{"id":7051,"date":"2012-10-08T13:31:47","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thehogs.net\/blogs\/?p=7051"},"modified":"2012-10-08T13:31:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T17:31:47","slug":"five-quick-thoughts-falcons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-hogs.net\/blogs\/2012\/10\/08\/five-quick-thoughts-falcons\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Quick Thoughts: Falcons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was yet another tough experience for Redskins Nation, as Washington had every chance to hand Atlanta their first loss of the season; but in the end, it was the Falcons who came out on top <a title=\"Game Recap\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nfl.com\/gamecenter\/2012100700\/2012\/REG5\/falcons@redskins?icampaign=GamePass_ScoreStrip_watch#menu=gamepass&amp;tab=analyze\" target=\"_blank\">24-17<\/a>. Here are some quick thoughts on the game:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1) Robert Griffin III<\/strong> &#8211; Obviously the collective breaths of every Redskin fan on the planet, were held tight, when RGIII was drilled in the head. Mildly concussed, he wouldn&#8217;t return. Hopefully RGIII will recover quickly and be ready for next week, but will this be a wake up call to the importance of sliding for the young rookie? Tough is tough, but you don&#8217;t have to be careless to be tough. He needs to learn to protect himself a bit better, and live to fight another down. It&#8217;s hard to even suggest to someone with the kind of fire and integrity that RGIII has, that he should take the &#8216;easier route&#8217; but that&#8217;s what he needs to do. His team needs him &#8211; for more than any one game, or any one play.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The kid is awesome though isn&#8217;t he? When Kirk Cousins came in, we were quickly reminded of what a rookie quarterback SHOULD look like in the NFL. That isn&#8217;t to take anything away from Cousins because I felt he did well, and just tried to force the issue a bit. He was thrown into the fire, and he had good and bad things happen &#8211; exactly what you expect from a greenhorn.<\/p>\n<p>But we don&#8217;t see that with RGIII, and his importance and his value have never been more apparent than the moment that we didn&#8217;t have him available. The kid is special.<\/p>\n<p>Get well soon.<\/p>\n<p>* &#8211; An interesting developing side story to this is that the Redskins did not report Griffin&#8217;s concussion during the game as per NFL rules. The Redskins merely stated that he was, &#8216;Shaken up.&#8221; but at no time did they rule out the possibility of his return. Read more about it <a title=\"RGIII concussion story\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/football-insider\/wp\/2012\/10\/07\/nfl-will-look-into-redskins-release-of-info-about-griffins-concussion\/?tid=pm_sports_pop\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2) Alfred Morris<\/strong> &#8211; I only mentioned RGIII first because that&#8217;s obviously where a lot of Redskins fans minds are at, following the loss. Morris was easily the most notable game performance of any Redskin though. He followed up his first ever 100-yard game last week, with another against the Falcons (18 carries, 115 yards, 6.4 YPC). He ran around people, over people, through people &#8211; I tweeted that this guy runs like a shaved bear. So much conviction and purpose when he runs, that you&#8217;re starting to see DBs take a much more &#8216;strategic approach&#8217; to trying to tackle him.<\/p>\n<p>He brings wood on every play. I absolutely love the way this kid runs.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3) Billy Cundiff<\/strong> &#8211; I can&#8217;t believe that he hasn&#8217;t already been fired. What are the Redskins waiting for, a new leg to come in the mail? Anybody that leaves one pining for the return of even Graham Gano, is not just bad, they&#8217;re putrid. Gano may have missed a few important kicks, but he didn&#8217;t miss EVERY kick. Nobody has any faith or belief in Cundiff&#8217;s leg at this point &#8211; including himself &#8211; what else matters? 31-yarders should be like extra points to an NFL kicker, and Cundiff has missed from that distance twice in two weeks. Confidence is everything for a kicker, and Cundiff has none right now. Why do we want to let him &#8216;find his way&#8217; on our roster, while costing us points? Kick him to the curb &#8211; and try not to be wide right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4) Opposing Tight Ends<\/strong> &#8211; Are killing us. I tweeted before the game that while everyone was worrying about Julio Jones and Roddy White, that I was worried about &#8216;Old Man Gonzalez&#8217; because we historically have struggled to cover tight ends with this defense.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Every1&#39;s watching Jones &amp; White today, keep yer eye on &#39;Old Man Gonzalez&#39; &#8211; we can&#39;t historically cover TEs, &amp; he&#39;s well&#8230; Tony Gonzalez<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; TheHogs.net (@TheHogsdotNet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheHogsdotNet\/status\/254988075950800896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 7, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It was unfortunately, never more apparent than on Sunday. Yes Gonzalez is arguably the best receiving tight end of all time, but he doesn&#8217;t usually look quite like the Tony of old anymore. He did on Sunday though &#8211; 13 catches for 123 yards and a touchdown. If I&#8217;m the opposition&#8217;s offensive co-ordinator &#8211; I&#8217;m gashing our defense with tight ends until we show that we can stop it &#8211; because we haven&#8217;t been able to yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5) Lorenzo Alexander<\/strong> &#8211; I want to finish on a high, not a low, so I&#8217;ll do that with Zo. The One Man Gang is a special teams machine. Send him to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl again, he deserves it. How is a guy that big almost always the first down field? Pure heart. The dude balls out every week, and he works just as hard in the community if not harder. If I&#8217;m going to end with something positive, I want it to be Zo, and the fact that he continues to bust heads and set the tone on special teams.<\/p>\n<p>On to the Vikings. Hail!<\/p>\n<p>Follow me on Twitter @TheHogsdotNet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was yet another tough experience for Redskins Nation, as Washington had every chance to hand Atlanta their first loss of the season; but in the end, it was the Falcons who came out on top 24-17. Here are some quick thoughts on the game: 1) Robert Griffin III &#8211; Obviously the collective breaths of &#8230; <a title=\"Five Quick Thoughts: Falcons\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/the-hogs.net\/blogs\/2012\/10\/08\/five-quick-thoughts-falcons\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Five Quick Thoughts: Falcons\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1170,1297,1241,1132,1078],"class_list":["post-7051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-washington-redskins","tag-alfred-morris","tag-billy-cundiff","tag-lorenzo-alexander","tag-rgiii","tag-robert-griffin-iii"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Five Quick Thoughts: Falcons | The-Hogs.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/the-hogs.net\/blogs\/2012\/10\/08\/five-quick-thoughts-falcons\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Quick Thoughts: Falcons | The-Hogs.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It was yet another tough experience for Redskins Nation, as Washington had every chance to hand Atlanta their first loss of the season; but in the end, it was the Falcons who came out on top 24-17. 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