The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Well, What did we think?

I don't think he won this game for us, I think when the coaching staff started getting conservative in the 2nd and 3rd it affected his play. Im starting to maybe think hes not that bad, its just the play calling.

The Skins owned the first quarter and my second question is why does Joe have such a hard time burring teams. The intensity was high, guys were flying all over the field, why dont they keep the offensive pressure on these teams, keep play action, downfield, run,pass, keep the defense on their heels, sometimes it looks like the D knows whats coming, just wondering if im alone on this?

The only thing that matters is that MB probably played not poorly enough to lose his job, in Joe Gibbs' eyes. He didn't lose the game for us (though it looked like he was trying at times, with those almost-interceptions), but, once again, he couldn't win it for us. This week, the D and ST stepped up (ST more than the D) and won the game.

MB will start next week, no doubt.

Anyone want to give me a recap? I didn't see one minute of the game yesterday due to 3(!) youth soccer games. All I heard (car radio) was the end! So how did Brunell look?

Mursilis wrote:Anyone want to give me a recap? I didn't see one minute of the game yesterday due to 3(!) youth soccer games. All I heard (car radio) was the end! So how did Brunell look?

Here's the summary:

- The D allowed another QB look like a pro-bowler. At least they were bend not break though and didn't give up a ton of points allowing the O to have a chance.

- Brunell was HORRIBLE. The receivers even w/o Moss were EXCELLENT. BL had some nice catches. Unfortunately the best, a stolen interception on a badly underthrown Brunell ball for 35 yards was called back on a dubious holding call. Thrash caught a couple and ey was a flash back to last year.

Of course I'll take a win over Dallas any way we get it. In this case, the bizarre finish is all the more satisfying because it's that much more of a dagger in Cowboy hearts. The downside is the win and the receivers saving Brunell's poor play will keep Brunell in the game. He has just lost it.

The one "positive" on Brunell was he did throw downfield for a change, not just dump offs and into the seats. That gave the receivers at least a chance to make plays and they did make some even though his passes were so innacurate.

- Duckett sat, including the first drive with 4 shots from inside the 5 in a situation we supposedly gave up a 3 for.

- Carter is improving, but not where we wanted him to be.

- AA is not.

- Portis is a great player, but something doesn't seem right. It may not be his fault, the blocking? Teams can still focus on him and dare Brunell to beat them? He did have one nice touchdown run.

That was the way I saw it.

Mursilis wrote:Anyone want to give me a recap? I didn't see one minute of the game yesterday due to 3(!) youth soccer games. All I heard (car radio) was the end! So how did Brunell look?

That sucks, but it will be on NFL Replay this Wednesday at 8:00PM. So at least you'll get to see it!

I sit in sec. 205 and saw a game that the finish will define for a long time in this rivalry.

I thought the Special Teams play was very good even without the last 19 seconds.

I thought the offense was okay but our line was outplayed by their very good run D. I thought Brunell was okay BUT the play calling left a lot to be desired. We did keep giving Portis the ball but he rarely had decent blocking, he is special though and gets yards where most would not. His TD was a great call and did involve a block on the outside but overall his running between the tackles was defended well and IMO our line we did not give him many opportunities. Our passing game will be better when Portis is more effective - the QB is not the problem!!! We need to be more effective on oue play calling and our tecniques.

Our defense was spotty - they had moments of brilliance (Marshall and Washington had 2 really great plays) BUT allowing the pukes to be 10 of 16 on 3rd down especially on 3rd and over 15 is terrible.

This win will be remembered for its finish but it was not a bad game and it was not good either. Our Special Teams played well.

I am very happy for yesterday's win but this does not do well for us at QB because it's like Brunell is getting a stay of execution. We lose yesterday and he's done. But we won so he keeps his job for now.

According to SportsTalk radio, Troy Aikman was quoted as saying on the Fox broadcast, that he was on the field during pre-game and he overheard MB and an old Jags teammate that plays for the Cowpukes telling each other how much they needed this win and MB was overheard saying that we (Redskins) have to win this game so that I can stay on the field. How true that is, I don't know but there may be some merit to it because Aikman, who is pretty good and respect on Fox, took the time to report live on t.v.

Redskins Rule wrote:

Mursilis wrote:Anyone want to give me a recap? I didn't see one minute of the game yesterday due to 3(!) youth soccer games. All I heard (car radio) was the end! So how did Brunell look?

