At the halfway point, the Redskins are 4-4.  Team metrics see them somewhere between an average team and a below average team.  Systems that focus more on getting first downs and controlling the ball really don't like the Redskins on either side, but systems based purely on the ability of the team to get and prevent yards per play really do think there's more here than meets the eye.  This team sports an excellent turnover differential, and would be even stronger in that facet of the game if the offense hadn't been hit with a rash of turnovers in the last three weeks.

Those are the team figures.  Redskins Hog Heaven is an analysis blog focused on the Redskins, which means that you can expect us to go past the team ratings to really separate the contributors from the non-contributors.  We have stats that look at the Redskins offensive linemen, we have stats that look at the Redskins coverage units, and we have stats that look at the pass pressure.  Combine all of that, and while we can't give you a perfectly complete picture of how individuals are doing, we can give you a pretty good look at how certain players are doing at well-defined, specific jobs related to winning football games.

These individual stats do not attempt to show every contribution about the players.  The coverage stats show that DeAngelo Hall falls into a category where just about 70% of NFL defensive backs are performing better in coverage than Hall, a player in the prime of his NFL career.  That's helpful to know.  It's also necessary to understand that most every defensive back in the league hasn't directly contributed to two wins with big play ability this year.  It's hard to imagine beating Dallas or Chicago without Hall's contributions in that game.  Now, could the Redskins have beaten the Rams or Colts if they had a better performing cornerback out there instead of Hall?  These statistics cannot answer that question, but honestly, it couldn't have hurt.  With Hall, you just have to take the good with the bad.

Without further delay, lets examine some of the individual Redskins numbers at the mid-season break.

Lineman Yard Average

The Lineman Yard Average totals show a strong split between the performance of the run blockers on the right side of the offensive line and those on the left side.  Derrick Dockery had poor figures last season, and he's been replaced at left guard by Kory Lichtensteiger, who is not any better, sporting a 3.52 total, and last visiting 4.00 LYA in a game in Week 3 against the Rams.  Visual evidence of Lichtensteiger's play suggests that he's a fairly good fit for the zone blocking scheme, as he really doesn't get significant push on the OL.  His best run blocks tend to be stalemates with the defensive linemen, and too often, Lichtensteiger doesn't get up at the linebacker level, which is the difference between his total and Casey Rabach's total, with Rabach doing almost a yard better on average.

Lichtensteiger and Rabach both excel at screen blocking, which is where Derrick Dockery may have been weakest.  It's odd though, because this team doesn't throw very many screens.  Artis Hicks struggles to find someone to block on screen plays, but Trent Williams is actually pretty good when they let him release downfield and go hunt.  However, as LYA suggests, Trent Williams just isn't much of a run blocker at this stage of his career.  Here's a quirk of the NFL official game book records: Football Outsiders collects and tracks the information in the official play-by-play data.  That data lists the Redskins as a team that runs off left end 25% of the time, by far the most in the NFL.  The Redskins don't actually run to the left that much.  What happens is because the Redskins rarely run the ball between the guards intentionally, the zone blocking scheme creates natural cutback opportunites.  About half of the charted "left end runs" are actually zone plays to the right where the defensive line overpursues and the cutback goes off the hip of the left guard with Trent Williams engaged inside with the backside defensive end.  As the NFL describes it, thats a "left end" run.  In reality, the play was to the right, and the left tackle was engaged three yards in the backfield away from the point of attack.  Hence, off the left end.  Those same plays also have a tendency to bounce to the middle when Rabach and Hicks open an alley, which is how the Redskins "conditionally" run to the middle.

What LYA tells us is when the Redskins do actually get that stretch play to the right and get to run off the right, which usually involves quality blocking by the tight ends and fullback, that's where they really make their effort pay off in the running game.  The cutback runs tend not to amount to much yardage wise as the Shanahan scheme is famous for, mostly because the Redskins do not have a running back who can really make the opponent pay for overpursuit.  They are merely good enough on the cutback runs to keep defenses honest.  When they get to the edges with Ryan Torain and with Clinton Portis, and with Keiland Williams, that is when the Redskins are at their best in the running game.

While there hasn't been a significant difference between Will Montgomery and Artis Hicks at right guard on runs, it does look like Stephon Heyer has a slight advantage in run blocking over Jammal Brown in an ever-increasing sample.  Brown is much more disciplined than Heyer prior to the snap, and should retain the starting job based on that alone, but after the snap, Heyer has clearly been the superior player through a half season of playing the same position on the same team.

Your leaders in large-sample LYA over 8 games: 1) Stephon Heyer, 2) Artis Hicks, 3) Casey Rabach, 4) Jammal Brown, followed immediately by the contributions of Chris Cooley, Mike Sellers, and Fred Davis, who all have performed above expectation.

