It’s been a while since I posted anything substantive. Why start now? Instead, let’s talk about the Redskins for 1500 words or so.
First of all, let me just say that no matter how this season ends up, I am really enjoying the way this team plays under Jim Zorn. They dominate the line on offense, run right up the gut, and take their shots with deep passes and trick plays often enough to keep opposing defenses guessing. On the other side of the ball, they are playing confident, aggressive defense, making it very difficult for their opponents to put up points.
Here are some factors that I find to be very positive about the season so far:
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Clinton Portis (and the offensive line). Is Clinton Portis a new man? It’s hard to say. I think he’s been playing this well ever since Joe Gibbs arrived, but now he’s running behind an experienced, smart, enthusiastic (more on this below) offensive line, and his head coach is really calling on him to establish the parameters of the entire offense–run to set up the pass, run to set up the wacky gadget play, run to set up more damn running. From what little I understand about the NFL running back mindset, it seems like Portis is really responding to the confidence the team is showing in his abilities. It doesn’t hurt that his backups, Betts and Cartwright (and maybe, but probably not, Sean Alexander) beat the crap out of the other team when they get in the game. And he is great at picking up the blitz on passing plays. I love watching him lay out linebackers.
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Defense.What can I say? They’ve been pretty great. They came up huge in the Dallas and Philadelphia games, shutting down explosive offenses and really demoralizing those teams. The line is great against the run, and puts a decent amount of pressure on the quarterback
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ZORN. I wasn’t particularly happy to see Joe Gibbs go–he had a rough start, to say the least, but after a while his personnel and his game plans came around to something kind of like the Super-Bowl-winning teams he coached in my youth. Jim Zorn came in and did something very interesting: he didn’t mess with things too much. He took a hard-running, tough team, and stuck with its strengths. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t touch the defense, letting Blache take care of it. The results on that speak for themselves. And on offense, he’s interpolated his own playcalling preferences–quick passes aimed at creating yards-after-catch, and quirky gadget plays taking advantage of his personnel–with what the team has been doing well for a few years (running the ball down opponents’ throats). He hasn’t been perfect–his time management in the two-minute drill is still pretty questionable, for example–but for a guy in a head coaching position for the first time ever he’s done a great job.
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