You Can’t Win if You Can’t Block
It’s not every day I agree with Michael Wilbon, but today is one of those days. Wilbon says that we shouldn’t be looking at Jason Campbell or Jim Zorn or Clinton Portis. We should be looking at the offensive and defensive lines.
Actually, I don’t even think the defensive line is such a huge problem. Despite not having much of any pass rush, the defense has been one of the toughest all year, thanks largely to Greg Blache’s aggressive blitz schemes and (oddly enough) the revelation that late round draft pick Chris Horton is a legit player. The D-Line gets pressure when it needs to most of the time and that’s generally good enough to force opposing QBs into making mistakes.
That’s not to say that the defense can’t improve during the off-season. The ‘Skins can address a lot of problems with wise free agent signings and late-round draft picks. As Wilbon notes, the Giants found the beastly Justin Tuck with the 74th overall pick in 2005. Plenty of very good defensive linemen get picked relatively late in the draft and there’s no reason to expect that Vinny Cerrato can’t find some bargains there. Jason Taylor, once he’s healthy (and I’m not entirely convinced that he is) is still capable of a high enough level of play for a year or two. The linebackers are solid on the run and the pass. A player or two either through the draft or the cheap free agent market should be enough. I think the DeAngelo Hall signing, by the way, is going to prove an excellent bargain for the team. They should try to lock him in for another year.
On the O-Line, though, the situation is far more dire. Their players are old and breaking down more as they get older. There’s no one waiting on the sidelines to take their place. The fault for that lies squarely with the management. As much as I understand the need to pick up some receivers to fit into Jim Zorn’s West Coast Offense, this past draft has to go down as an unmitigated disaster. Cerrato and Snyder flat-out blew it. It doesn’t do a team much good to draft a horde of people to catch passes when, as Wilbon points out, the quarterback doesn’t have time to make his first read, much less his third or fourth (which is where the newbie receivers would fit in). I hate the idea of trading draft picks, but the ‘Skins could have helped themselves quite a bit by trading a pick or two this year for an offensive lineman or two instead of using them for players they quite frankly couldn’t use effectively.
I still think Jason Campbell is a legitimate professional quarterback. I think Jim Zorn’s offensive scheme is a good one – the wins early in the year, when their offensive line was healthy, prove that. What’s killing the team right now is that Campbell can’t get three steps into his drop before there’s a blitzing linebacker in his face. No quarterback can be successful when he spends most of his time during a play running for his life instead of looking down the field for receivers.
If the Redskins have any hope for success in the next few years, the team is going to have to make a concerted effort to stock its offensive line. It wouldn’t make me sad at all if the ‘Skins 2009 draft was full of 6’7″, 300-pound bruisers.
Other Posts of Interest:
- Excitement – Good and Bad – At Redskins Training Camp
- Redskins Lose a Game They Should Have Won, But Take Heart. The NFC East is in Chaos.
- Get Aboard the Redskins Bandwagon!
Category: My Beloved Redskins
