Redskins at Texans: Texas Two Step

Washington Redskins (0-2) at Houston Texans (0-2)
1:00 p.m. Reliant Stadium
Obviously Gregg Williams is not a regular reader of this website. Either that, or he doesn’t listen to my advice. Fine with me, but I’m going to keep giving it to him. When you have a 35-year old statue playing quarterback with an offensive line that is average at best, you blitz him. It’s that simple. Why is this not registering with the defensive coordinator?

Yes, the offense was terrible against Dallas, and I’ll get to that in moment. The defense once again was the reason the Redskins lost. All you needed to see of the game was the sequence that took place at the end of the third quarter. Sean Taylor, who appears to be the only player willing to make tackles right now, forced a fumble by putting a textbook hit on Jason Witten. The Skins recovered the ball around the Dallas 40 with a couple of minutes left in the third and down 7 points. The offense got a first down to the 25 on the next play. The Skins were then unable to do anything on first and second down, so Mark Brunell made an ill-advised pass that was picked off at the Dallas 1-yard line by Roy Williams on third down. While the Redskins failed to convert the Witten fumble into points, it wasn’t a big deal seeing as they were still only down a touchdown and the Cowboys were pinned back at their one with over a quarter to play.

Then Gregg Williams got more conservative than Ronald Reagan. He rushed only four defenders on the next two plays as the Cowboys got all the way out to about their own 40 yard-line with help from a Redskins penalty. Like the Skins before them, Dallas did nothing on first and second down. Actually, they lost about five yards. So on 3 and about 15, Gregg Williams doesn’t blitz. In fact, he doesn’t even rush four defenders. He rushes a total of two defensive linemen. That’s it…two defensive linemen. He dropped all five secondary members into pass coverage, along with both linebackers and BOTH defensive ends. Bledsoe had at least six to seven seconds of time to throw the ball, and he ended up throwing a 10-yard pass to his running back (I believe it was Marion Barber) who ran for 10 more yards and a first down. So with Cowboys at 3 and 15 at their own 35, and the Redskins desperately needing a stop, Williams drops nine defenders and hands the Cowboys a first down. The next play resulted in a touchdown as the Cowboys completed one of the quickest and most embarrassing 99-yard drives in recent memory. How do you have a team backed up at their own 1-yard line, and fail to blitz even once on the ensuing drive? How does this happen?

Can you tell I’m a little peeved? Look, I don’t think most fans expected the Redskins to win last week. I’m one of the more optimistic Redskins fans out there and even I said last week in my preview post that the Redskins would probably lose. They didn’t match up well against Cowboys without Shawn Springs and Clinton Portis and it is damn near impossible to win two years in a row in Dallas. But I thought the game would at least be more competitive in the fourth quarter. Once the pass from Bledsoe to Terry Glenn made it 24-10 with 14:53 to go in the game, you knew it was over. There wasn’t going to be any miracle Santana Moss comeback this year. And even if the offense had somehow scored, the defense wouldn’t have been able to hold Dallas when it mattered.

I know Springs is hurt. I know that Kenny Wright and Mike Rumph aren’t very good replacements. But that doesn’t mean that you abandon the blitz to help out your corners. The Redskins defense is most effective when they are sending six or seven guys after the opposing quarterback. In fact, the best way to help out Wright and Rumph would be to rush the quarterback and force him to make bad throws. The solution to Springs’ injury isn’t to let the quarterback have all day to throw into a seven-man zone coverage. It’s not going to work. The Vikings and Cowboys continually sent their receivers over the middle, about 10 to 12 yards downfield, and just sat at the zone’s weak spots. The 40+ yard touchdown to Glenn was a result of a fluke in coverage. Those things are going to happen. The continuing failure of the defense to stop the opposition on third down and relatively long is the result of the coaching staff failing to put their best players in position to make plays.

The lack of pressure is the reason Washington's defense hasn't returned to 2005 form. In two games, because of their failure to blitz, the Redskins have a total of two sacks and one turnover. That's terrible. Pressure gets you sacks, it allows you to beat up the quarterback and forces bad offensive plays that can lead to turnovers. Or at the very least, forces the opposing offense to get of the field on third down.

As for the offense, I still don’t know what to make of it. Everybody is in a rush to blame Al Saunders and Mark Brunell. Brunell played well against the Vikings but had a terrible outing against Dallas. He had plenty of time to look long, as the Cowboys didn’t generate much of a pass rush until the fourth quarter, but Brunell seemed unsure of himself and ended up dumping the ball off. Keep in mind, this offense has yet to have a healthy Portis at their disposal. The offense centers around him. It’s like telling Phil Jackson in the 1990’s to go run his triangle offense without Michael Jordan. Ain’t gonna work. So it’s hard to blame Saunders too. The one positive on offense has been the offensive line play. Now they just need a decent back to run through some of the holes they are creating.

It seems the Redskins get to face the perfect opponent this week as they return to Texas to face Houston. We all know the Texans are bad. They’re terrible in fact. Other than Andre Johnson, who is never 100% healthy, there are no weapons on the offense what so ever. Ron Dayne - yes, that Ron Dayne - will probably be the starter at running back. Wali Lundy and Samkon Gado will also see playing time. Lundy actually looked pretty good against Philly but didn’t see much action against Indianapolis.

Since the Texans have been nothing but a losing franchise since they came into the league several seasons ago, they receive little media coverage. But the one thing everyone knows about the Texans offense is that they continue to have the worst offensive line in the league. David Carr, who can probably be an adequate NFL quarterback, never has a chance to make a big play because he usually has several defensive linemen lying on top of him. Despite facing a terrible o-line, this should not be an invitation for Gregg Williams to rush only four guys at Carr figuring that they’ll be able to get pressure. For the second week in a row, this is the perfect quarterback and perfect line for the Redskins to blitz against. Hopefully they’ll do that. Otherwise Carr, like Bledsoe and Brad Johnson, will have all day to throw. Even the Texans can put points on the board if you give their quarterback enough time.

It’s this simple. The Texans can’t run the ball. Any team that is going to feature Ron Dayne in the backfield you know can’t run the ball. They’ve only managed 178 yards on 43 carries on the ground this year. With the Redskins’ run defense as strong as ever, we should see Houston in a lot of third and long situations. THE REDSKINS MUST GET AFTER THE QUARTERBACK. Period. David Carr knows his line is terrible, has happy feet in the pocket, and should be an easy target for the Redskins defense.

Portis will be a go this week so the offense should be able to move the ball effectively against a bad defense that can’t stop the run and is only slightly better against the pass. Houston’s defensive numbers are a little bit unfair to look at since they had to play the Colts last week. Most teams won’t be able to put up 45 routinely on Houston, but their defense is still bad enough to consistently give up 21-27 points a game.

I hate to call any game in September a “must-win game”. But this is one. The Skins are facing one of the worst teams in the league. They’ve already lost one home game so they need to steal some wins on the road. Teams that start 0-2 can easily pull themselves out of that hole. Unfortunately, a 0-3 start is almost impossible to overcome. A loss to Houston would be 100 times more significant than a win. It would also be 100 times worse than a loss to Dallas. This is a game the Redskins must, and should win. Get Portis going early and blitz David Carr often and the Redskins can get on track in 2006. Otherwise, a season full of expectations may realistically end before the first weekend of October.