First and foremost, I have to give some props to Stephon Heyer, who started as RT for the injured Jammal Brown. I focused on the former Terrapin hard throughout the first half of the Bills game and he held his own against third year LB, Chris Ellis, on several plays. On Keiland Williams' 2-yard TD, he pushed Ellis back and followed through. Hicks and Kory Lichtensteiger also had good pushes. Fred Davis got pushed backwards some, but ended up holding his own.
Anthony Armstrong had a great first half as well. He looked taller than his listed 5'11 height, but he was making blocks down field and of course pulled in that 4 yard TD pass from McNabb.
I also noticed that Chris Cooley lined up as the left tight end on multiple plays. The players have been saying it all training camp, but Kyle Shanahan is going to exploit a lot of mismatches moving guys around.
There's a lot to like at the box score besides the points. The Redskins were 12-19 in 3rd down efficiency, 4-4 in red zone efficiency, 36:21 in time of possession, and had 0 turnovers. Pretty amazing for a 1st pre-season game with a new regime. Two of those Rex Grossman passes should have been picked off, so we'll see how he fares against the Ravens and then the Jets and those top-tier backs.
Lendy Holmes led all players with 7 tackles (5 solo), 1 pass defended, and 1 INT. Tryon had a decent 4 tackles (3 solo) with 2 passes defended.
Josh Bidwell eased my punting fears averaging 42.7 yards on his 6 punts and landing 3 inside the 20.
Lastly, I have to talk about Joe Theismann as a TV analyst. Here are two of his quotes that drove me nuts:
"Reed Doughty on defense reminds me of Rex Grossman on offense."
Say what? That makes no sense and if I was Reed Doughty I think I'd be upset. Then, on a first replay of a stuffed run Theismann was quick to praise Haynesworth:
"Watch Haynesworth on this play!!! (replay comes)...oh..he got caught up. But that allowed Perry Ellis to come in...I mean Perry Riley."
Nice. Up next is the always tough Ravens...