Redskins. . . Win NFC East?
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2012 7:38 pm
Redskins are NFC East contenders
With RG3 and a strong rushing attack, Washington is a dangerous team
Originally Published: September 13, 2012
By KC Joyner | ESPN Insider
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Since 2002, when the NFL split into eight four-team divisions, the battle for the NFC East has been pretty much a three-horse race between the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles.
Each of those three clubs has won the division at least twice and they have finished outside of the top three in the NFC East a combined total of four times in that time frame.
One of the reasons for this trend is that the fourth team in the division, the Washington Redskins, hasn't held up its end of the competitive bargain. In the past 10 seasons, Washington has not only failed to win the division once, it has finished last on six occasions (including the past four seasons) and has only one second-place finish to its credit.
A losing trend of that caliber is hard to change quickly, yet after reviewing game tapes and metrics from multiple Week 1 contests, it's clear that the Redskins are on a path to make the NFC East a four-horse race as soon as this season.
It starts, of course, with Robert Griffin III. This week he became the first quarterback to ever win an offensive rookie of the week honor after his debut game and ranked fifth in ESPN's Total QBR metric.
He did all of this in part because of his elite skills, but also because Mike and Kyle Shanahan did a superb job of tailoring a game plan to RG3's strengths.
The Redskins started the contest with a steady diet of screen passes and read option runs that were successful enough to force the New Orleans Saints into having to go all-out to protect the line of scrimmage.
Once New Orleans took that step, Griffin started airing the ball out with the type of vertical success that was even greater than what he achieved at Baylor last year. He threw 11 vertical routes in his final 23 drop backs and racked up seven completions and a defensive pass-interference penalty that netted a total of 243 yards and a touchdown. That equates to an insanely high 22.1 vertical yards per attempt (VYPA) against a Saints defense that posted a 9.3 VYPA allowed mark in 2011, which was tied for the second best total in the league in that metric.
That alone should strike fear into the hearts of the rest of the NFC East, but here's the even scarier part -- Griffin has plenty of room for improvement. His only near interception of the contest occurred in part because he didn't see a defender in the passing lane and Washington's only sack happened when Griffin tripped over Alfred Morris when Morris was trying to pick up a blitz. Both of those errors are correctable and ones Griffin won't make as often in the future.
Griffin didn't have to go about carrying this offense alone, either, as Washington's 153 rushing yards were the fourth most in the NFL in Week 1, and 111 of those yards were posted by someone other than Griffin.
As productive as this part of their attack was, the Redskins have even more room for improvement here than they do in the passing game. Washington's run blockers gave the Redskins ball carriers good blocking 43.9 percent of the time, which is a solid, but not great, figure in that metric. (Note: good blocking is very loosely defined as when the blockers do not allow the defense to do anything to disrupt a rush attempt.)
In addition, Morris tallied a meager 5.4 yards on plays with good blocking (a metric known as GBYPA). If that number doesn't increase in the near future, Mike Shanahan has the option of leaning on Roy Helu (7.0 GBYPA in 2011) and Evan Royster (7.9 GBYPA in 2011).
Washington's defense also had more than a few highlights against an explosive Saints offense.
Jeff Fishbein/Icon SMIBrian Orakpo is a fearsome pass-rusher for the Redskins.
Brian Orakpo is probably the biggest name on this platoon and he had a good game (a near interception on a pass defensed, two passes knocked down at the line of scrimmage and two tackles), but the Redskins' most impactful player by far was linebacker Ryan Kerrigan.
Kerrigan forced a throwaway, had a pass defensed on a throw that he nearly intercepted, drew two holding penalties and notched a sack in addition to tallying two tackles while being on the field for all 75 of Washington's defensive snaps. If Orakpo and Kerrigan continue to play at this level, the Redskins will soon give the rest of the division a run for the money in the battle of best pass-rushers.
Washington's starting cornerbacks, DeAngelo Hall and Josh Wilson, also held up quite well against Drew Brees & Co. by allowing only two completions and 28 yards in eight targets.
Another group of factors boding well for the Redskins is the state of the rest of the teams in the NFC East.
Philadelphia struggled to beat Cleveland in Week 1 in part because Michael Vick reverted back to his old habits of making lots of risky throws. To get a visual on just how many errors Vick made last week, consider this -- his five bad decisions (defined as mental mistakes by a quarterback that led to a turnover opportunity for the opposing team) against the Browns were as many bad decisions as Aaron Rodgers made in the entire 2011 season.
Compounding that debacle is the fact Vick also didn't do a very good of protecting himself in the pocket (the Browns racked up 11 quarterback hits) or on scrambles, and thus is still evidently not buying into the idea that the Eagles need him to stay healthy. Without Vick under center, Philadelphia loses its grip on potential NFC East supremacy.
In recent years the Giants have shown an uncanny ability to absorb injuries but that power seemed to come up short against the Cowboys last week when backup cornerback Michael Coe was forced into the lineup.
Coe was so bad in coverage that he almost single-handedly made Dallas wide receiver Kevin Ogletree the most added player to fantasy football rosters this week. Prince Amukamara will take Coe's place in the starting lineup once he is healthy but Amukamara's college metrics indicate he may not be the type of strong coverage cornerback the Giants need to solve their coverage woes.
The Dallas victory over New York in Week 1 was a primary catalyst for its moving up four spots in ESPN.com's Power Rankings, but the Cowboys likely didn't move much higher because of the longstanding concerns that they tend to play well early in the year and falter under the heat of the playoff push. The Cowboys also have a lack of quality depth in certain areas to go along with a history of durability issues among their skill players, both of which raise questions as to if they can continue to perform at their Week 1 pace for the bulk of the 2012 season.
All of the above items aren't meant to say that the Redskins are the favorites to win the NFC East, as the Eagles were my pick for the division back in July and one game isn't enough to change that opinion.
Instead, what this first game out of the gates showed is that at long last the Burgundy and Gold are building a club that can go toe-to-toe with the rest of the NFC East.
In other words, the toughest division in the NFL just got a whole lot tougher.
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