bad teams, too. If you’re last-place St. Louis, you must dream of being in this year’s NFC South, where that 5-7 record would good enough for first place in the league’s worst division. The Rams are the first last-place team in NFL history that no one wants to play.”
December 4, 2014 at 10:01 pm #13023znModeratorRedskins vs. Rams preview
By John Keim, with Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/washington-redskins/post/_/id/13533/redskins-vs-rams-preview
They’re connected by one of the biggest draft trades in history. They’re also going in opposite directions, in some ways as an indirect result of the 2012 trade in which the Washington Redskins sent three No. 1 picks and a No. 2 in exchange for the St. Louis Rams’ second overall pick.
When the teams last met in Week 2 of the 2012 season, it looked like that trade would pay dividends for the Redskins. Quarterback Robert Griffin III, then a rookie, was clearly a standout. Now? The Rams haven’t exactly reaped major rewards from their haul, but the Redskins again have questions at quarterback and Griffin is no longer playing.
ESPN.com Rams reporter Nick Wagoner and Redskins reporter John Keim look ahead to Sunday’s game:
Keim: Have you been able to figure out this team yet? They have some impressive wins and lopsided losses. Why are they on such a roller coaster?
Wagoner: Well, in some sense figuring them out is a function of understanding that there isn’t a real rhyme or reason to what happens from week to week. The strange thing about this team is that it was built to win with defense and a strong running game. But it took them about eight weeks to start doing that. Early in the season, they were trying to win by outscoring teams and throwing it all over the yard. Clearly, it didn’t work. But it’s also instructive to note that they’ve played an incredibly difficult schedule. Before last Sunday’s game against Oakland, they had played nine straight games against teams with winning records. So some of those losses have been a product of that and the impressive wins are as well. And really, aside from the Kansas City game, most of those games were close, even if the final score didn’t indicate it. It’s cliché, but the Rams epitomize the importance of winning the turnover battle. When they are on the plus side, they win; when they aren’t, they lose. When they’re even, it’s a toss-up.
Let’s stay big picture. Obviously, this season hasn’t been what the Redskins hoped. Are they as far away from being a contender as they appear? If so, what are the most pressing areas that need to be addressed?
Keim: Well, quarterback must be put on the list, given what’s transpired here the past two seasons. It’s a surprising turn of events, but Griffin has a ways to go if he wants to be a good starting quarterback in the NFL. The same is true of Kirk Cousins, and I’m not sold that Colt McCoy is anything but a good backup capable of being an excellent tutor for younger quarterbacks. Also, the secondary needs fixing at multiple spots. They need to solve a couple issues on the offensive line and they could use more young players on the defensive front. If they don’t think rookie Trent Murphy will develop into a quality pass-rusher (and they let Brian Orakpo bolt via free agency), then you can add this to the list as well. They’ll also have to address whether or not they want to make changes to the defensive staff. It always sounds more daunting when you’re in the midst of a bad season, and in the NFL, hope is always right around the corner. But the Redskins have to prove they know how to solve their issues.
Where the heck did that offensive output come from last week? And what’s the deal with running back Tre Mason — what’s stood out about him?
Wagoner: There were a few factors at play. First, it was against the Raiders. While they have been decent defensively this year, they clearly aren’t all that good. The other thing is Oakland turns the ball over at a rate that other teams simply don’t. The Rams had some pretty favorable situations because of that, and the general ineptitude of the Raiders offense also set the Rams up in nice position multiple times. Nonetheless, the Rams were able to move the ball well, even when they had a lot of field to work with. Shaun Hill did a good job getting them into better plays at the line of scrimmage and he didn’t turn the ball over. He also was solid against the blitz, getting the ball out quickly and to the right spots. As for Mason, I have to admit I was wrong on that draft choice. I didn’t dislike the choice of Mason himself, but I wondered why the Rams used a third-round pick on a running back after Zac Stacy’s success last year. It’s become obvious why they did it in recent weeks. Mason gives them an explosive element that Stacy simply doesn’t offer and that was exceedingly evident on his 89-yard touchdown run last week. He still has some work to do, both in making more consistent reads and in pass protection, but he’s a pretty solid young talent with a lot of upside. If nothing else, I think the Rams can move forward confidently knowing he’s the back of the present and the future.
I’m sure you’re probably tired of the subject at this point, but fans here are curious about what’s gone wrong with Griffin? From the outside, it would seem that without his ability to run and a scheme designed around his abilities that we might have seen the best he has to offer in his rookie year. Do you believe there’s still room for growth there, and if so, how do they get it out of him?
