The Redskins had the ball where they wanted. They had the personnel theywanted. And they had the play they wanted.
All they lacked was the result they wanted.
And Washington’s inability to score from the 1-yard line in Sunday’s 24-17 loss to the New York Giants will haunt them for the next two weeks. The Redskins (2-1) have a bye week before hosting Detroit on Oct. 7.
“Three shots from the goal-line is all you can ask for,” center Casey Rabach said.
Here’s why the three plays after the first-down spike with 51 seconds left failed:
» Good defense. On second down, the Redskins ran a play-action pass to Mike Sellers in the right flat. But linebacker Kawika Mitchell wasn’t fooled and had Sellers covered. Quarterback Jason Campbell threw low and behind Sellers, preventing any hope of him turning the corner. The pass was incomplete.
» Predictability. On the next two downs, the Redskins ran Ladell Betts off-tackle behind Mike Sellers — the same play Clinton Portis had scored on earlier in the game.
This time, on the third-down run, middle linebacker Antonio Pierce pointed to his right and started moving that way before the snap and took on blocker Chris Samuels. Mitchell moved that way as well as the ball is snapped and tackled Betts at the 1.
On fourth down, Pierce and Mitchell did the same thing. Pierce stepped a foot closer to the line just before the snap.
“I’m pretty sure they knew we would run straight at them,” Campbell said. “We didn’t feel they could stop us.”
Said Betts, “I didn’t know if they made an adjustment or saw something, but it was a little bit tough. By the time I fell down [after the second run] I was two, three yards in the backfield.”
» Inexperience. The third-down play ended with 43 seconds remaining. That left Washington plenty of time to either change the next play, which they did not want to do, or to take its time. They didn’t do that either. Instead, they hurried to the line and snapped the ball with 25 seconds left.
“That second play, we were so frantic,” Betts said. “It’s a learning process. A lot of us hadn’t been in that exact same situation before.”
Perhaps a more experienced quarterback would not have rushed the final play.
“Could we have taken more time, yeah probably,” Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said. “But it’s up to their tempo and Jason’s tempo.”
Said Campbell, “We were trying to catch them off-guard. … We have to learn from it.”
