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Snaps- The Redskins utilized 16 of their 25 offensive players over the course of 63 snaps against the Seahawks’ defense.
The 9 that did not play included 6 inactives (Jamison Crowder, Jordan Reed, Niles Paul, Spencer Long, Trent Williams and Shawn Lauvao) and 3 players who were active but did not take a snap of any kind (Colt McCoy, Brandon Scherff and Ty Nsekhe). Eight of those nine players would have received playing time on offense if they had been healthy.
I don’t have a stat for you here, but I can honestly say that, in my 20 years of watching NFL football, I cannot recall ever seeing so many key contributors on the active roster of a Redskins team all not playing in the same game because of injuries.
Points- The team’s streak of six games with a score on their opening drive was snapped on Sunday. That was the team’s longest streak of opening-possession scores since the 1970 merger.
It took them six drives to get on the scoreboard in this game.
3rd Down- The offense moved the chains on 4 of 13 third downs for the second consecutive week.
This time around they needed to gain an average of 10.5 yards to pick up the first (8.92 last week) and had to go 10 or more yards on more than half (7) of their 13 plays on the money down. They were only able to move the sticks on the four plays that they needed to gain 4 or fewer yards on.
Washington’s offense has only converted on 12 of their last 39 third downs (31%).
Red Zone- The Redskins scored touchdowns on two of their three trips to the red zone for the second consecutive week. The Burgundy and Gold have now scored touchdowns on 11 of their last 16 red-zone trips.
This was the fourth straight week that they have converted on over 50% of their red-zone opportunities. They only posted a success rate of above 50% six times all of last season.
Yardage- The Skins were outgained by the Seahawks by a whopping 193 yards, yet they somehow still won the game. Washington has been outgained by 193 or more yards 76 times since 1940; this was only the seventh time they have won in one of these games.
It was just the second time they’ve won under these circumstances in the last 24 years (Week 7 of the 2007 season). The last and only other time the team was outgained by 193 yards on the road and won took place in 1955.
This was also the first time since 2005 that the Redskins won a game in which they gained 244 or fewer yards of offense.
Rushing- The offense only gained 51 yards on 23 rushes against the Seahawks. Their 2.2 YPC average in the game was a new season low.
This was only the fourth time the Redskins won under Jay Gruden when the team either ran the ball 23 or fewer times or gained fewer than 90 rushing yards.
Washington ranks 16th in the NFL in rushing yards per game (110.5), yet they somehow do not have any players with over 275 rushing yards on the season. The Buccaneers are the only other team that can make this claim. Doug Martin leads the Bucs with 254 rushing yards, but he was suspended for the first month of the season.
Chris Thompson leads the Redskins with 251 rushing yards.
Fumbling Follies- The Redskins have lost an NFL-high 10 fumbles this season. The average team has only lost less than half that many fumbles (4.7). The next worst team in this category has only failed to recover eight of their fumbles.
Part of the reason Washington leads the league in this statistic is that they have fumbled the ball a whopping 20 times this year, which also ranks dead last in the NFL.
QUARTERBACKS
Kirk Cousins (Passing)- Kirk Cousins completed 21 of his 31 attempts for 247 yards, 12 first downs, 0 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. He put up a YPA over 7.5 and QB rating over 90 (91.7) for the fifth and sixth times this season, respectively.
This was the first time in the last 10 games that Cousins did not throw at least one touchdown pass, but it was also his fourth game without a turnover this year. The team has gone 3-1 in those contests.
He was sacked a career-high 6 times on the day. That brings his total on the year to 22 sacks, which is just 4 sacks and 1 sack fewer than his respective 2015 and 2016 totals.
Kirk Cousins (Rushing)- Cousins gained 4 yards on his 3 rushes in the game. He really only ran the ball one time on a 4-yard scramble, but he was credited with rushes for no gain and a fumble on his final handoff to Perine and the high snap that he caught and gave to Robert Kelley.
Kirk Cousins (Turnovers)- He certainly isn’t responsible for all of them, but Cousins is tied with Matthew Stafford for the most fumbles lost in the NFL (4). He sits all alone at the top, or the bottom depending on how you look at it, with 9 total fumbles this year. This is not a good look, not matter who was at fault on all of those fumbles.
