Redskins at Rams: The "Show" Has Left Town

Washington Redskins (5-6) at St. Louis Rams (5-6)
4:15 p.m. Edward Jones Dome
It is simple for both teams. Win out or the season is over. The Redskins, in some miraculous way, control their own destiny if they win out. A wild-card birth would probably be a stretch at this point, but the division is still up for grabs. After two games at St. Louis and Phoenix, the Skins have back-to-back home games against the Cowboys and Giants. So it’s not impossible for the Skins to climb back into contention.

But before the Skins look ahead to the games against the despicable NFC East rivals, they must pay full attention to the Rams this weekend. The one time “Greatest Show on Turf” has been anything but. It seems the circus has picked up and moved on, leaving the Rams and their fans with a shell of a former team.

Big play receivers Torry Holt and Isaac Bruce are still there, but both have dealt with injuries throughout the year. Bruce is really starting to show his age of 33. Marshall Faulk is still there too. But he is a back-up and utility player now. The 32 year old Faulk took too much of a beating over the last seven years, and his 5-10 frame can no longer handle the workload it used to when he was the key to the Rams powerful attack. Stephen Jackson, a promising, but very un-Rams like running back (more physical then finesse) gets the bulk of the carries now. Kurt Warner is obviously long gone, and Marc Bulger has been in and out of the lineup all season. As for the defense…well, the Rams really never had a defense to begin with. Other than murderer Leonard Little (go to the fourth paragraph in this link) and hard hitting and undisciplined safety Adam Archuleta, there isn’t much on that side of the ball.

Further hurting St. Louis this season has been the on-going soap opera of the head-coaching situation. Mike Martz, as most know by now, left the team after September to deal with a bacterial infection around his heart. Joe Vitt was named the interim head coach. Just because Martz went away doesn’t mean that the story ends there. Two weeks after he left, Martz tried to phone a play in during a Rams game. Front office personnel refused to let his call go through. This shone light on a rather ugly feud between Martz and the front office. It also showed all the dysfunction in the Rams front office as well. There are separate positions for the principle owner, acting owner, football operations executive, team president and general manager. How anything gets done with these meatheads all vying for more power and control over the team is beyond me. Sports Illustrated tried to do an article about it a few weeks ago, but there were just way too many names and positions to keep track of. Now it appears Martz is ready to come back, but the Rams don't want him. Needless to say, it is going to get uglier before the St. Louis coaching situation is resolved after the season.

As I said, Bulger has been hurt and is out of the game Sunday with a bad shoulder. His backup, Jamie Martin, will probably not play after getting knocked silly against Houston last week and suffering a concussion. Enter Ryan Fitzpatrick. The rookie replaced Martin and led a stunning (how stunning is debatable, seeing as the Rams were playing the Texans) comeback last week. He threw for 310 yards on 19-30 passing and hit on 3 touchdowns. The Rams were trailing 24-3 when he came in, and they ended up winning 33-27 in overtime.

The one aspect that everyone is looking at is not the great comeback by Fitzgerald, but the fact that Fitzgerald happened to graduate from the football factory otherwise known as Harvard. This led to good and not so good natured teasing all week in the media. Ha ha ha, we get it, he’s from Harvard, he’s supposed to be a rocket scientist not a quarterback. It was funny…the first few times. Not after the umpteenth time it was mentioned during the week.

So Fitzgerald makes his first NFL start against a desperate Redskins team. What type of action will we see from Fitzgerald this week? Will we see a rookie fall back to Earth after he happened to have a great day against the NFL’s worst defense? Or will we see a true diamond-in-the-rough that is the next star in the making? A lot of that will depend on the Redskins defense, but I’m willing to bet on the former.

As we know, the Redskins have blown three late quarter leads in a row. This is mostly because of the play calling, but also because of dumb plays at wrong times (dropped passes, missed tackles, penalties, all the regular stuff). Joe Gibbs, who used to be one of the best fourth quarter coaches, has become more conservative than Dick Chaney. It is time for Gibbs to have some (any) faith in his offense and try to go for the kill shot instead of trying to play not to lose. Any team that plays not to lose ends up losing. Which is exactly what the Skins did against Oakland and San Diego (the Tampa game was another matter).

The defensive play calling in the fourth quarter has also become very conservative. Greg Williams sent the house at Drew Brees in the first half. This worked to a degree. The Redskins were able to key on LaDainian Tomlinson and pressure Brees into making bad passes. They even got a couple of sacks (yeah, I didn’t believe it either). That high-powered Chargers offense was stymied for 45 minutes. But in the fourth quarter, Williams played his predictable cover 2 and zone defenses and Brees went to town. And when the Chargers opened the passing game, it conversely opened their running game as well. And when one team has LaDainian Tomlinson, and the other team is missing three of their four starting defensive lineman, you don’t have to be Ryan Fitzgerald to figure out what’s going to happen.

One bit of good news is that Carlos Rogers will finally get the start over Walt Harris. Great…I’ve only been calling for this FOR FIVE WEEKS. Rogers looked very good last week against the Chargers. San Diego went right after him, and Rogers made minimal mistakes. In other words, he played exactly like a rookie Top Ten draft pick should. Going up against Holt and Bruce this week will definitely be a tough challenge for the kid. I think he’s up to it.

Offensively, this is the team to open up the game plan against. The Rams are a terrible defensive club against both the pass (22nd) and the rush (27th). Get Portis going early, and Santana Moss should be open on the lousy corners later in the game. If Taylor Jacobs can’t take advantage of this secondary, I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to play in the NFL.

Defensively, if Greg Williams doesn’t get after Fitzgerald, you really have to start questioning all these teams (like Detroit) that are interested in having him as their head coach next season. This should be a case of basic defense 101. If you face a rookie quarterback, you attack him and force him to make mistakes. Do not let Stephen Jackson beat you. Do not let the receivers burn you. Force Fitzpatrick to beat you with steady, clock-consuming drives. The more plays Fitzgerald has on a drive, the more likely he is to make a mistake. But you must blitz him. You cannot allow Holt, Bruce and Kevin Curtis all day to get open, because they will. Do not allow the Rams to turn this game into a track meet. Despite injuries and aging players, the Rams still have the talent to drop 21 points on you in a matter of minutes. Blitz Fitzpatrick, take away the home run ball, and play balanced, but aggressive offense, and this game should be no problem for the Skins. Allow the rookie to have a second great week and there will be no possibility for a playoff appearance this season.