Landover, MD- The Washington Redskins lost their home opener today to the Indianapolis Colts. The Redskins could not carry over the momentum from their opening day win and effectively man handled by the Colts. The main difference between the two weeks was the aggression displayed. Against the Arizona Cardinals the Redskins were the aggressors and were physical, today the Colts brought the physicality. The Colts stuffed the Redskins running game and offensive line was beaten numerous times. There were numerous mistakes in all facets of this game.
bad drive too predictable and some boo birds are out at FedEx Field #HTTR
— FOX Sports Radio1340 (@1340AMFOXSports) September 16, 2018
The offense under quarterback Alex Smith was nowhere near as efficient as last week. Smith was 33 of 46 for 292 and zero touchdowns and zero interceptions. Smith wasn’t helped by either his offensive line or his receivers in the game. Smith was pressured early and often by the Colts and was sacked three times and hit more times than that. Routinely the Colts were able to confuse the offensive line and get rushers at Smith. When Smith was able to get the ball away his receivers dropped passes. Both Josh Doctson and Paul Richardson dropped passes that would have moved the chains and possibly led to points.
The Colts effectively shut down the Redskins running game. Jamison Crowder ended up being the teams leading rusher with two attempts and 29 yards. Peterson was held to 20 yards on 11 attempts and Chris Thompson to one yard on four attempts. The offensive line was routinely driven back into running lanes, when lanes actually existed. When Alex Smith has to throw the ball 46 times the Redskins do not have a good chance of winning that game.
On the defensive side of the ball the team was not able to stop the Colts from running the ball. The Colts combined to rush for 104 yards on 28 attempts for 3.7 yards a carry. The revamped defensive front for awhile was lost and the Colts had huge rushing lanes to run through. The defense was not able to get a consistent pass rush on Andrew Luck. Luck after being sacked twice last week and hit many times, the Redskins lone sack came from Matt Ioannidis. Luck was able to get through his progressions and move the ball down the field.
The best unit of Sunday had to be the defensive secondary. Luck was held to 21 of 31 for 177 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. For the majority of the second quarter and all of the third quarter, the Redskins held the Colts in check. DJ Swearinger had two interceptions and two more passes defended, Montae Nicholson was all over the field making tackles, and Josh Norman and Quinton Dunbar were steady. Their only issues was the Colts last scoring drive when the Colts started running pick plays and the defensive backs were unable to cover them.
In the third quarter this game could have been easily won by the Redskins as the defense forced a turnover and a couple of three and outs. The offense never capitalized and the Colts were able to get a late touchdown the seal the game. The blame for this game can go plenty of places but the Redskins seemed out coached on both sides of the ball today. Add in a missed field goal and you have a pretty deflating loss with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers coming to FedEx Field next week. Are the Redskins as good as they looked last week probably not, but are the Redskins as bad as they were today hopefully not.