Keim: Well, there’s a lot of room for growth, but the question is can he get there — and how long will it take? Griffin has not shown the explosiveness that he did as a rookie, but he’s still a fast quarterback. He has a good arm, too. But I’m not sure the current coaching staff has the patience to try and develop him, knowing how long they think it might take. Griffin wasn’t playing with the confidence he showed as a rookie, some of which stems from him needing to develop more as a passer. That’s not just in the pocket, either. Even as a rookie he left a lot of plays on the field by opting to run too soon or putting his eyes down too early or not being confident in what he saw. He has to dedicate himself to becoming a pocket passer, learning how to slide and maneuver, for example. Griffin has talent, but what’s coming out now is what was whispered about before (and occasionally mentioned): He needs to focus a lot more on developing as a passer than working in the weight room. Griffin is not lazy and he is a smart kid. But his pace of development was slow. I don’t know if the coaches asked him to do things he wasn’t capable of yet or if he just will never get it. Maybe Griffin needs to see how far he has fallen before he really gets his mind to how far he has to climb.
The sacks have been down for the defense, though it looks like they’re getting more pressure lately. Why is that? Also, what’s your take on Aaron Donald and what he’s meant to the defense?
Wagoner: It’s crazy to think that not too long ago the Rams had just one sack and set a league record for futility in that area. Not only because they have too much talent up front for that, but also because they now sit in a tie for 14th in the league with 28 sacks. Some of the early struggles were a major function of their early inability to stop the run. Teams simply didn’t throw against them much because they were having so much success on the ground. When they did pass, the ball was coming out fast. They also missed end Chris Long, who just returned from ankle surgery last week. Adding to the complications, the Rams seemed uncomfortable adjusting to defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’ scheme and all that they were asked to do within its confines. Now he seems to have a good idea of how his guys are best used, and they seem to know what to do from down to down, as well as what they’re seeing from the offense.
As for Donald, his addition to the starting lineup coincided with the Rams’ pass rush improvement. That’s not a coincidence. His snaps went from about 25-28 a game to now in the 50-55 range. He’s their best interior pass-rusher and one of the most mature and polished rookies I’ve seen come through St. Louis in my 11 years covering the team. Donald and Robert Quinn are two outstanding building blocks on that defensive line. Long still has plenty of gas in the tank and Michael Brockers has been a bit disappointing, but is still young with upside. They have the pieces in place to be stout up front for a long time.
While we’re on the topic of defense, Jim Haslett spent some time in St. Louis as defensive coordinator and is now handling those duties in Washington. It was a bit of a surprise here when he was retained by the new staff, but he’s still hanging on. What can you say about the job he has done and his level of job security after this season?
Keim: Oh, I think there has to be concern about his security. Fans blame Haslett for anything that goes wrong defensively. This is not just going to be fixed by changing coordinators, unless you find an elite one. Before last week, when you looked at some numbers and saw what the defense has lost this season, then you could say the defensive staff overall had done better than anticipated. They were far from a dominant unit, but entering last week they were 10th in yards and 20th in points despite losing DeAngelo Hall and Orakpo and Barry Cofield (until recently). With their talent healthy, I never viewed them as anything other than a medicore unit. This defense has not been put together well and that’s an organizational failure, so if you get rid of Haslett, there’s more work that needs to be done. That said, five years is a long time if you’re not getting results. In that stretch, the Redskins are a cumulative 27th in yards per game, 29th in yards per play and 30th in points per game. Whoever’s fault it is, it hasn’t been working. The results aren’t there.
Rams at Redskins: Stats of the Week
27
How many sacks the Rams have since Week 7, after starting the season with just one in the first six weeks. That ranks second in the league to Buffalo in that span.
15
Points off turnovers scored by Washington this season, which ranks 31st in the NFL. The Redskins have caused 15 turnovers this season and are actually plus-4 in turnover margin in the past two games. But in those games, the opposition scored more points off turnovers (7) than the Redskins (6).
December 5, 2014 at 8:38 am #13047
wvParticipanthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/for-jay-gruden-the-best-place-for-robert-griffin-iii-is-elsewhere/2014/12/03/911e0cde-7a69-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html?wprss=rss_redskins-page-shell&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
by Jason Reid – Washington Post“…If it were up to Gruden, the Redskins would make a clean break in the offseason, taking whatever they could get for Griffin in a trade. But despite Griffin’s awful performance — he hasn’t won a game in more than a year while being benched in successive seasons — the situation may not be so clear-cut for Snyder and Allen, who had key roles in the decision to trade four high-round draft picks for the opportunity to select Griffin….” see link
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/washington-redskins-secondary-remains-primary-concern-heading-into-game-vs-rams/2014/12/04/150711e6-7c0c-11e4-b821-503cc7efed9e_story.html
by Liz Clarke – Washington Post — Secondary concernsf there is a defining image from a loss the Washington Redskins would prefer to forget, it is of cornerback David Amerson flinging his arms skyward in disbelief Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium as he ran full-tilt, in futile pursuit of Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Donte Moncrief.
