The Washington Redskins (2-5) passing offense is struggling. It isn’t a matter of just one person or the health of the most talked about right knee in football. There just seems to be some sort of disconnect that could be on the verge of dysfunction very soon. To be honest, the disconnect appears to be between QB Robert Griffin III, Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan and the entire wide receiving corp.
The Redskins’ passing offense has no rhythm and is inconsistent. All season they’ve attempted to chuck the ball and develop a deep passing game mixed in with play-action. The problem is — and here’s where the disconnect comes into play — that doesn’t necessarily fit the skill-set of their receivers. Who exactly are the downfield targets? Pierre Garcon’s strength is creating yards after the catch. He’s not really a downfield target. Yet several times last week against the Denver Broncos they tried to chuck the ball down-the-field to him. Leonard Hankerson is a guy who can run deep routes in a straight line. The problem is, he isn’t aggressive enough to catch those balls. Aldrick Robinson lives on deep targets. But he has inconsistent hands and is dependent on misdirection in the backfield for him to get open. Santana Moss, the team’s lone true slot receiver, hasn’t received a heavy workload as he’s strictly in for three receiver sets. The deep balls Washington tries to feast on typically comes from two receiver sets. Then you have Joshua Morgan who is not a downfield target. He’s an intermediate guy.
“I think last year I don’t think we took a lot of down the field shots,” said Kyle Shanahan. “A lot of the play-pass plays we got to do were quick ones over the middle. We do do those when the coverage presents itself.”
Here’s the thing, how about running an actual passing game instead of dressing it up so much? A lot of these deep routes are simple: most times two receivers and one is running a “clear route” to take the safety off the actual deep route. Defenses have figured that out and they’re taking it away from the Redskins.
Robert Griffin III hasn’t played great. There’s definitely several things he needs to do better. But when you have a coordinator dialing plays for receivers who aren’t suited to run those plays — that’s a huge issue. These guys are not separating. There isn’t a wide receiver not named Pierre Garcon with more than 19 catches. Garcon has 47 catches. Washington’s main targets right now are Garcon and their rookie tight end Jordan Reed.
The Washington Redskins need to get back to a rhythm passing game. Flats, slants, comebacks, out routes — the basics. And how about utilizing your utility back Roy Helu with some RB-screens? Right now, they don’t have an intermediate passing game. That essentially negates the reasons you bring in guys like Pierre Garcon and Joshua Morgan, who excel at creating yards after the catch. Washington is limited at receiver, but the limitations can be masked by playing to their strengths.
Kyle Shanahan attributes the lack of those plays to the way defenses are playing them. “We’re definitely not where we want to be in any part of the game, but especially in the pass game, and we have made some strides in certain areas. We were I think 20th in the league last year. We’re 10th in the league this year. The completion percentage isn’t there. We’ve had to do some different stuff. Last year there was one play in particular that we ran 80 times and we completed it 60 times and that play is there versus certain coverages. We haven’t gotten that coverage as much as we did last year, so we’ve had to do a few more — stuff we didn’t have to do as much last year and we haven’t done it very well. We’ve got to get better at it. We can’t just run the same stuff all year and the new stuff we have done – or not necessarily new, but stuff we didn’t do as much of last year – we’ve been in situations where defenses take a certain type of play away, more of an easy play, and you’ve got to do the harder play. They’re going to do that and you have to keep doing it until you can execute and get them out of something that you’re struggling against.”
I believe the play Shanahan is referring to is the skinny post. That was their bread and butter. But regardless, Shanahan has to evolve this offense.
Pierre Garcon’s comments after Sunday’s loss against the Denver Broncos gained a lot of criticism. “It doesn’t matter if we play the worst team in the league on defense,” he said. “If we suck at passing, we suck at passing.” Several members of the Redskins receiving corp has come out yielding frustration. Most of it doesn’t seem like a direct target at their quarterback Robert Griffin III. There just seems to be a clear disconnect with what these players do best or what they’re most comfortable doing and what’s being called.
Many people complain about not seeing Robert Griffin III go through reads, not realizing a lot of these concepts are a 1 to 2 read looks. I do think Griffin should check the ball down more than he has. In fact, that’s probably one of my main complaints with him this season — finding a way to get rid of the ball when a play isn’t there down-the-field. But they need to get him comfortable and in a rhythm. You can’t do that going run-run-play action, chuck it deep. Everything seems to be forced.
When asked of his playcalling tendencies, Kyle Shanahan had a lot to say. “It’s in my mind almost 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said. “It annoys my wife when she’s talking to me and I’m not answering her questions because I’m thinking of stuff like that, so we do it throughout the game. There’s a fine line – you don’t want to be over-obsessed with tendencies and not put your best players in the best situation to be successful. But when you do have a tendency, you know the defense is going to play to it and it’s tough for anybody when they’re playing and they know where you’re going to go, to go there. That’s why if you’re running the ball in all these situations and even though it looks good, you know you’re going to get a run front so you try to call a play-pass off of it. If that doesn’t work and if you have a high tendency to follow a play not working with a run, sometimes you have got to man up and call the pass again and have confidence this is going to work and vice versa. When you’re throwing a lot in situations, most people will usually throw on third down, sometimes you’ve got to make yourself run it, because you’re always going to get pass defenses and just the threat of the run will throw tendencies off. So you’ve always got to keep that in mind, to answer your question. But like everything, there is a fine line. You don’t want to be over-obsessed with something and end up not putting your players in the best position to win.”
Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers is critical. This is a team, or area, that could go from disconnect to dysfunction. The warning signs of disaster showed up this week. Reality is, Robert Griffin III isn’t going anywhere. A guy like Pierre Garcon isn’t going anywhere. The Shanahans, however, have a lot to lose going forward. Especially Kyle, but with Mike Shanahan in the final year of his contract — it’s unclear at this point if he will be back. I think he will. I’m not as certain about Kyle, although, I question if they’re a package deal. There’s a guy named Philip Montgomery who played a key role in Robert Griffin III’s maturation process at Baylor University. Wouldn’t be surprised if his name eventually gets tossed around in a similar fashion as Pep Hamilton going to Indianapolis to work with his former QB at Stanford — Andrew Luck. I think Kyle Shanahan is a good offensive coach. But clearly, there are some issues that needs to be worked out.
“We need to be crisper,” Kyle Shanahan said. “We need to be better. There’s not much more I can say about it. I just can’t wait until Sunday to have an opportunity to try to do that.”
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