Snap Judgments: Week 11- Buccaneers @ Redskins- OFFENSE

I planned on starting out by saying that "this was truly one of the worst losses that the Washington Redskins have experienced in the Dan Snyder era, in FedEx Field history and that I've personally witnessed since I started following this team 17 years ago".  However, I quickly realized that this is the 28th time that Redskins have lost by 20 or more points in that time frame.  Half of those losses came at home and -20 is only the 27th worst point differential of the 28 losses.  If anything, that makes this loss and realization of just how bad this team has been all the more painful.

I could use this introductory space to go on any number of diatribes directed at this organization, but this loss was so excruciating and the drama that followed it so ridiculous that every analyst in the country has already picked the bones dry off of the carcass of this absolutely brutal loss to one of the NFL's worst teams.  There's almost nothing that I can say about it that hasn't already been said, so I'll tell you some snap data and statistical information that actually hasn't been said.

***Data Disclaimer: This is my own count after watching the game tape.  Snap data for kneel-downs and plays negated by pre-snap penalties are not included.  However, plays negated by post-snap penalties are included.***

The Offense ran 72 snaps

• 41 Passing Snaps (57%) and 31 Rushing Snaps (43%)
• The game was tied for only one of the team's 72 offensive snaps.  The Redskins trailed the Buccaneers on their other 71 snaps.
• According to the ESPN play-by-play log, the offense ran 13 no-huddle snaps (18%) against Tampa Bay.  That is by far the most that Washington has used the hurry-up offense this year.  The previous high of five such snaps (9%) came in Week 5 against Seattle.
• For the first time this season, the offense did not go three-and-out on a drive.  It didn't really do them much good though, because they turned the ball over on three of their eleven drives and missed field goals on two others.
• Four of the team's season-worst seven offensive penalties came on first down and were of the false start variety.  The Redskins' 15 false start penalties are the fifth most by any team in the league.  The 45 offensive penalty yards in Sunday's game was also a season-high.
  

Team Snap Data:

• The offense took 52 snaps on the Washington side of the field, the most this season.
• Robert Griffin took a season-high 44 snaps (61%) from the standard shotgun formation (non-pistol).  No Redskins quarterback had taken more than 33 such snaps in a game this year.
• The offense's ten zone-read runs, eight screens and three draws were also season-highs.
  
• It seemed to me that the Redskins had been utilizing more running back pitches or tosses in recent weeks, so I decided to start tracking them.  That belief was well founded, as I observed that the Redskins rushed the ball with HB pitches as much as or more than they did from any other way in this game (10 times and 14% of the snaps).     
  

Personnel Groupings:

• Once again, the offenses' lone score came with the 11 personnel on the field.  The 11 is the only grouping that the offense has scored from in half of the team's games this year (5 of 10 games).
• Washington has not used a personnel grouping that featured four or more receivers since Week 3 against the Eagles.  Perhaps we will see more four receiver looks now that Leonard Hankerson has returned.
  

Individual Player Snaps:

• Leonard Hankerson saw action on 21 snaps in his return (29%).  All 26 offensive players on the Redskins' roster have now recorded a snap this season.
• Pierre Garcon (71%), Andre Roberts (54%) and Roy Helu (26%) all saw season-low snap percentages against the Bucs.
• This, however, may have had something to do with the Redskins going into full "white flag" mode starting at the 11:35 mark in the fourth quarter, when they sat down Pierre Garcon, DeSean Jackson, Jordan Reed, Logan Paulsen, Roy Helu and Alfred Morris for the vast majority of the game's final 14 snaps. 
  