That sucks, but it will be on NFL Replay this Wednesday at 8:00PM. So at least you'll get to see it!

, thanks for the tip.

Brunell made a couple of really boneheaded throws that fortunately didn't end up as interceptions. On the other hand, he had a lot of zip on his good passes and still does well when he is playing relaxed. Randle El has a better long ball, though.

ey did look pretty good and that was a spectacular catch in the endzone, but the drop he had was painful on a nice pass from Brunell, and the whiff he had on Roy Williams at the goal line stopped Betts from walking in the endzone...

cvillehog wrote:Brunell made a couple of really boneheaded throws that fortunately didn't end up as interceptions. On the other hand, he had a lot of zip on his good passes and still does well when he is playing relaxed. Randle El has a better long ball, though.

His intermediate passes were fine but he underthrew quite a bit. Thank goodness Lloyd has great body control and Dallas can't catch.

Brunell was the same old Brunell. He does nothing spectacular and basically all you can say about him is that he doesn't make catastrophic mistakes. Although he was this <> close to making one down around the goal line. It was 3rd and 2, he moved around in the pocket then easily had the open space to scramble and slide for the first down. Instead he stays behind the line, almost gets sacked, then threw what should have been an endzone INT except B.Lloyd made an incredible play to bat the ball away from the defender.

Brunell did have a couple of downfield throws, which is a couple more than he's had all season. However I simply do not see Brunell doing anything that a young QB like JC couldn't do. It seems we're already running a simplified offense so our QB doesn't make any mistakes. Why are we wasting time with Brunell in there?

Winning feels great.
Watching Brunell hurts.

ClintonHill wrote:Winning feels great.
Watching Brunell hurts.

Heh heh. Great quote. I may have to use it as my sig (with your permission, of course).

joebagadonuts wrote:

ClintonHill wrote:Winning feels great.
Watching Brunell hurts.

Heh heh. Great quote. I may have to use it as my sig (with your permission, of course).

Beaten.

Chris Luva Luva wrote:

joebagadonuts wrote:

ClintonHill wrote:Winning feels great.
Watching Brunell hurts.

Heh heh. Great quote. I may have to use it as my sig (with your permission, of course).

Beaten.

Darn.

He couldnt get the ball out as usual. Watch him on his drops, I knew the result of the play by just watching him hold the ball too long. He cant make the throws. It would be okay if we could run block, then a ball control QB would be okay.

However, we spent a lot of money on our WR's, and Brunell makes it wasted money.

I thought, once again we won DESPITE Brunell. The TD to ey should have been intercepted, the pass to Lloyd was a joke. The guy is just not good. That said, I loved the ending - it is a kind of reverse of fourtones game hopefully.

I thought Brunell looked pretty good. He had some poor throws that probably should have been intercepted but he also made some really good throws. He finally started throwing over the middle also so that was an improvement. He had one long pass (that was underthrown) get nullified over a penalty and another long pass dropped by ey so he should have had more total yards.

I liked that he took some chances, at least in the first half. It's really hard to tell what is going on at times in regards to the play calling though. Are the plays being called getting more conservative or does Brunell get more conservative as the game goes on. I tend to think some of it at least is the play calling. For example, rushing the ball basically straight up the middle several times inside the 5 and not scoring a TD. At least we could have spread the field and tried to run or if you want to show run with everyone in tight, try Sellars or Duckett maybe. A good job of getting down there but then getting ultra-conservative. At times, it still seems like we're playing not to lose instead of playing to win and with our record, I think we should be extremely aggressive in our play calling.

Anyway, at least we finally took some shots downfield and saw what can happen when we do. A good adjustment by the receiver on a long throw making a great catch (although wiped out with a penalty), a pass interference penalty, some long completions, etc. At least we've given some teams something to think about now and maybe the coaches (or Brunell) will see taking a risk sometimes pays off.

nnskinsfan wrote:I thought Brunell looked pretty good. He had some poor throws that probably should have been intercepted but he also made some really good throws. He finally started throwing over the middle also so that was an improvement. He had one long pass (that was underthrown) get nullified over a penalty and another long pass dropped by ey so he should have had more total yards.