Coverage Statistics

On the back of a season-high 13 targets in the Lions game, DeAngelo Hall's coverage numbers have reverted from unreliably high based on a small sample to a very large sample (Hall is on pace for 128 defensive targets, which would have led the NFL in 2009) where Hall's numbers at least fall within the range of a starting NFL corner.  From about week 5 through week 7, Hall's coverage numbers were so bad that they fell outside of the range of an NFL level corner.  5 INTs in 21 targets later, plus another 3 incompletions, those eight "0s" have brought Hall's success rate and YPA numbers roughly in line with a 25th percentile corner, and his completion percentage against is under 80% for the first time this year (and is less inflated by early season smoke passes).

If you're looking for a reason why the Redskins defense still ranks 31st despite it's production in terms of turnovers and points against, you can just look at the completion percentage against Hall and Rogers this year, a combined 74.8% against.  Drew Brees leads all quarterbacks in completion percentage this year.  He's completing 71.1% of his passes this season.  When you allow as many completions as the Redskins do, you need to be a great tackling team to prevent first downs.  The Redskins are good, but not great, at tackling with their back seven.

As far as success rate against the pass goes, Hall's numbers are holding the other defenders back, but Reed Doughty (vs. 3rd WRs) and Rocky McIntosh (vs. RBs) are easy targets for offenses to exploit as well.  As good as Carlos Rogers has been this year, you'd like to see him prevent first downs more than 49% of the time, but the results suggest he's been merely adequate this season in a category where he is usually excellent.

Three guys who actually have exceeded all expectations 1) London Fletcher, 2) LaRon Landry, and 3) Phillip Buchanon.  With the long TD to Pierre Garcon allowed by Landry (and Hall) adding more than a yard to his season YPA, we could be talking about three players in the top 25% in NFL coverage players at their positions, three players who are helping to end drives that don't end in turnover.  London Fletcher is almost primarily responsible for defensing tight ends in this defense.  For a job that has fallen to the safeties in modern NFL defense, you can consider it an awesome feat that our 35 year old star linebacker is doing a better job covering tight ends than most safeties are.  You may have noticed the improvement made in pass defense by LaRon Landry (and probably have), but Buchanon has quietly locked down the role of nickelback, and is doing it at an elite level as far as fifth DBs go.  Those numbers he sports are absolutely sparkling considering his role in coverage is absolutely identical to the struggling DeAngelo Hall.

Pass Pressure and Sack Shares

I created a sack shares formula to mimic the sack totals of the Redskins this season without actually counting sacks.  Based on the pressure the Redskins are getting on opposing quarterbacks, the system estimates that the team would have 20 and a half sacks through 8 games.  The Redskins have 18 sacks in those games, so the estimate is pretty close.  The three outside linebackers with the most playing time are Brian Orakpo (7.0 sacks), Lorenzo Alexander (1.5 sacks), and Andre Carter (1.0 sacks).  That's 9.5 sacks attributable to outside linebackers, where the sack shares system projects 10.5 Redskins sacks from the position once you factor in the half sack projection from package player Chris Wilson.  That's really, really accurate if you consider that actual sacks are not an imput into the system: only hurries, hits, and holds are being used to predict sacks.

If you assume playing time is identical in the second half of the season, you can take the red-lined sack shares total from eight weeks and add it to the current sack totals of individual players to project how many sacks they will finish with.  I will now project sacks for the Redskins at the end of the year, using this formula:

1. Brian Orakpo, 12.0 sacks
2. Andre Carter, 4.0 sacks
3. Albert Haynesworth, 3.5 sacks (assumes only 8 games played instead of 12)
4. Lorenzo Alexander, 3.5 sacks
5. LaRon Landry, 3.5 sacks
6. Rocky McIntosh, 3.0 sacks
7. London Fletcher, 1.5 sacks
8. Vonnie Holliday, 1.5 sacks
9. Adam Carriker, 1.5 sacks
10. Phillip Daniels, 1.5 sacks
11. Kedric Golston, 1.0 sack
12. Carlos Rogers, 1.0 sack
13. Chris Wilson, 0.5 sacks
14. Jeremy Jarmon, 0.5 sacks

I am projecting the Washington Redskins to finish with 38.5 sacks as a team if they do not change their rushing patterns from the first half, and assuming they face as many passing attempts in the second half as they did in the first half.  They had 40 sacks as a team in 2009, while facing many fewer passing attempts.  There has been a decline in the pass rush ability of this unit since last year and it's name is Andre Carter.  The way we are using Carter and Alexander, we would have expected them to combine for 10 sacks together consistent with last year's production.  Right now, I am expecting them to combine for only 7.5 sacks this season.

