The Washington Redskins will kickoff their 83rd season in franchise history on Sunday when they face the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. It will be the NFL head coaching debut for not only Washington’s Jay Gruden, but Bill O’Brien as well. With a win on Sunday, Gruden can become the 11th coach in team history to win his debut with the Redskins. Including interim head coaches, Gruden will be the 16th coach to make his Redskins debut on the road. He will attempt to become the first coach to win his Redskins debut while on the road since Jack Pardee at New England on Sept. 3, 1978.
I call these type of match-ups early in the season with new schemes and coaches “games of ignorance.” Teams simply don’t know what to expect from their opponent. Texans Head Coach Bill O’Brien hired 16 new assistant coaches to his staff, including defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel. Pre-season isn’t a great tool to use and Jay Gruden admits it’s a challenge dealing with new coaches. “We both are kind of dealing with the same thing, trying to study and put together a game plan based on a couple preseason games is rough,” said Gruden. “[Texans Cornerback] Johnathan Joseph hasn’t even played, Watt and Clowney has only played about 18-20 snaps together at the same time, [Brian] Cushing’s played very limited. I don’t know exactly what they’re going to do. You try and go back and watch some tape from a couple years ago of Kansas City’s defense to see what they did there. Overall you just have to have a good sound approach to the type of defense that he plays and have answers both in the passing game and the running game and feel good that your system in place can account for a lot of things that you might not see on tape. And we do feel good about our protection scheme and our running game and we feel good. Anything that they throw at us, we should have an answer eventually.”
While there may be some challenges having lack of knowledge of the opponent, there are still fundamental schematic things they’ve prepared for this week. “I think, like I said, you have a basic fundamental knowledge of their system,” said Gruden. “I think every week it’s the same – even though you get a chance to watch teams on tape, you don’t know exactly what they’re going to do. You might have a basic fundamental scheme of how they line up on defense, but from a coverage standpoint, a blitz standpoint, from an offensive standpoint, formation to a play concept standpoint, you never know what’s coming so you have to be able to adjust on the fly all the time, every week whether you’re playing a new coach or not. This is no different than any other week. We know that the defense is a base 3-4, we know that Coach [Bill] O’Brien comes from a New England Patriots style offense, and then from there it gets a little tricky because there are a lot of things he has done and been successful with – two tight ends, three tight ends, one tight end – very diverse in what he does, very good at what he does, and same with the defensive coordinator over there – very diverse and very good at what they do. We do have a fundamental understanding of what they are and what they like to be, but stopping it is a different story and attacking it could change throughout the course of the game.”
On the flip side, Gruden hopes being a first time head coach himself could be an advantage. “It could be a positive,” he said. “Can be. I hope it is.”
Of course, emotions will be rolling as Jay Gruden takes the field for a meaningful football game the first time as a head coach. “I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders a little bit,” admitted Gruden. “When you’re a coordinator you just worry about the offensive game plan and scripting and doing the cards, but as a head coach there is a lot more on your plate. And I’ve been eating it all, it’s rough. It’s been exciting and I’m very excited about the first game to start, very nervous, but I know that the staff that I hired and the players we have in the building, I know it is not going to be about me and it is going to be about them and their success. And we feel like we have got the players and the coaches in place here to put together a successful football team on the field and when it’s all said and done as a coach that is all you want. You want to get your players in the best position to succeed and we feel like we have done that up to this point. Now it is up to them to go out and play.”
The Quarterback:
Robert Griffin III hopes to resurface as a premier player in the league this year after a poor 2013 campaign that was eventually cut short. With Mike Shanahan in his rear view and Jay Gruden in the fold, Griffin hopes to show more flashes of what he was in 2012, while progressing into a better pocket passer.
“We’ve got a new offense going into this thing, so that growth has been great,” said Griffin. “To be able to get through that and make sure everybody is on the right page – getting from reads and progressions to just getting us into the right plays and out of bad plays – all that stuff comes with being a quarterback. Being in this new system, it’s good to have gone through the whole offseason in it and getting ready to go into game day.”
Griffin doesn’t believe he has anything to prove, but there’s certainly questions that need to be answered. Can he protect himself? Can he develop a better pocket presence? Griffin has all the talent in the world, but those are two key things he has to improve on this season. If he does, this team should be in position to compete.
“I do this for my teammates,” said Griffin. “I do this for my family, for this organization. We don’t have anything to prove to anybody else out there. All we have to do is go out and be the team that we know that we can be. I guess if you want to say that we have a lot to prove to ourselves within this building, then it’s about all of us going out there and being successful. Like I said many times this whole offseason, they go as I go. If I play well, we play well. If I don’t play well, we don’t play well. I understand that, they understand that and I’m going to do my best and I promise I’ll play well for them.”
Griffin has a ton of playmakers surrounding him this season. Last season it was just WR Pierre Garcon and TE Jordan Reed, who hopes to improve on his rookie season. Now, with the big addition of WR DeSean Jackson and a underrated acquisition in Andre Roberts, all of a sudden there’s major talent everywhere Griffin looks. It’s all about Griffin being an efficient distributor of the football. In addition to, realizing he doesn’t have to be the savior every play.
“We’ve got a lot of talented playmakers out there on the field and it’s my job to trust them out there,” said Griffin. “To know what they’re doing, to know where we need to go with the ball, and I think we’ve gotten better at that over the course of the entire offseason and even through the preseason and training camp. We look forward to continuing to develop that trust and develop that chemistry, you would say, throughout the season, but we’re not going out there thinking, ‘Man, we don’t have any chemistry, or man, we’re not on time.’ We’re trying to make plays and we plan to do it.”
