On the last day of practice before the Washington Redskins enter their “code red” game preceding their bye week, Jay Gruden and Sean McVay took the podium to address additional topics prior to hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Although it seems that the Washington Redskins are bound for another year living in the cellar of the NFC East, Gruden is trying to stay optimistic. “We still have high aspirations and big goals for this season, and in order to accomplish those things, we need a win at home vs. Tampa Bay”. No team since Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos in 2011 have ever made the playoffs following a 2-5 start to the season. The Redskins are fair from their 2012 days when they finished the season on a seven game winning streak to win the division, so if they have any chance of challenging for the weakened NFC East title it has to start with a home victory going into the bye. Anything can happen as long as the Redskins start to play smarter and get healthy after the bye, so yes there is still some amount of hope after terrible performance over the past two weeks.
The theme of this week, and really throughout the season was how are the Redskins going improve their level of play coming out of halftime. Today it was offensive coordinator’s Sean McVay to take a crack at what has stumped Washington throughout the year. The young play caller was correct in saying “it always starts with the run game” and as Gruden explained yesterday, the ground game will come if the team can convert on some longer passes. As much as people might think Alfred Morris is wearing down, no back is going to be successful against an eight man front.
Even though there is definitely a drop off on the offensive line, specifically at center, McVay thinks that Josh LeRibeus is getting more comfortable at the center position where he started at for the first time against the Jets last week. “I think he did a nice job against a very good front” that features the likes of Sheldon Richardson, Muhammad Wilkerson, and rookie Leonard Williams. Washington will hope that they can live without Shawn Lauvao for the rest of the year as well as Trent Williams able to return after missing just one week with concussion like symptoms.
It is clear that after Sunday is a must win game for everyone involved: players, coaches, and management. A loss and the Redskins will be playing their final nine games to determine who is going to play in DC for years to come as Mike Shanahan once put it. A win and there might be a small glimpse of hope for the franchise of surprising the country in a ridiculously weak NFC East. As Kirk Cousins put it, a victory going into the bye week will lift everyone’s spirits and two weeks off would likely help the Redskins lengthy injury report before taking on the Super Bowl defending New England Patriots.