Making Conclusions

I don't track anything that would project turnovers, but the Redskins rank 11th in turnovers per drive.  That might be closer to the middle of the pack than you were expecting, considering the Redskins lead right now in total turnovers forced.  That's true, but the Redskins also lead the league in total drives against our defense with 102 in eight games.  If you are wondering why the heck the Redskins are 31st in yards per game against while giving up just 6.1 yards per passing play, it's because when you multiply that 6.1 by a greater number of plays than any other defense has faced (thanks to an offense that ranks 28th in the NFL in converting first downs into more first downs).

Both the Eagles and the Giants rank ahead of the Redskins in forcing turnovers per drive, though the Redskins force more punts and give up fewer TDs per drive than the Eagles.

Our one competency that we have over the Eagles and the Giants that we can rely on to beat them head-to-head in the second half of the year is our special teams units.  Philadelphia's biggest hire in the offseason was Special Teams coach Bobby April...so it's a bit surprising that they are average or below average in every facet of special teams play this year.  The Giants are even worse than that, though they are kicking off at an acceptable level.  The Redskins have struggled with their punt unit this year, but neither the Eagles nor the Giants are a threat to capitalize on that weakness.  For the Redskins, their kickoff unit and return units have been among the league's best this year, and as soon as the field goal unit begins to convert kicks into points, this is going to be a strength of the team.  Danny Smith has been our best coach this season (not to underrate the work of linebackers coach Lou Spanos, a big pickup).

One thing to keep an eye on: the two units that are weighing down our special teams are our punt team and field goal kicking team.  Those are the two units that long-snapper Nick Sundberg plays on.  Correlation is not causation, but it's something to watch for in the second half of the year.

Paul Bessire of PredictionMachine.com has a theory about the 2010 NFL season that he narrows down to his "Redskins Hypothesis." As Paul explains it:

"My Redskins Hypothesis is that they are the epitome of this season of parity in that the Redskins would not be more than four point favorites or underdogs against any team in the league no matter where the game is played. The theory is in relation to both the books that set the lines and our predictions. A further example of this at work is that neither team in seven of eight Redskins games this season has covered the spread more than 53% of the time in our numbers."

Did he just say that we are perfectly average?

There's comfort in that thought, I think. The Redskins, who are playing .500 ball right now, can be expected to be competitive against any opponent. That's a huge difference from last season, thought it may not feel that way at the moment. 'Skins fans are still shell-shocked from the Detriot Lions game, not so much from what the Lions did to Donovan McNabb as from what Mike Shanahan did.

Bessire hints that gamers have the tougher task with just over half their football picks to cover their bets.

Here's what's scary about Bessire's Prediction Machine. He correctly forecast the Redskins' win over the Chicago Bears and the loss to the Detroit Lions.

Here's Bessire's forecast for the rest of Washington's season after loading team stats and tendencies then simulating each game 50,000 times:

Prediction Machines's Rest Of The Way Forecast:

Bessire projects three more wins for the 'Skins and a 50-50 shot versus the Vikings in Week 12. This simulation is dated October 7, before Randy Moss moved from the Vikings to the Titans and before the Cowboys imploded to 1-5. Bessire's projection isn't very different Football Outsiders who projects 3.3 more wins for the 'Skins.

We didn't know what to expect from the Shannyskins. We sure don't know what to expect now. Most blogger pundits, including the two of us here at Redskins Hog Heaven, expected the Redskins to finish around .500, just where they are at mid-season.

We'll have more on the Redskins at the bye tomorrow and next week. Meanwhile, our blogging colleagues at DC Pro Sports Report posted their Redskins Midseason Awards. Go take a look. We'll be here when you get back.

Point after: Not compensated by Paul Bessire or PredictionMachine.com for touting their work. I just admire it. That's all.

Ex-Redskin Of The Week: Gregg Williams, Defensive Coordinator, New Orleans Saints
Redskins fans kidded Gregg Williams a lot, he of the three G name (second G is for genius, third G is for god). But give the man credit; he can coach some defense. The harder-nosed he was, the more his players seemed to love him. Williams dispatched his Super Bowl defense against a rival Super Bowl contender, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Saints D did a number on the men of Steel. New Orleans tagged Steeler QB Ben Roethlisberger for three sacks, seven QB hits and an interception. What's more, they held the Steelers to 10 points and Roethlisberger to a 66.8 QB rating. The 20-10 New Orleans win kept the Saints within half-a-game of Tampa Bay and Atlanta in the race for the NFC South.

Honorable mention goes to ex-Redskin Leigh Torrence who snagged that INT on Roethlisberger.

Ex-Redskin Of The Weak: None

Maybe, like me, you sneak a peak at Jason Campbell through the season to see how he's doing. You want to see a good guy catch a break. You also want to see by Campbell's performance whether the Washington Redskins' assessment of him was valid or not.

Mid-season is too soon to say definitively, but you can get a snapshot in time.

At Week Eight, Campbell ranks 21st in the league by quarterback rating (82.5). Donovan McNabb is 25th with a 76.0 rating. Both the Redskins and the Oakland Raiders are 4-4. Both teams are contending for their division title although few football analysts during preseason predicted them to win it.