Moncrief streaked into the end zone for a 48-yard touchdown early in the third quarter. And with another blown coverage by the Redskins’ shorthanded, unseasoned and undisciplined secondary, Washington fell hopelessly in arrears.
Jim Haslett’s defense surrendered 42 points en route to the 49-27 loss (the Colts’ other score came on a fumble returned for a touchdown), dropping Washington to 3-9.
Speaking to reporters for the first time since the defeat, Haslett said Thursday that the mistakes, while disappointing, were “correctable.”
“That stuff is correctable, but it should have never happened in the first place,” Haslett said.
But with the ranks of defensive backs thinning and the recent gaffes occurring on the simplest coverages in Washington’s playbook, it appears a leap of faith that appreciable fixes can be made in time to right a season that has gone horribly wrong.
What Haslett said he can’t and won’t do is make the concepts any simpler, noting that some of the mistakes against the Colts occurred on plays familiar to high school players and installed on Day 2 of training camp.
Coach Jay Gruden and veteran safety Ryan Clark lamented much the same earlier in the week.
“If he simplifies it any more,” Clark said of Haslett’s scheme against the Colts, “I’d be able to let my son play, and he’s 13. We have a lot of stuff [in the playbook], but you don’t always use it all. The plays that they scored on, it wasn’t like it was exotic. It was simple things; they just spread us out.”
Haslett enumerated instances in which cornerbacks had their eyes locked on the wrong player or abandoned their responsibility in an effort to make a bigger splash, only to get beaten. “That’s poor,” Haslett said. “That not doing a good job. Obviously I didn’t get through to them, and we didn’t do a very good job of getting it executed. That falls on us.”
Amerson, 22, who was making his return to the lineup after being benched the previous week for missing a team meeting and part of practice, acknowledged he was among those who made mental blunders against the Colts.
“Definitely that last game was an embarrassment for our defense and secondary,” Amerson said. “It’s just little mental mistakes — knowing every time what’s supposed to happen, whether it’s this call or that call, who’s supposed to be where, not having those mental busts that we had in the last game.”
But he grew weary of the mea culpa.
“I feel like we do a lot of great things, but when we do things great, no one says anything about it,” Amerson said. “If something goes wrong, it’s all this and that.”
The Colts’ top-ranked offense represented the biggest challenge Washington’s defense had faced. Gruden said he was prepared for third-year quarterback Andrew Luck to make his share of plays. But he didn’t expect to see the Colts “waltz down the field and have guys 30 yards wide open” multiple times, he said afterward.
Four of Luck’s career-high five touchdown passes were for 30 yards or more; most were scored by receivers running free, unencumbered by pressure of any sort. Luck would have had a fifth of more than 30 yards had tight end Coby Fleener not dropped a sure-fire 50-yard touchdown throw early in the game. As it was, Fleener settled for scores of 30 and 73 yards.
The Colts’ 49 points made irrelevant a 27-point effort by Washington’s slow-starting offense that should have been enough to win most NFL games.
It also brought renewed scrutiny to Haslett’s job performance. And it highlighted the secondary as a glaring area of need heading into the 2015 NFL draft.
The fixes touted as shoring up the unit during the recent offseason have proved little more than stopgap measures. Clark, signed last spring, has been a stabilizing presence, particularly after cornerback DeAngelo Hall was lost for the season in Week 3. But at 35, he said this week he’s not counting on his NFL career continuing beyond this season.
While Washington’s upcoming opponent, the St. Louis Rams (5-7), can’t match the Colts’ offense, it is coming off a 52-0 throttling of the Raiders. That’s plenty to give Haslett pause, particularly with injuries mounting.
Washington may well be without starting strong safety Brandon Meriweather for Sunday’s game. The eight-year veteran has been unable to practice this week after spraining a big toe during the loss at Indianapolis.
His backup, first-year player Phillip Thomas, was elevated from the practice squad only recently and had a shaky outing in relief Sunday.
Neither backup cornerback — E.J. Biggers, featured in nickel packages, and Chase Minnifield — was able to practice Thursday, still dealing with the concussions.
