The Fun – N – Gun, or the Fun – N – Run emerged today as the Redskins came back to defeat the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks didn’t self destruct either, so the Redskins can’t be called lucky, as some might be willing to state. They made mistakes, but the Redskins countered with some of their own, balancing the scales. The basic fact is that the fans finally got to see some of the adjustments the coaches had been saying they were going to institute, and the face of the game changed immensely.
Passing:
Patrick stayed upright the entire game, and the Redskins won. That could be the entire write up for the passing attack and it would say it all, considering all the bad press. The offensive line held up their end of the bargain, once again allowing no sacks. The backs didn’t have to block much due to the Redskins shifting to three step drops early and play action later after the running game had been established. Ramsey was on target early and often in the first half, with a couple of miscues. Gardner caught everything that was thrown to him, as did Coles. Coles had a beautiful touchdown catch in the second quarter, dragging both feet on the ground before going out. Gardner caught another touchdown on a post pattern. Gardner also had a touchdown throw set up by a backwards pass from Patrick Ramsey. The entire Seahawks defense reacted to the screen leaving Canidate wide open in the end zone for the go ahead touchdown. The Hog Nose goes to the entire passing group of receivers AND Patrick Ramsey as a whole. Nobody let anybody down in the passing game, and it was a well put together game for the entire offense. It makes fans itch to see what else Spurrier might be capable of designing with Ramsey staying on his feet.
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Rushing:
While it wasn’t a stellar rushing attack, Rock Cartwright and Trung Canidate put together a nice game, with a combined 110 yards rushing. While neither got into the end zone, they both contributed nicely to the attack. Speedy Trung and amazingly powerful little Cartwright kept a Seattle defense biting at the play action the entire second half. It was truly entertaining to watch the Seahawks think they had Rock bottled up, only to see him bounce away from tacklers. The Hog Nose for the rushing game goes to Rock for his constant second and third efforts. His never say die attitude was, in our minds, one of the main sparks to the Skins winning. The second Hog Nose goes to the offensive line, who did a good job opening holes for the running attack as well as blocking well on the passing attack. Jansen’s big smile and arm pumps said it all towards the end of the game today. They were suffering as much or more than the fans were with this tremendously bad streak.
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Defense:
While the defense bent today, it did make some adjustments towards being more aggressive. The aggressiveness showed with two sacks today, one by Regan Upshaw, and the other by Bruce. There were several times that the linebackers either feinted a blitz or actually came on one putting Matt Hasselbeck in pressure situations. While this didn’t result in any turnovers until the last series, it did cause a number of premature passes which then turned into drops as the timing was disrupted between quarterback and receiver. The secondary continued to play in a zone defense in most cases, however, and Hasselbeck ended the day with 241 yards passing. Smoot wins the Hog Nose for the interception on the final drive by the Seahawks. The main problem seen from this game’s perspective is that when receivers as potent as Engram and Robinson end up covered by linebackers, you know the defense is in a cover 2 type of formation, and that the Skins are going to get burnt. And they did. If they would adjust to a man cover underneath with the safeties in a zone, blitzes won’t burn them as badly as they did on the first Seattle drive.
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Special Teams:
John Hall looked good going 2 for 2 on field goals, especially as the Skins got to use him for more than kickoffs. Barker had an especially nice punt, pinning the Seahawks inside the 5 yard line and generally had a good overall effort again. Patrick Johnson seems to be handling the kicks well enough, substituting speed for the shiftiness of Morton and is making close to the same yardage. Kick coverage was good today, barring two special teams penalties. Two personal fouls, one on Terrell and the other on Jimoh (when you are in the dog house already guys, don’t do that stuff). Terrell had a very good coverage hit on one punt and recovered the opening kickoff fumble by Morris to start the Skins’ day off well. All in all, a good day all around by the special teams.
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Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Rich Hilts