Kirk Cousins (Advanced Stats)- Cousins posted new season lows in QBR (29.5) and total expected points added (0.5). His PFF grade of 65.6 was also one of his lower ratings of the year.
He was pressured on 39.5% of his dropbacks, but completed 7 of 9 passes for 100 yards (113.0 passer rating) on the attempts that he was able to get off on those dropbacks.
Clutch Cousins- Captain Kirk led the Redskins on a game-winning drive (his 3rd of the season) with 1:34 left on the clock to complete his first 4th-quarter comeback of the season.
The win gave Cousins the 11th game-winning drive and the 8th 4th-quarter comeback of his career. Matthew Stafford and Derek Carr are the only players that have led more game-winning drives (12 each) and 4th-quarter comebacks (11 and 12 respectively) than Kirk Cousins has (10 GWDs and 7 4QCs) since he took over as the Redskins’ starter in 2015.
Coincidentally, Stafford and Carr are the two paid highest players in the NFL, which is a club that Cousins is hoping to join in about 3 or 4 months.
WIDE RECEIVERS
Ryan Grant- Grant saw season highs in snaps (59) and led the Redskins’ receiver corps in snaps for the first time this year. The only other time he received more snaps and led Washington’s wideouts in playing time was in Week 4 of the 2015 season. Grant’s 93.7% snap rate on Sunday was a new career high.
He caught all three of the passes thrown his direction for 39 yards and 2 first downs.
With his final catch in the game he set a new personal record with 24 receptions in a season. Grant is also just 15 yards and 3 first downs away from setting new career marks in both of those statistics.
A big part of the reason he is having a breakout season is that he is actually catching the ball this year. In his first three years in the league, Grant only hauled in 39 of his 76 targets, which equates to a catch percentage of 51%. This year his catch percentage has increased to 73%.
Josh Doctson- The second-year wide out got his sixth start of the season and got on the field for over 75% of the offensive snaps for the third straight week.
He set new career-high with 59 receiving yards. He matched the career bests he set two weeks ago against the Eagles in targets (5), receptions (3) and first downs (2).
Doctson’s 38-yarder with 1:24 left in the game was the offense’s longest play of the game and the biggest play of the Redskins’ season to this point. The Skins scored the go-ahead touchdown on the next play.
His 78.0 PFF grade for the game ranked 1st on Washington’s offense.
Doctson seems to be getting better and better every week, but the team needs to start feeding him more targets to find out what they really have in him. His 22 targets rank 7th on the team and he has never received more than 5 looks in a game.
If you exclude rookies Mike Williams and John Ross, who both recently came off of multi-week injuries and have played in 5 combined games, you find that eight of the ten other wide receivers who were selected in the first round between 2015 and 2017 were targeted 8 or more times in a game by their 11th NFL contest. Six of those players were targeted 8 or more times by their sixth game.
This was Doctson’s 11th career game. It’s time to feed him and see what happens.
Terrelle Pryor- Pryor played on over 50% of the snaps for the first time since Week 6.
He caught 2 of his 3 targets for 17 yards and 2 first downs. Amazingly, that matches his reception total and tops his first down and yardage totals from Weeks 7 and 8 combined.
He also drew a pass interference penalty on a third down against Richard Sherman in the end zone which set Fat Rob up for a touchdown two plays later. In all, Pryor picked up 3 combined first downs between the offense’s first and second scoring drives in the game. That’s better than it sounds, because they only scored three times. Pryor was a ghost outside of those drives.
Terrelle Pryor has gone for 70 or more receiving yards in just 3 of his past 12 games. He was held to 36 or fewer yards in the other 9 contests and hasn’t topped 94 yards once in that time frame (33 YPG). He has only gained 70 or more yards in games that he has received 10 or more targets in (12 target average).
Brian Quick- Coming into the game, Brian Quick had only played on 11 offensive snaps and caught 1 pass for 11 yards on his lone target of the year. On Sunday, Quick either more than doubled or tripled every one of those numbers.
Quick, who never saw fewer than 31 snaps with the Rams last season, played on a season-high 23 snaps against Seattle.
He caught all 3 of his targets for 49 yards and 2 first downs, all of which were season bests for Quick. His final catch of the day was by far his biggest.