Campbell is the fourth-rated quarterback on Football Outsiders' Week 8 Quick Reads after the Raiders plundered Seattle 33-3.

"Campbell ranked 30th in DYAR in Week 1 and 29th in Week 2 before being benched for Bruce Gradkowski. He made a relief appearance for Gradkowski in Week 5, finishing 11th, then he was 30th again in Week 6. And then some kind of magic switch was flipped and Campbell went to the other extreme, ranking fourth in Weeks 7 and 8. He has also eliminated turnovers, with no fumbles or interceptions the past two games after 10 combined mistakes in Weeks 1-6."

Football Outsiders' ranked McNabb 24th, but attributed most of his performance to the failure of Washington's offensive line to handle Detroit's defensive front.

"The Lions sacked McNabb six times and put him on the turf another half-dozen plays. The vast majority of those hits were made by Lions linemen, not linebackers or defensive backs. So the problem isn't that McNabb was befuddled or confused by complex blitzes - the Detroit front four simply manhandled the Redskins offensive line, and there was nothing McNabb or any other quarterback could have done about it."

Detroit's Matthew Stafford placed 15th on FO's list for quarterbacks. FO notes that Campbell's performance improved after he was benched.

The dust up over Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan's benching of McNabb took the focus off of line play and put it completely on McNabb. Fortunately, our own Greg Trippiedi charted the offense and named names. His post went up earlier today and is worth a peak.

It's worthwhile to take a second look at stat-master Paul Bessire's preseason comments about McNabb, Shanahan and Campbell.

Bessire's preseason outlook for the 'Skins was a six-win season. He's since upped that to 7.5 to 8.5 wins this year. Most of the improvement was due to Shanahan's position as coach. In his words"

"According to the Predictalator, the Redskins may win a couple more games on average than in 2009, but Washington is still not an above .500 team.

"The improvement actually has more to do with the upgrade in the coaching staff than in additional talent on the roster. Mike Shanahan’s history is thoroughly reviewed to gauge his tendencies in just about every situation as well as how much better (or worse) his players play than we would expect otherwise. Shanahan means about 1.2 additional wins to the Redskins relative to Jim Zorn. That is a very significant jump for a coaching staff in one season."

And here are Bessire's (so far) prescient words about McNabb and Campbell:

"Donovan McNabb, on the other hand, only adds about 0.4 wins to the Redskins over Jason Campbell. McNabb is a 33-year-old quarterback who has hit a plateau and will likely start regressing soon. Jason Campbell is a 28-year-old quarterback who is still improving and was about as efficient as McNabb over the last two seasons, despite having inferior weapons in the passing game. McNabb now inherits those inferior weapons. It’s improvement at the position, but not a big improvement. On the season, McNabb throws for 3317 yards, 23 TDs and 12 INTs. In Oakland, Campbell throws for 3314 yards, 20 TDs and 12 INTs. Kevin Kolb, McNabb’s replacement, throws for 4059 yards, 23 TDs and 17 INTs in Philadelphia."

For the second straight year, a loss to Detroit triggered extreme reaction by Washington's leadership. Both losses merely exposed known flaws on the Redskins roster structure. The Redskins hoped that McNabb could mask those flaws given they only had six draft picks this year and as few as four next year.

For all his struggles in Oakland, Campbell is probably just as happy to be gone. But we are here along with the Shanahans and McNabb. The Redskins have to figure out how to win with the players they've got now. As with Campbell, McNabb's play isn't the biggest issue with this team. Benching McNabb won't fix those issues.

Point after: Football Outsiders projects that the Redskins will win 3.3 more games this season. Statisticians speak in probability and decimal points. Guess they are saying Washington will win seven or eight games in 2010.

Maybe you heard about it. If not, here's the clip of the T. Ocho Show with banter between Terrell Owens and Chad OchoCinco on Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan pulling quarterback Donovan McNabb in the last two minutes of the Detroit Lions game.

It's hard to find a way to logically blame a defense for where on the field the opponent takes over against it.  You can blame a team's offense or it's special teams unit, but blaming the defense for where drives against a defense start isn't logically sound in most cases.  For the Redskins in this game, giving up 31 offensive points to the Lions is probably not a great effort for a team that has done so well in limiting points this year relative to the opportunities an offense has had to score points.  Still 31 points to the Lions?

The most prominent reason for Detroit's offensive explosion, outside of the fact that Detroit is averaging 26 PPG this year, best in the NFC, is that every one of the Lions 5 scoring drives started on the Redskins' end of the 50. That's it right there.  The field position game was actually more in favor of the Lions that even that makes it sound, but the Redskins defense created two more big turnovers to stem the tide a little bit.

