Hazard's Huddle: Robert Griffin III vs. San Francisco 49ers (2nd Half)

Continuing where we left off.....

1. Robert Griffin has off-coverage at the bottom of the screen and Pierre Garcon on a short stick/hitch route.

Griffin gets to the top of his drop and gets the ball out to Garcon on time and the CB doesn't have a chance to make a play. A 5 yard gain on 2nd and 11.

2. Here's another "comfort call." Read-option play-action with a post.

The LBs get sucked up by the play-action, Griffin has a clean pocket and just needs to located the throwing lane which he does.

Griffin hits DeSean Jackson in stride and he turns it into a 32 yard gain. It sounds easy but this is the same stuff he didn't pull the trigger on last week so this is improvement.

3. Here is another stick/hitch route with off-coverage. This time, Griffin has a read-option PA built in.

Griffin carries out the play action and a short run to the right as he fires the ball to Garcon for a 5 yard gain on 1st and 10.

4. 49ers bring a Cover 0 blitz here. That alerts Griffin that he has man coverage across the board. Andre Roberts has an out route at the top of screen and the defender responsible for him is 12 yards back.

Griffin does a good job standing tall in the pocket, knowing he's about to take a hit and still leading Roberts towards the sideline.

Roberts makes the catch for a gain of 6 on a 3rd and 5 but a holding penalty on Kory Lichtensteiger negates the play.

Out of the 6 positive plays I graded from this game, two were hitch routes in off-coverage and 2 were comfort calls (PA-Post and PA-deep crosser).The fact of the matter is, whether I decide to show the 16 negative plays in a breakdown or only the 6 positive plays in a breakdown, the same picture is painted right now. No one wants the Redskins to win as much as I do and I would welcome more positive film any day. Now that I've established my unbiasedness, let me get to my opinion.

A bad Buccaneers defense exploited a lot of Robert Griffin's weaknesses. A better 49ers' defense exploited the weaknesses of the rest of the offense. Griffin's performance in this game wasn't as bad as last week's but that isn't saying much.

This regime was prepared to lose games because of their defense and special teams this year. In fact, I bet they planned on it. The defense had holes in it to begin with and all they did was add a safety who was in semi-retirement, chose to pay a DE whose age isn't on the right side of 30, and bring in a bunch of mid-tier ILBs not knowing Keenan Robinson would actually pan out.  What they didn't plan on is their offense costing them games. They had their "franchise QB" and brought in offensive guru Jay Gruden, they drafted 2 OL and signed a bunch in free agency hoping to mesh 5 of them into the right combo, and they added Andre Roberts and DeSean Jackson to the arsenal. This is the side of the ball that was suppose to carry this team. Until it does, the questions are going to continue to fly around Ashburn.