With the team trailing by 4 and just 1:31 left in the game, he adjusted his body to catch a 31-yard pass from Cousins on a 2nd-and-10 play from the Washington 30. That play flipped the field for the offense and helped to set them up for a touchdown two snaps later.
Quick’s production in this game was better than virtually every one of Terrelle Pryor’s performances this season. Pryor only gained more than 31 twice this year, so let’s take a quick look at both of those outings.
Pryor needed 11 targets to gain 66 yards in Week 1 against the Eagles. (Quick has been targeted 4 times all year). Against the Chiefs on MNF, Pryor gained 44 of his 70 yards (63%) on the seventh snap of the night. He was targeted five times in that game and dropped one of those passes.
Jamison Crowder- This was the first missed game of Crowder’s 3-year career. That’s pretty impressive for a somebody who is about 5’8” and 175 pounds.
TIGHT ENDS
Vernon Davis- Davis led all Redskins’ tight ends in snaps for the fifth time this season. This was the fifth time he played on over 70% of the snaps for the team this year.
The ageless tight end led the team in targets (9), receptions (a season-high 6), receiving yards (72), air yards (93), YAC (34) and yards from scrimmage (72). He had 3 more targets and receptions than any other player the team. This was the third game this season in which led the team in receiving yards. Davis caught another 10-yard reception that was negated by an unnecessary penalty.
He was responsible for 44 of the 71 yards (62%) on the team’s only touchdown-scoring drive in the first 58 minutes of the game.
He tied Josh Doctson for the lead in first downs (3), with two of those first downs coming on third down. VD was targeted on 5 of Cousins’ attempts on third down and was responsible for half of the team’s conversions on the money down.
This was not a perfect game for Vernon Davis, though. He dropped a pass on a third-quarter series that went three-and-out and was called for a holding penalty on a critical drive late in the fourth-quarter that the team ended up having to punt on. He was forced to miss the final offensive drive with a hand injury.
Davis 72 yards moved him past Kellen Winslow for 9th in career receiving yards by a tight end. He is also on pace to finish the season ranked all-time in career receptions by a tight end. I think Vernon wants a golden jacket, and if he keeps this up for a little while longer, he might just get one.
Jeremy Sprinkle- Sprinkle was active for the third time this year and played on a season-high 24 snaps, which is 10 more snaps than he had seen prior to Sunday’s game (14).
He was targeted for the first time this year when Cousins looked his way on a 2nd-and-11 play of the offense’s first drive. The pass traveled 10 yard (just short of the line to gain) before it was defended by Justin Coleman.
Other Tight Ends- Jordan Reed and Niles Paul were inactive in the same game for the first time this season. In fact, this was the first time this year that only two tight ends were active for the Redskins.
RUNNING BACKS
Chris Thompson (Playing Time)- Thompson was on the field for 33 snaps and 52% of the offensive plays against the Seahawks, his lowest numbers on both categories since Week 4. He still led all Skins’ RBs in snaps for the sixth time this season.
Chris Thompson (Rushing)- CT led the team in rushing yards (20) and average (5.0). He took the team’s longest run of the game for a 11 yards on a play that saw him force 4 missed tackles and waste 10 seconds of the clock, so that Seattle had less time to score on their final drive of the first half (they missed a 49-yard field on the final play of the half).
Thompson gained positive yardage on all of his runs; however he didn’t gain the required yardage on any of those rushes for them to be considered a success, and he averaged just 3 yards per carry outside of his 11-yarder.
Chris Thompson (Receiving)- Chris Army Knife caught 4 of his 6 targets, but he only gained a total of 11 yards on those catches. His 31 yards from scrimmage and 3.1 yards per offensive touch are his second worst and worst marks of the season.
His poor performance in this game means no GOAT section this week. Sorry, CT.
Robert Kelley- Fat Rob was in on 41% of the offensive snaps against the Seahawks, his second highest snap share since Week 1.
He only gained 18 yards on his 14 carries, which translates to a pathetic 1.3 YPC average, but he did score 2 touchdowns on a pair of goal-line dives. Kelley was the only offensive player on the team who scored in the game.
This marked the second time in Kelley’s career that he scored multiple touchdowns in a game and scored in back-to-back games.
The touchdowns are nice, but Kelley still simply is not getting it done on the ground. He failed to gain any yards on four of his rushes (29%) and none of his runs gained over 5 yards.