The culprits here were the normally reliable Redskins coverage teams (Anthony Armstrong had one really bad coverage breakdown), as well as the consistently unreliable offense.  Those units combined to give the Lions 7 different drives that began on the Detroit 48 or closer to the end zone.  Matthew Stafford may have thrown four TDs in this game, but some of those were really thrown by the return units.

So with their backs against the wall all day, the Redskins defense performed pretty darn well.  Ultimately, in the fourth quarter, when the Redskins made a man-coverage adjustment and started putting Matthew Stafford on the spot, they just didn't have a solution to cover the normally unreliable Calvin Johnson.  Johnson took over this game to finish with 9 catches for 101 receiving yards, and three touchdowns.  Johnson was targeted 17 times, with two of those targets (both completions) called back by holds.  If we ignore that Stafford got those throws off due to illegal activity in the backfield, Johnson caught 11 of 17 passes for 139 yards, which falls into "gamebreaker" status.

Johnson drew DeAngelo Hall 12 times, LaRon Landry 4 times, and Carlos Rogers once.  Landry and Rogers combined for 2 of the 6 incompletions, with Hall getting the other four, one of which was an interception.  Hall was the only one to draw Johnson in a man coverage assignment (Kareem Moore drew him once on a man switch, and Haslett's gamble paid off -- Stafford never diagnosed it).  In the first half, Hall won decisively (3 of 6 completions, but just 45 receiving yards and 1 TD for those efforts, plus Hall picked Stafford).  In the second half, Johnson dominated this match-up, adding another TD to go with a 5 for 6 half for 51 yards.  7 of the 8 completions went for first downs.

In the course of the game, Hall didn't beat Johnson nor did Johnson beat Hall.  However, when Johnson was winning in the second half, Stafford was clearly more comfortable leading the offense.  What Stafford was not on this day was accurate, not even in the slightest.  Stafford completed 58% of his passes in this game, but threw underneath 10 yards most of the time.  While Stafford missed his targets by multiple feet even standing 10 yards away from him, the Redskins played a style of aggressive zone and man coverage that I had not seen from them on film prior to this game.  This makes me excited for the second half of the season.  The Redskins defensed Stafford's short throws, rather than letting him dink and dunk to the outside uncontested as we've seen from them in the past.

The route the Redskins still can not defend is the dig (square in) route against cover two and cover three, mostly because the safeties just aren't good enough in coverage to break on that route and make the play.  The corner's keep outside leverage as they are taught, and it's not their pass to defend.  DeAngelo Hall gives way too much space on deeper out routes still.  I can excuse the completions against him on the dig routes because he has outside leverage on the receiver and needs help from the safeties.  On the out routes, his help is the sideline which he simply does not use.  Carlos Rogers and particularly Phillip Buchanon do not display this problem on out routes, as it seems to be exclusive to Hall.  None of our safeties show any ability to get to the dig route in time to defense it, though Landry might get there once in a while.  I expect teams to keep running it against us to get between 12 and 20 yards without it being too contested.

Sunday's Defensive Scheme

If Jim Haslett had it to do over again, I suspect he would have sent Brian Orakpo after the quarterback more than he did.  Orakpo did not rush much in the first three quarters, as the Redskins tried to match up against three receivers by splitting the distance with underneath players like Landry and Alexander, but Orakpo as well.  This allowed him to give Matt Stafford fits with the blitz, and the blitz worked well when the Redskins timed it well.  When it wasn't timed up well, Stafford beat it.

Color commentator Tim Ryan gave LT Jeff Backus some love for slowing down Orakpo in this one, but he probably came in prepared to face Orakpo a lot more than he actually saw him.  Orakpo's first pressure came on the go-ahead TD drive for the Lions in the fourth quarter.  Haslett was right to believe that Stafford's accuracy issues would allow him to be judicious with his pressure schemes and basically pace the first half by playing conservatively and trying to give Stafford as many looks as possible.  He won that gamble and things worked out well, but what we saw when push came to shove after the McNabb INT is that, contrary to the gameplan coming in, he turned Orakpo loose after Stafford on every play.

I don't necessarily disagree that it's good to have a game where Orakpo plays some coverage assignments and Adam Carriker and Andre Carter get to set the edges in a defensive package that plays four defensive lineman (Haynesworth, Carriker, Carter/Alexander, Golston/Holliday) in passing downs.  The four linemen came at the expense of a nickel package, as Buchanon stayed on the bench for a lot of the 3 WR sets (this was new this game), and the Redskins used Orakpo to split the difference with the slot receivers when Alexander was on the bench.

Ultimately, I don't think Haslett believes this to be the optimal use of his personnel because Orakpo is the fifth rusher instead of the "X" backer in the pressure schemes.  When Orakpo rushes from the 5 man pressure scheme, he has to stay outside, and that limits his effectiveness.  The Redskins hit Stafford plenty in this game out of these schemes, but the holds and the sacks came out of the rush packages the Redskins have been using all year: Orakpo and Haynesworth on the same side, Carter on the backside wreaking havoc.  That's our best pass rushing unit, though it's nice to see we're trying other things to see what we can do.