• Niles Paul (44 snaps), Ryan Grant (23 snaps), Leonard Hankerson (21 snaps) and Silas Redd (10 snaps) took over for them and saw unusually high snap totals as a result.
• For the second week in a row, Andre Roberts set a new 2014 team mark for highest percentage of snaps from the slot.  Last week it was 84%, while this time it was 90% (35 of 39 snaps).
• All 19 of Roy Helu's snaps were taken from the 11 personnel, the offense passed on 16 of his 19 snaps (84%) and he was the lead back on 12 of the team's 15 third-down snaps (80%).  A season-most 63 percent of Helu's snaps came on the money down in this one.  Morris was the running back for 27 of the 28 combined snaps from the 12, 21 and 22 personnel groupings (96%).
• Jordan Reed was split out wide on 47% of his snaps against Tampa (15 snaps), his highest such percentage this year.  Niles Paul's 15 slot snaps were a season-high for him as well.  Reed and Paul were the two tight ends on all fifteen of the 12 personnel snaps, Paul and Paulsen handled the two 22 personnel snaps and Paulsen took ten of the eleven snaps from the 21 grouping.
• Reed was out-snapped by Paul for the second time in the last three weeks.  Paul has 113 snaps to Reed's 102 in that time frame.  However, Reed has narrowly outpaced Paul 178-161 since he returned five weeks ago.  I like Niles Paul, but not this much.  Get Reed in more and get him the ball.  Blocking be damned; nobody else does it on this team anyways.  Although, I suppose he would have to stay healthy for more than 4 consecutive games for this to work. 
  

Team Records, Streaks & Rankings:

Individual Players

• A lot of people are wondering why Pierre Garcon is having a down year after leading the league in receptions last year with 113 of them.  For starters, he also led the league with 184 targets last year.  He needed to do that in order to put up such a high yardage (1,346) and reception total because he's a volume and not a big-play receiver.  This is evidenced by his 66th and 90th place rankings in yards per reception in 2013 and 2014 respectively.
  
• Garcon Continued: Last year the team's other two top wide receivers were Santana Moss and Leonard Hankerson.  This year those two have been replaced by DeSean Jackson and Andre Roberts.  Clearly that is a big improvement, and Jackson and Roberts were assuredly going to eat into Garcon's target volume.  Niles Paul and Roy Helu have also been utilized much more frequently this year. 
  
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Garcon was playing the coveted "X" receiver role in Kyle Shanahan's offense last year.  There may not be another offense in the league that features a single receiver as much as Shanahan's does.  In 2013, there weren't many other options besides Garcon and he was the featured receiver in the offense.  In 2014, there are many more options and it's DeSean's turn to be the focal point of the passing attack.    
  
• Alfred Morris' resurgence has continued for the second week in a row.  His 96 rushing yards and 132 total yards are the most he's had in a game since Week 10 of last year against Minnesota.  He also set a new career high with 36 receiving yards this week.
  
• Robert Griffin has clearly taken too many sacks since the start of the 2013 season.  In 2013, his 7.7% sack percentage ranked 25th in the league.  This season his sack percentage of 13% would rank 33rd if he had enough attempts to qualify.  Griffin also ranks 50th out of 52 qualifiers in sacks per game (3.12) since the start of the 2013 season (minimum 100 pass attempts). 
  

Team

• The Redskins were only able to put up seven points against the Buccaneers in Sunday's home loss.  Three teams had scored 37 or more points against Tampa Bay this year, and the Buccaneers had not held an opponent to seven points or less since Week 14 of the 2013 season (27-6 over Buffalo).  Even after holding Washington to seven on the score board, they still rank 30th in points per game allowed (27.9).  Only the Jaguars (28.2) and Bears (29) are worse in this department.
• This was the first game this season, in which the offense did not generate at least one play of over 30 yards.  The Redskins have 19 such plays this season.  The only plays that went for over 15 yards against the Buccaneers were produced by running backs.
• I checked out our own Tom Garrett's post from last week and discovered that this was Washington's second worst post-bye loss at home.  The worst was the infamous Monday Night game against Michael Vick and the Eagles in 2010, when the Eagles beat the Redskins 59-28.
• The Redskins rank 27th in points allowed off turnovers (69 points), last in points scored off turnovers (9 points) and last in net turnover points (-60 points).
• I knew the Redskins were favored by 7.5 in this game, so I wanted to see how many times that they had lost by 20 or more points when the team was favored by seven or more points. As far as I can tell, Pro Football Reference's point spread data dates back to 1978.  According to this query, the Week 11 loss to Tampa was only the second time since 1978 that Washington had been favored by seven or more and lost by 20 or more.  The last time was just over 24 years ago in 1980.  Sunday's loss to the Buccaneers may very well have been one of the worst losses in franchise history when you consider all of this, but maybe the bigger surprise was that Vegas gave such a favorable line to a team like the 2014 Washington Redskins in the first place.
  

To buy tickets, visit the NFL Ticket Exchange.