I know the banged up offensive line has a lot to do with Kelley’s struggles, but he was the only player on the team who lost yards on a rush, and he did it three times. How do you explain that?
Samaje Perine- Perine took his two rushes for gains of 8 and 1 yards.
On what would’ve been his third carry of the game, he fumbled the ball on the handoff from Kirk Cousins. I don’t agree with it, but these types of fumbles are almost always credited to the quarterback. This would have been Perine’s second fumble of the year.
The fact that he only received 6 snaps in the game, probably had something to do with the fumble. Perine had not taken an offensive snap since Week 6 and he may not again for some time.
Ryan Anderson- No, Ryan Anderson is not technically a running back, but he did take 3 snaps as a fullback on Sunday. All three snaps came on goal-line runs by Robert Kelley.
OFFENSIVE LINE
Offensive Line (Team)- The Redskins gave up 6 sacks for the first time in nearly three years and allowed Cousins to be hit on nearly 10 of his dropbacks.
Things weren’t much better in the running game. The team averaged 2.2 yards per rush and 0.0 offensive line yards before contact per attempt.
On a positive note, the six offensive lineman who took snaps in the game for Washington combined for only 1 false start and 0 holding penalties.
I guess this type of performance is what you would expect to see from a team playing without 80% of its starting line on the road in Seattle, but it’s still disappointing to see.
T.J. Clemmings- T.J. Clemmings was absolutely dominated by Dwight Freeney and the Seahawks front seven. I had him giving up 2 sacks to Freeney and Bobby Wagner’s sack in the end zone for a safety. He also allowed Freeney to hurry Cousins on several other dropbacks.
If he had enough snaps to qualify, Clemmings’ 2017 PFF grade of 37.5 would rank him 71st out of 79 tackles.
Trent Williams and/or Ty Nsekhe can’t get healthy soon enough. Saying that both players are huge upgrades over Clemmings would be the understatement of the year.
Arie Kouandijo- Perhaps parting ways lit a fire under Kouandijo, because he played what was likely the best game of his career on Sunday.
He played on all 63 snaps and did not allow a single pressure on the 40 snaps that Cousins either passed, scrambled, was sacked on or fumbled on.
He did, however, commit a false start on an important late fourth-quarter drive.
Chase Roullier- The preseason standout struggled in Seattle on Sunday. His high snap could have easily resulted in a disastrous lost fumble inside of the Redskins’ own 20-yard line. Luckily for Roullier it only cost the team 9 yards and another fumble added to the ledger.
He was also at least partially responsible for allowing two of the six sacks on Cousins.
Tyler Catalina- Roullier and Clemmings were not the only Redskins backup lineman to have a tough day at the office; Tyler Catalina, made his fair share of mistakes against the Seahawks, too.
He gave up a sack to Michael Bennett and committed a totally unnecessary block in the back penalty that stalled a crucial drive late in the game.
Catalina is the owner of an absolutely atrocious 29.1 PFF grade this season. That is the fourth lowest rating among the 258 lineman who the site has graded this season. I mean, wow; that is bad! Get well soon, Brandon!
Morgan Moses- The team’s only healthy starting O-lineman played on all 63 snaps. He has only missed 5 snaps all year, despite playing on a pair of sprained ankles. He did, however, give up a sack to Nazair Jones in the game.
Tony Bergstrom- Bergstrom operated as the team’s sixth offensive lineman in the game. He was in on all three of the offense’s goal-line runs and replaced Tyler Catalina on 2 snaps.
ALL OFFENSIVE SNAPS
*All statistics are courtesy of Air Yards, CSN Mid Atlantic, ESPN, Football Perspective, NFL.com, NFL Gamebooks, Pro Football Focus, Pro Football Reference, Redskins.com, Sharp Football Stats, Team Rankings and The Washington Post*
Poll
After seeing Sunday’s game, how much money are you comfortable with the Redskins giving Kirk Cousins on a LTD? Assume that the first 3 years of any deal are fully guaranteed.
This poll is closed
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1%
Under $20M APY (a pay cut)
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23%
$20M to $24M APY (2015-2016 status quo)
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41%
$25M to $27M (the going rate)
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23%
$27M to $30M (adjusted for inflation)
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8%
Over $30M APY (whatever it takes)