I liked that he took some chances, at least in the first half. It's really hard to tell what is going on at times in regards to the play calling though. Are the plays being called getting more conservative or does Brunell get more conservative as the game goes on. I tend to think some of it at least is the play calling. For example, rushing the ball basically straight up the middle several times inside the 5 and not scoring a TD. At least we could have spread the field and tried to run or if you want to show run with everyone in tight, try Sellars or Duckett maybe. A good job of getting down there but then getting ultra-conservative. At times, it still seems like we're playing not to lose instead of playing to win and with our record, I think we should be extremely aggressive in our play calling.

Anyway, at least we finally took some shots downfield and saw what can happen when we do. A good adjustment by the receiver on a long throw making a great catch (although wiped out with a penalty), a pass interference penalty, some long completions, etc. At least we've given some teams something to think about now and maybe the coaches (or Brunell) will see taking a risk sometimes pays off.

We must have been watching different games.

I do agree with you that he finally threw downfield. But he was inaccurate and was lucky he wasn't intercepted a couple times. He seems to have a choice of throwing with zip in the direction of receivers or trying to throw accurately which turn into ducks that float short. Lloyd and ey both made spectacular grabs on poorly thrown balls and Thrash had a couple nice ones too.

Brunell did complete some passes to open receivers any professional QB should complete and he normally doesn't, but I can't agree that qualifies as "looked pretty good."

There is a tendency to overlook poor play when the Skins win. Particularly over the Cowboys and Eagles. But I'm sorry, win or not, Brunell sucked and was saved by some excellent receiver play. That was the really good news in the game. Moss was out and yet they showed with a QB who can deliver the ball, they can shred secondaries. And that is really going to open it up for Portis.

But that's not just going to happen while we're still playing Brunell.

Mursilis wrote:So how did Brunell look?

He played his guts out yesterday, and led this team to victory.

Mark Brunell is "Da Cowboy Killa"!!!!!

I thought Brunell played pretty well. We criticize him for not having a gunslinger mentality...then we jump on him for throwing a few balls in there that were risky.

We say that he doesn't have any zip on the ball, but if he really couldn't throw a ball hard....those ints would not have zipped through the defenders hands.

He also had a big drop from ey for 30 yards, and a 37 yard pass to Lloyd that was called back...so really his numbers could have looked even better with about 70 yards in additional passing yardage.

The Hogster wrote:I thought Brunell played pretty well. We criticize him for not having a gunslinger mentality...then we jump on him for throwing a few balls in there that were risky.

Not risky throws, BAD throws. There is a difference.

cvillehog wrote:

The Hogster wrote:I thought Brunell played pretty well. We criticize him for not having a gunslinger mentality...then we jump on him for throwing a few balls in there that were risky.

Not risky throws, BAD throws. There is a difference.

perfectly said.

hogster, brunell threw at least 3 or 4 balls that should have been intercepted, not because the players weren't open, but because they were either woefully underthrown or so off-target the intended receiver wasn't even discernable.

i think it speaks volumes about how utterly pathetic the quarterbacking has been all year, that we finally have a game in which our QB actually completes 6 or 7 NFL-caliber throws (defined as: intermediate passes over the middle, instead of screens and dump-offs, which every high school quarterback in america can complete routinely), and we consider that a "good game" despite so many should-have-been-interceptions and various other underthrows.

i think if anything, this game proves that our other WRs, all the way down to thrash, are almost certainly getting open frequently and are capable of making some spectacular catches. i'm glad brunell FINALLY grew some balls and threw some downfield to these guys (i wonder if this was something they urged him to do doing the "players-only meeting" gibbs referenced during the post-game press conference). but i still can't help but imagine what our offrense could be like with someone who could actually make those throws accurately on a semi-regular basis.

There is a tendency to overlook poor play when the Skins win. Particularly over the Cowboys and Eagles. But I'm sorry, win or not, Brunell sucked and was saved by some excellent receiver play.

Excellent point. Ken Harvey made a similar argument during postgame on Comcast. Harvery, Czaban, and Brian Mitchell were all critical of Brunell, with Mitchell being particularly harsh. He basically said that Brunell isn't playing like a veteran and needs to step up his game. They disected his stats and said that they weren't very good, pointing out that he was lucky not to have 4 ints and mentioning that the completion at the end of the first half was a stat padder. They had Ray Brown on the show also and he basically said that for Brunell to be effective there can't be any pressure on him, and that Brunell gets particularly skittish when there are defenders on the ground around his legs.