Individuals in the Front Seven

There's a number of guys I want to talk about here.  Brian Orakpo did not play well in this game.  He's not an aware player in coverage, and he doesn't set the edge well against the run when you put a body (of any size) on him.  Orakpo is a pure pass rusher, not yet a complete football player.  That was exposed this week when Orakpo was asked to do other things than go after the passer.  He's better at most things, however, than Rocky McIntosh, who is really just a disappointing player at this point in his career.  He's a big weakness right in the middle of the defense.  Rocky usually makes a bunch of fundamental errors in gap discipline and play diagnosis, and he's undisciplined trying to make plays in space.  There are far too many good LBs on this team (Orakpo, Alexander, Carter, Fletcher, Blades, and possibly Riley) to continue putting McIntosh out there.  With him, it's not just a 3-4 issue, it's an issue of being a linebacker at the professional level.  He simply hasn't developed, and at age 28 now, I can't imagine he'll be back in the future.

On the other hand, we've had a pleasant surprise at the nose tackle position of all places on the defense.  The last two weeks, vs. Chicago and Detroit, Ma'ake Kemoeatu has flashed at times and dominated at others on the interior.  Remember, that he's coming off that Achilies tear from last season, and he had played straight from the OTA's through the preseason and into the regular season while never sitting.  Albert Haynesworth's emergence and playing three consecutive teams with base three receiver offenses has put us in the nickel and dime formations most of the time.  That means with some down time in the games, Kemoeatu hasn't really had to play a large role since back in Week 3 in St. Louis, when he still looked hurt and unable to anchor at the point of attack.  The Kemo who has played against the Bears (limited snaps) and against the Lions is a completely different player, and the one who we thought we had when we signed him.  He made his impact known -- mostly in the opponents backfield.

It's time that we switch the roles of Vonnie Holliday and Kedric Golston.  Right now, an ineffective Golston is backed up in the 3-4 by an ineffective Phillip Daniels.  Last year, Vonnie Holliday was one of the best 3-4 linemen in the league last year for the Denver Broncos, and he's the best option to start at RDE in the 3-4.  Golston plays well on the interior in that 4 man front Haslett uses in the nickel, and he plays the same role Holliday does, spelling him in that package when we're in it for a bunch of snaps in a role.  I don't think Golston is better than Holliday in that role, but I know Holliday would be better than Golston playing the DL in the 3-4.  That would make Carriker-Kemoeatu-Holliday our best option on the DL in the 3-4 front, with Haynesworth and Golston on the interior in a four man front.

Looking around

I think this is a good defense.  I really do.  I think it's played like a good defense and is improving every week.  This was not a weak offensive unit we played, and I thought the Redskins defense exceeded expecations in this game as a whole, with only a few exceptions on the individual level.

I hadn't seen the speed in the reads that a majority of the players on this defense played with in this game.  Guys like Fletcher, and Buchanon, and Landry, and Kareem Moore, and DHall flew around and made plays while the Lions specifically avoided targeting Carlos Rogers in the slot until the very last 4th down play.  That the coverage guys stepped up the level of play was impressive.

I think I may have overrated the pass rush ability of this unit.  Even on plays where Orakpo is allowed to get after the quarterback, the consistency in the rush varies greatly from drive to drive.  I charted the Redskins with four pressures in the first three quarters.  While Stafford went to the ground on all of those plays, and couldn't get completely comfortable, the Redskins ended up waiting until Stafford was comfortable to try to pressure him into a mistake.  The four man pass rush doesn't always get there, and taking Brian Orakpo out of it makes it a below average rush.  That's one of many reasons the Redskins' sack rate has declined so much from last year, even as forced mistakes by our opponents are at an all-time high.

The Redskins have 10 interceptions and forced just as many fumbles.  That's one fewer interception than sacks by the Redskins team not credited to Brian Orakpo.  7 sacks for Orakpo could be so much more at the rate he's being held, but Albert Haynesworth now ranks second on the team in sacks with 2.0.  He has been inactive for 3/7 of the season.  Ended drives by turnovers has worked fantastic, but ending drives by third down sack is something that the Redskins have the personnel for, and absolutely can improve on in their games after the bye.

At the end of 141 plays of charting (boy, was this a long one), I can safely conclude that one thing the Redskins did wrong against the Lions was that they did not run the football enough.  Speaking just of designed runs, Ryan Torain had all 8 in the first half, and Keiland Williams had all 6 in the second half.  The leading rusher in the game was Donovan McNabb, who had no designed runs called for him.  A couple of designed runs turned into sight-adjust passes in the slot to Moss, maybe two or three in total.

