Kirk Cousins never had time to set his feet, but he reared back and launched a pass 40 yards toward the end zone anyway.
He didn’t have much of a choice. J.J. Wilcox had a free run at the Washington Redskins’ quarterback, and although DeSean Jackson had Morris Claiborne on his heels, the pass, slightly overthrown, fell harmlessly to the turf, stalling Washington’s second drive in a 19-16 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday.
The Redskins’ offense also failed to move the ball just over a minute earlier, when it gained three yards on three plays and punted after Cowboys running back Darren McFadden fumbled at his own 38-yard line. The inability to turn turnovers into points was a troubling trend in the loss.
Washington forced three fumbles on Monday — two of which were recovered inside Cowboys territory — but scored just three points off the turnovers.
“The defense put us in great situations to be successful offensively and we didn’t take care of business,” coach Jay Gruden said.
After the initial turnover, McFadden’s fumble, Redskins running back Alfred Morris picked up three yards. What followed was disastrous. As Jackson motioned away from wide receiver Pierre Garcon to the right side of the formation, Garcon held his hands up, looking for help. He looked confused until the ball was snapped, at which point Morris ran directly into a blitz for a loss of one yard.
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The next play was the throw to Jackson. The Cowboys didn’t do anything extraordinary, they were just aggressive. Dallas sent seven rushers at Cousins and outnumbered the six-man protection. Running back Matt Jones picked up a blitzing defensive back, but Wilcox, the free safety, was untouched as he blew through the middle.
In the third quarter, Redskins inside linebacker Mason Foster stripped the ball from McFadden and recovered it at the Dallas 41-yard line. It was the second fumble of the game for McFadden, as Foster ran in at the end of the run and ripped the ball loose.
The Redskins didn’t stall immediately. Once they got to the Cowboys’ 16-yard line, they struggled. On second-and-1, outside linebacker Sean Lee stuffed Jones for no gain. Jones lost two yards on the next run after defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence went untouched off the left end of the defensive formation. Washington settled for a 36-yard field goal.
“Unfortunately, it’s not one thing that we can pinpoint,” Gruden said. “One time [it] was schematically. We run into a horrible look that you’re not going to get success no matter how you block it. It might be we miss a throw or miss a read or miss a progression. It might be a protection we blow or have a miscommunication on a route concept. There’s a lot of things offensively that we’re not doing from a consistent standpoint that we should be doing by Week 13. We should be better and we just haven’t been for whatever reason, and capitalizing on turnovers is a major, major issue.”
Against the Giants a week earlier, the Redskins forced three turnovers, but produced no points. The offense eventually followed in a 20-14 win, but that wasn’t the case on Monday.
The Redskins finished with 266 yards of offense against the Cowboys and rushed for just 73 yards. Tight end Derek Carrier, who is the regular run-blocker in multiple-tight end sets, was inactive because of an ankle injury. Gruden turned to backup right tackle Tom Compton, and on some plays used both Compton and backup left tackle Ty Nsekhe, but the scheme wasn’t as effective.
“We were kind of hodge-podge last night with the substitutions and the amount of people we had with the tight end injury situation we had, so we didn’t really get in the flow of the game,” Gruden said.
It was difficult for Cousins to get going, too. Gruden said the Redskins missed some opportunities to capitalize on deep plays downfield, partly because of the pressure Dallas was bringing and Washington’s inability to run the ball.
When the offense struggled as it did on Monday, forcing turnovers and starting with good field position can alleviate that pressure. That’s why it stung so badly that the Redskins weren’t able to capitalize.
“You know, we had a plan going in to run the ball a little bit better than we did,” Gruden said. “Throwing the ball, we had some shots available. We just didn’t convert on some of the shots that we had. If you put the film on, you’ll see … we took some shots. We just didn’t take them, whether it was pressure forced us into throwing a check-down or what have you, the quarterback couldn’t see it. We just didn’t convert.”
• Anthony Gulizia can be reached at agulizia@washingtontimes.com.
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