Haslett has cobbled together his defensive backfield much of the season but was forced to improvise even more against the Colts, sliding rookie cornerback Bashaud Breeland, a strong athlete and dutiful student, into the role Biggers typically plays, covering slot receivers, and installing Minnifield in Breeland’s spot. Breeland did well, Haslett said. But more lineup shuffling is likely in store against the Rams.
December 6, 2014 at 6:32 pm #13240znModeratorRams-Redskins: Matchup breakdown
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/14305/rams-redskins-matchup-breakdown
EARTH CITY, Mo. — A look at three individual matchups to keep an eye on when the St. Louis Rams and Washington Redskins meet at 1 p.m. ET Sunday.
Rams safety Mark Barron vs. Redskins tight end Jordan Reed
It’s an old SEC rivalry with the former Alabama star Barron against the former Florida Gator Reed. The Redskins’ offense has been stuck in the mud most of the season, but Reed has at least offered some hope with his recent productivity. He had nine catches for 123 yards against Indianapolis last week and appears to be fully healthy finally. Washington has good weapons on the outside in DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon but with Colt McCoy at quarterback, it seems he feels a bit more comfortable working with a safer outlet such as Reed.
The job of covering Reed falls to plenty of Rams other than Barron, but it’s been interesting to watch how the Rams deploy him. He played 46 snaps last week against Oakland, which is the most he’s been on the field since coming to St. Louis in a trade with Tampa Bay. Barron has become essentially a hybrid who spends much of his time near the line of scrimmage as a de facto third linebacker but also has the ability to drop and cover tight ends. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Rams use him in similar ways against the Redskins with Reed as a regular counterpart.
Rams right tackle Joe Barksdale vs. Redskins left outside linebacker Ryan Kerrigan
For the second week in a row, Barksdale find himself in an intriguing matchup. Kerrigan and Jason Hatcher are the Redskins’ biggest defensive threats and Kerrigan has become one of the league’s better pass-rushers. He has 9.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and 24 quarterback pressures and hits on the season. He’s deceptively quick and is adept at converting speed into power, which makes him tough to handle in Washington’s base 3-4 defense.
Barksdale had a good outing against Oakland last week but has had some trouble with better pass-rushers such as Kansas City’s Justin Houston. Kerrigan is closer in class to Houston than many of the other pass-rushers Barksdale has seen, so it will be important for the Rams to find ways to offer him some help on the edge to keep Kerrigan at bay.
Rams defensive end Chris Long vs. Redskins right tackle Tom Compton
Compton replaced Tyler Polumbus about halfway through the season and has had his ups and downs since stepping into the starting lineup. Still, he’s been an upgrade over Polumbus, who struggled mightily at the beginning of the season. At 6-foot-5, 314 pounds, Compton has more of a reputation for his work in the run game but not so much as a pass blocker.
Long, meanwhile, returned to action last week for the Rams after an ankle surgery, and immediately made his presence felt with a sack and a forced fumble. He played about half the snaps in his first game back and though the Rams will continue to be cautious with him, his role should continue at about the same level or perhaps a little more moving forward. Long and William Hayes make a strong tag team and they could make life very difficult for Compton and a Redskins’ offense that has yielded the second most sacks in the league this season.
December 6, 2014 at 6:52 pm #13244znModeratorWhat to Watch For: Rams vs. Redskins/ Wagoner
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/14302/w2w4-st-louis-rams-17
EARTH CITY, Mo. — The St. Louis Rams and the Washington Redskins kick off Week 14 on Sunday at FedEx Field. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. ET on Fox regional coverage.
Here are three things to watch from the Rams’ perspective:
1. Keep it simple: Winning the turnover battle is an unavoidable formula for winning games in the NFL. Yes, it’s simple and obvious but it’s also as close as you can find to a predictor in figuring out wins and losses in a given week. The Rams have been a perfect example of that this season. In games where they have committed zero turnovers, they are 3-0 and they haven’t lost a game in which they’ve been on the positive side of the turnover ledger. Conversely, they’ve lost any time they’ve been on the negative side. Games where they’ve broken even have been a coin toss. The Redskins don’t give it away as much as last week’s opponent, the Oakland Raiders, but they are pretty generous. They are 27th in the league in turnover margin at minus-7 and their 22 giveaways are 24th in the league. The Rams, meanwhile, have 21 takeaways, which is the eighth most in the league.
