Thursday, January 17, 2013

Reasons to be Pessimistic

In the last post, I listed a few reasons to be hopeful about next season. The flip side is that there are plenty of reasons to keep expectations tempered.

1) RG3's injury: He will probably not play until until October, and even then it might not be 100%. Could be tough sledding early on without him.

2) Defensive adjustments to the Pistol: Defensive coordinators have seen the read-option and the Pistol spread like mad this season. They have a whole summer to game-plan for RG3, Cam Newton, Kaepernick, and Russell Wilson. They now have a whole season's worth of game footage to pull together the defensive answers. The Redskins offense, left unchanged, won't be novel anymore and will struggle much more.

3) Cap penalty: The salary cap hit could mean free agents like Fred Davis won't be back and that it will be hard to sign needed starters in the secondary.

4) Schedule: This year, the Skins played a last-place schedule and next year they will play a first-place schedule, including San Francisco, Atlanta, Minnesota, Green Bay and Denver.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Great season

Not a great ending for RG3 with his knee surgery but we'll know more during the summer as he gets into rehab. Hopefully, he doesn't come back prematurely but comes back fully healthy when the beginning of the season rolls around.

In summary, though, a fantastic season for Skins fans everywhere! The highlight, of course, was beating the hated archenemy Cowboys on prime-time TV on the last week of the season for the seventh consecutive win to take the NFC East, make the playoffs and send the Cowpokes home.

All kinds of reasons to be hopeful. RG3, Alfred Morris, Darrel Young, Garçon, Trent Williams dominating, return of Orakpo, improvement of D-line and Rob Jackson in the second half of the year... Hopefully Fred Davis will decide he wants to come back too. If not, that might be ok because then they'd have the stronger run-blocking Logan Paulsen in the lineup and might be inclined to run more often.

Sunday, January 06, 2013

Prediction

Very few experts are prognosticating that the Skins end up victorious. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2013/01/03/experts-lining-up-behind-the-seahawks/

35 out of 46 media experts predict a Seattle victory in Maryland, marking the 3rd consecutive time the Skins would be bounced in the playoffs by the Seahawks.

Hard to disagree, though.

Russell Wilson is just now starting to expand his offensive repertoire. Suddenly they are bludgeoning opponents to the tune of 58, 50, and 42 points.

The Seattle defense is a huge strength. Their corners are really big (6'2" and 6'3") and perfect for bump and run that would disrupt the timing of Kyle Shanahan's quick hitting passing game. They'll stack the box and play 1-on-1 outside with their corners. If Morris and the O-line can beat the Seahawks in the run game, the Skins have a chance.

Prediction: 30 - 16, Seahawks over the Redskins