Week One Competition:
The Houston Texans was the only team that had a worse record than the Washington Redskins last season. However, much like Washington, this is a very different team. Bill O’Brien brings a tailor-made offense to the table and the defense has two very gifted pass rushers in Jadeveon Clowney and JJ Watt. Washington will have their hands full with those players.
“Clowney and Watt have been on the field for about 20 plays this whole preseason,” said Jay Gruden. “So, it’s been very difficult to really try to get a good feel for where they’re going to be all the time. We have a general idea, but, you know, it’s difficult and to really envision the type of speed and size and power that he has just watching it on film is also not easy. We assume that he’s going to be on Trent’s [Williams] side and if he moves over to Tyler’s [Polumbus] side then so be it. We just have got to do a good job of knowing who her is, where his strengths are as a pass rusher and go from there.”
It will be important for Jay Gruden to commit to the ground game with Pro-Bowl RB Alfred Morris. As of today, the ground game is Washington’s strength. You do not want to get in a shootout against those pass rushers. Especially when your right tackle, Tyler Polumbus, isn’t necessarily equipped to handle JJ Watt one-on-one.
“Every team has good pass rushers somewhere along their defensive front and Texans are no different with [Jadeveon] Clowney, [J.J.] Watt and [Brooks] Reed,” said Jay Gruden. “So they can really get after the quarterback and obviously the great neutralizer is a strong running game and we think we possess that. So, it’s going to be very important for us to establish some kind of running game. If we get behind and it turns into a dropback pass fest, it won’t be pretty. So it’s very important for us to stick with the run, run the ball and do the best we can in that regard to take some pressure off our quarterback and our linemen, for that matter.”
The Texans under Romeo Crennel plan to go with a more two-gap approach on defense — hoping to be a run stopping defense. Of course, Crennel isn’t going to handicap his pass rushers. So once the run game is neutralized, I’m sure he’ll let his pass rushers pin their hair back and explode upfield.
The new $100 million man, JJ Watt, says Crennel’s philosophy allows defenders to move around the field which is a little different than year’s past. “It gives an opportunity for me to see different guys, to play against everybody,” said Watt. “It gives a defense the chance to be multiple and to do different things. That’s one thing I like about Coach [Romeo] Crennel is the way he adapts to different things and the way we game plan and stuff like that. So, it’s going to be fun.”
On offense, Houston will start Ryan Fitzpatrick at QB. Fitzpatrick doesn’t come with star power. But lets not forget, it was only about three years ago that the then Buffalo Bill completed 21 of 27 passes for 262 yards and two touchdowns in a 23-0 blowout against Washington. The Texans still have Andre Johnson at receiver and a promising young receiver in DeAndre Hopkins. Not to mention, a healthy Arian Foster, who hopes to have a big season.
Washington’s defense plans to rebound from their horrid output last season with a few new pieces and several young talents. The front 7 appears to be improved with the addition of Jason Hatcher, new in-house developed talents in Chris Baker and Keenan Robinson and a rotational interior rusher in rookie Trent Murphy. I really like what Washington could potentially have in the front-7. Especially if Brian Orakpo proves to emerge as an impact player and Kerrigan remains consistent — Washington could have something good there.
What will be interesting to watch is Washington’s secondary against the Texans receivers. The Redskins plan to keep their corners on one side of the field. Unlike past seasons where DeAngelo Hall followed the team’s number one receiver, Washington appears to be entrusting second year CB David Amerson with possibly having to cover number one guys.
On the flip side, when and if Washington is able to pass the ball, I’d expect a ton of quick passes. Griffin absolutely cannot hold on to the football in this game. I think you could see three or four downfield passes to DeSean Jackson. But I’d expect more screens and underneath throws to Garcon and Jordan Reed.
Washington Redskins vs Houston Texans prediction: Redskins win 24-21 with a last minute field goal.
Fantasy Football Advice:
Start Texans: Arian Foster and Andre Johnson (if in PPR league)
Sit Texans: DeAndre Hopkins and Garrett Graham (who will likely sit out with back injury)
Start Redskins: DeSean Jackson and Alfred Morris
Sit: Jordan Reed (I think they’ll need him to help block)
Projecting Washington Redskins Season Awards:
Offensive Player Of The Year: Robert Griffin III
- I think DeSean Jackson is going to go off in this Jay Gruden system. But if Griffin is able to help not only Jackson put up big numbers, but also spread the ball to Andre Roberts, Garcon and Jordan Reed — that would mean he would have major numbers. And we all know, the awards go to QBs in that case.
Defensive Player Of The Year: Brian Orakpo
- Brian Orakpo may say he doesn’t have anything to prove, but he understands that he must improve his game if he intends on continuing his career in Washington beyond this season. He needs to have a big season.
Special Teams Player Of The Year: Andre Roberts
- Washington finally has a reliable kick and punt returner in Andre Roberts. He’s a guy I think you can depend on to not give up yards and put the offense in good field position.
Comeback Player Of The Year: Keenan Robinson
- If Griffin wins OPOY, clearly he would be a contender for this category. However, Keenan Robinson flashed impact ability in preseason. He’ll be taking over the London Fletcher role in the defense and he could potentially surface as a quality football player. He missed all of last season with a pec injury and missed most of his rookie season with the same issue. So, if he’s able to stay healthy, he could have a big year.
Season Record Prediction: 9-7
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