2. Pass rush production: The population of sack city has increased tremendously over the past seven or so weeks. After setting a league record for futility in that statistic the first six weeks, the Rams have become the pass rushing team that had set out to be at the beginning of the year. Since Week 7, the Rams have 27 sacks, which is the second most in the league in that time frame. End Robert Quinn is up to nine on the season and coming off a three-sack effort last week while defensive tackle Aaron Donald is leading all rookies in sacks with six of his own. The Redskins have yielded 39 sacks this season, the second most in the NFL. This is a dangerous mix for Washington heading into this week.
3. Penalty prone: Both teams enter this matchup among the most penalized teams in the league. That should be no surprise to fans of either team as they’ve likely grown annoyed by the persistent flags. Washington is 28th in the league in penalties with 93 while the Rams aren’t far behind at 90. And both teams aren’t just getting penalties but they’re getting costly ones. The Rams’ 851 penalty yards is second most in the league and Washington’s 828 are fourth most. So don’t be surprised if this game takes a while. The team that can control itself best will be doing itself a great service in improving its chances for a win.
December 7, 2014 at 1:56 am #13259znModerator7 things to watch: Rams at Redskins
By Jim Thomas
COLT IS IN CHARGE IN WASHINGTON
After washing out in Cleveland, then holding a clipboard for a year in San Francisco, Colt McCoy has another chance to show he can be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Sunday marks his third start this season for Washington, and the second since Robert Griffin III was benched by coach Jay Gruden. McCoy has good mobility and pretty good accuracy. He doesn’t have the greatest arm strength. There are times when he gets the ball out quickly, but also times when he waits too long reading the field and gets pulled down by the pass rush. It’s a common mistake for young quarterbacks. McCoy was sacked six times last week against the Colts, one of which resulted in a fumble that was recovered by Indy and returned for a touchdown. “He’s done a pretty good job,” Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams said. “I see a lot of progress in his game since the last time I’ve gone against him a few years ago when he was in Cleveland.”
IN THE BACKFIELD
He hasn’t come close to matching his franchise record 1,613 rushing yards as a rookie in 2012, but Alfred Morris is on course for a third consecutive 1,000-yard rushing year. He’s among NFL leaders in rushing yards (893) and rushing TDs (seven). At 5 feet 10, 224 pounds, Morris has excellent lower-body strength. “He’s got our attention on how he’s able to press the hole,” Williams said. “He’s been a great one-cut runner. He’s more explosive than people give him credit for.”
HELU, TOO
The one thing Morris doesn’t do is catch many passes. Those chores usually fall to former University of Nebraska star Roy Helu Jr. The Rams haven’t always been attentive to running backs leaking out of the backfield to catch passes; doing the same against Washington would be a big mistake. The speedy Helu is third among NFL running backs in reception yards (436), and leads all NFL pass-catchers — be they backs, wideouts, or tight ends — in yards after the catch (12.7).
THE RECEIVERS
The Rams will catch a break if DeSean Jackson (shin) can’t play. He’s listed as questionable, which might be an optimistic assessment because he didn’t practice all week. If he’s out there, Jackson has big-play potential as evidenced by his career average of 17.5 yards per catch. Don’t sleep on Pierre Garcon, who has more catches (162) since the start of last season than anyone in the NFC. Jordan Reed is an emerging tight end who had nine catches for 123 yards last week.
SHORTHANDED SECONDARY
Washington has been without veteran cornerbacks DeAngelo Hall and Tracy Porter for most of the season. Both are on IR. And it looks as if starting strong safety Brandon Meriweather and backup cornerback E.J. Biggers will be out because of injuries Sunday. CB Chase Minnifield (concussion), who started last week, already has been ruled out. After giving up four TD passes of 30-plus yards, including two of 70-plus yards against Indy, the secondary appears very vulnerable.
KERRIGAN and QUINN
The 2011 draft was a banner year for pass rushers, featuring Von Miller, Aldon Smith, J.J. Watt, the Rams’ Robert Quinn and Washington’s Ryan Kerrigan. Washington traded down, from No. 10 overall to No. 16, to take Kerrigan and in essence pass on Quinn, who went at No. 14. Kerrigan has a career-high 9½ sacks this season and has 34 in his career. After a slow start this season, Quinn has been on fire lately. He’s credited with nine sacks in 2014 and has 43½ in his career.
TURNOVER BATTLE
The winning formula for the Rams isn’t all that complicated in 2014. They are 3-0 in games where they don’t commit a turnover. Washington had three takeaways last week but still lost to the Colts 49-27, and has been anything but a turnover machine this season — with 15. Only five teams in the NFL have fewer. The Rams, meanwhile, are coming off a season-high five takeaways registered in last week’s 52-0 route of Oakland and have 21 takeaways this season.
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