Normally, when you run the ball this often, it's because the game situations prevented you from running it.  But that's not the case here, as the Redskins ran only 6 plays between their last lead in the game and trailing by two scores and being more or less out of it.  The first 55 playcalls of the game came with a lead or with a deficit of one score or less (and after trailing 7-0 for a drive, that largest deficit was 14-13 in the 3rd quarter).  Fewer than 20 called runs in a game this close is poor offensive balance, especially when the Redskins lack any layers in their passing attack.

It seems to me that making the quarterback hand-off would be a nice intermediary step between running your entire gameplan through him and putting him on the bench for ineffectiveness, but I suppose I am where I am for a reason.

There were strategic reasons not to run the football here, namely, that the Lions interior defensive line wasn't handled all day by the Redskins interior offensive line.  However, one week ago against Chicago, we were able to get on their stars with the same personnel we had this week and threw the kitchen sink at them in terms of different ways to attack a defense on the ground.  This game, the Redskins ran once in their first 8 plays.  Way to set the tone, guys.

All day long, the defensive edge players of the Lions were either on strict upfield attack of the quarterback from a wide position, or they were tighter in a more conventional front to run stunts at the Redskins offensive line.  They were not going to let us have our bootleg passing game.  Kyle Shanahan was unable to adjust to that simple gameplan from Jim Schwartz and Gunther Cunningham, but the Redskins also had a problem with McNabb in the pocket.  McNabb doesn't always stay in the pocket when the protection is there.  When Jason Campbell was at his worst last season (around October), he had the same issue: the Redskins OL blew some protections, but they could give strong protection and he'd still move around as if there was pressure on him.  McNabb has that problem right now, but instead of running around inside the pocket, McNabb likes to flush to the outside and try to make a play.  He's putting incredible pressure on himself to make difficult throws when the receivers don't quite have the scramble drill down yet.  These desperation plays are greatly contributing to Chris Cooley's struggles as a receiver this year.

So while the Lions were able to consistently and decisively win the battle at the line of scrimmage, the Redskins were able to give a quarterback room to operate most of the day.  I don't think any of the sacks McNabb took in this game were on him with the exception of the two times he tripped and fell down.  The Redskins missed assignments all day long, in every quarter.

The Lions had a mismatch with Ndamukong Suh no matter where he lined up, because the scheme Jim Schwartz allows is all about Suh getting opportunities.  It's an aggressive 4-man gap attack-first scheme, but here's how the Lions free up Suh to do his worst: they let him rush in the B gap on both sides where he was either the responsibility of Artis Hicks or Trent Williams based on how the Redskins matched their protections.  The Lions, intelligently, make sure that the rest of their defensive linemen don't rush in the gaps next to Suh, so Suh is free, if he needs to, to leave his gap and beat his assignment to the other side.  That makes Suh unblockable without a double team.

The problem for the Redskins were that they couldn't control Kyle Vanden Bosch, and because they couldn't handle Vanden Bosch, anytime they doubled Suh, it resulted in disaster.  If Trent Williams neutralizes Vanden Bosch the next time they play, the Redskins only will allow the handful of pressures to Suh, which won't be enough to win the game.

As it turned out, it shouldn't have been enough.  The Redskins should have started protecting with six and seven guys earlier than they did, because if they had put the film of the Giants game vs. the Lions, they would have noticed that the Giants made that same adjustment by the third drive of the game.  They didn't need to max protect it, but they needed to stop sending the backs into stupid pass patterns where they had to get the ball because the defense had a free run on McNabb.  When the backs stayed in, McNabb had plenty of time to make plays, plays he didn't always make.  When the backs tried to get into routes, they usually missed some obvious help situations where they could have saved their quarterback.  Aside from one or two protections that were stupidly called, those was the problem with protection in this game: 1) Trent Williams needed to play better, and 2) the backs needed to commit to helping their quarterback out instead of hanging him out.  That's it.

Donovan McNabb's timing is terrible.  He's late on any play that requires more than a three step drop.  He lets the defensive pass rush dictate the timing of the play.  He's underthrowing most of his deep passes.  I'm mildly concerned about declining arm strength, as he really needs to get his body into a throw to get it out in front of his receiver.  Sometimes, he'll throw to a receiver who has already completed his route.  It's not like he's getting to these reads late, these aren't even routes that require anticipation.  These are usually just longer routes where the ball needs to come out in a reasonable amount of time.  McNabb might not be able to control the rate at which he gets sacked, but if getting sacked or pressured is the issue, he could always speed up his execution so that things work on time.  I do think McNabb's timing is contributing to the protection woes, but with that said, beat is still beat.  McNabb is late AND the offensive protection is getting beat.  No QB should be getting sacked 7% of the time in this offense, alas, McNabb is.  One or the other could play better, and sacks would cease to be an issue.

By the time Grossman was playing, the Redskins had gotten away from what had been working in the passing game in the middle two quarters.  Neither of the two Grossman drives featured a tight end chipping or a back staying in against the four man rush of the Lions.  So naturally, Grossman didn't do any better than McNabb under the same conditions, what did you expect?

I think Rex Grossman could have made a bunch of the plays McNabb missed in this game and the last game, but when you play Grossman, you have game-changing errors because he's not particularly accurate and fumbles a lot and forces throws that have no business of being made in the first place.  In other words, every mistake McNabb made in the first and fourth quarters is a staple of how Rex Grossman has played in his career.

Individual Offensive Linemen

A few players on the OL played well.  We got good production in this game out of the LG position with Lichtensteiger and out of the RT position with both Stephon Heyer and Jammal Brown.  I already mentioned that Trent Williams did not play well, and while you'll account for the fact that Artis Hicks was in a huge mismatch most of this game and needed help, he still likely underachieved even those low expectations.  Rabach was terrible.  Hogs are dirty.  Soup is wet.  The backs were more of a hinderence on the offense than a help, and it wouldn't have taken too much more patience for Torain and Williams to be assets in pass protection.  Fred Davis handled Vanden Bosch a few times on upfield rushes and arguably was a stronger match-up than Trent Williams was.

Some of our protection schemes were just too flawed to give the passer a chance, namely a couple of play action schemes where the back off PA was responsible for a gap on the backside in protection.  Sure, Portis can get across the backfield and stick a linebacker at full speed, but I'm not sure how many other backs in this league can.  The Lions weren't buying our play action plays, and were instead daring us to run the ball.  All those plays actually lost was timing with the receivers.

Mike Sellers really deserves some credit for improvement in the way he's seeing his assignments in this running game.  He still plays too much for a team that throws as much as this team does, but when we run, Sellers is now opening up lanes instead of falling down in the backfield.  From where I'm from, this is an improvement.  Chris Cooley, Santana Moss, and Anthony Armstrong continue to be great pieces in the rushing attack, with Moss now taking on a role in picking up safeties and edge setters inside the box.  I can't overstate how useful that is.  It would be even more useful if the team ever ran the ball.

Skill Players not named McNabb or Grossman

The team is clearly averse to running the ball with Keiland Williams, but I think he's a better runner than Torain.  Torain ran poorly in this game, not using his blocks and only offering a couple of the hard runs that he has become known for.  Torain, I'm convinced, is not more than a no. 2 RB off the bench, and right now, I think he's stretched into a role he can't completely handle.  Kudos to him for stepping in for an injury to Portis and carrying the load at a level that Willie Parker or Larry Johnson could not, but I happen to think Williams might be better.

McNabb got the ball in Anthony Armstrong's hands deep twice on two Detroit coverage breakdowns.  Armstrong's emergence means that Moss rarely goes deep anymore.  Moss is a big target in the three step drop passing attack, as he has a good rapport with McNabb, and Moss can quickly help erase long yardage situations in early downs.  That's something he's good at.

Some of the Redskins best offensive plays came after holding penalties.  The Redskins did a good job of getting that penalty yardage right back without wasting anything but a first down play.  Of course, that put the team in second and long, but the simple solution to that is to not get any penalties, or at least as many as the Redskins did in this game.  Way too much shooting oneself in the foot.

Generally Speaking

This offense does a number of things well, but fewer things well than it once did.  The Redskins can still create opportunities down the field.  They aren't converting those opportunities as they were earlier in the season because McNabb isn't playing as well as he was earlier in the season.  This is evident by the increase in turnover rate in the last three games.  McNabb now has 8 INTs (lets drop that to 7 to omit the GB hail mary at the end of regulation), and 4 fumbles, which he has been fortunate to have recovered.  That's 11 turnovers in just over 300 touches.

One of the places McNabb was getting that value from in the past was that he himself wasn't turning the ball over.  His first Redskins INT came in the Rams game.  He had two "game" interceptions in the first five games.  In the last three games, he has five, plus one more dropped interception (three) than he had in the first five games (two).  All of his fumbles have occured in the last three games.  That's an alarming turnover rate, from best in the league to among the worst quicker than you can say "Mark Sanchez."

Now McNabb's only value to an NFL offense the way he is playing was evident in this game: he found Anthony Armstrong deep twice, and he had a scramble for 36 yards, and he's still a danger to defenses from outside the pocket.  That's three or four big plays a game versus about the same number of crushing mistakes, and in between, the passing game is a complete waste of our time.

It's not time to replace Donovan McNabb as quarterback of the Redskins, but it's time to lean on the 4.5 yard per rush average of our running backs over the Cutler-esque 6.3 AYPA of our QB.  Ultimately, the Redskins are just a little below average as a passing football team, but the trend is in the wrong direction.  To take the optimist's perspective on the matter: the bye came at a very good time.  To take the pessimist's perspective: this offense can't and won't compete unless #26 is back there making sure the passing operation runs well.