WEEK 1: Miami Dolphins @ Washington Redskins

[canes21]

I agree. I am a fan of Gruden. I know a lot of people are already turning on the dude. I think he has the pieces to become a good head coach, but he has a lot of learning to do on the job. A lot of people don't like that. They want him to be ready to go right away. I understand that point of view and get where the frustrations can come from. I might just be a little naive, completely wrong, whatever, but I am a supporter of Gruden, but I am not blind and will admit he needs to adjust on the fly better.

On one hand it seems like this team has so much that needs to improve to be competitive, on the other hand it all seems so relatively small that it can be done. I don't look at this team and think there is no way we compete, we have too many holes, etc. I used to for years, but I finally do feel like we have a team that can compete with the rest of the league consistently. We aren't going to break any scoring records or shutout 3 straight opponents, but I do believe this team and staff have the potential to take every game down to the wire. I haven't had a feeling like that around the organization in a long time. Sure, I'd love to see us reel of 7 straight like Bobert's rookie year, but I know that's not likely. Up until that injury it was our year and we were even putting it on Seattle until he went down. However, right now I feel this team is a spark away from being able to make every week entertaining and worth watching.

We definitely need 10x better QB play. Be it Kirk, Colt, or Bobert, I really couldn't care any less about which it is. Just get someone in there that feels lit and moves the ball. I won't lie, Kirk is not terrible and I may be overly hard on him at times, but I just have never seen him be the QB I think we need once we hit the 30. He moves the ball well to midfield, gets a little more yardage, then he hits a wall. If he could break that wall down, I'd be all aboard the Kirk train. I just don't know how he can or if he will. The guy is smart, he knows what he is doing, but he still makes some boneheaded decisions that you can't have, he doesn't seem to be completely confident in his ability downfield, and he suffers tremendously from those flaws.

That's just how I see it. I know other will disagree and that's fine. We all see things a little differently. As much as we want to think there are only a few ways to approach sports and that should make it easy to see what's wrong, that just isn't the case. That is what makes sports so beautiful. Everyone knows what they want and what is needed, but there's never a true, clear picture on how to achieve it.

I would like to see RGIII get some snaps in though. Whether or not he'd do good, I don't know. I still hold onto a lot of hope from his rookie year. That's probably not the greatest thing for me haha, but it's true. I believe he is still that electric player inside, but his confidence has taken a beating and he stunted his growth mentally. Who knows what will happen, I just want to see the team continue to get better and make each week a good one win or lose. Give me something to get excited about. Gruden gave me glimpses of it last year, but ultimately the team just had too many flaws. What I saw this past week gave me hope. This team looks better to me than the last few years. I see a lot of potential. I'm not saying we have playoff potential, but neither making it or not would surprise me.

[wwharton]

Quote: Originally Posted by canes21

Kirk averaged 6 yards a pass. He never hits anyone in stride. He makes poor decisions. He never wins when he starts because of those reasons. He has always lived off of Morris, but when you force him to beat you, he never can. It's the same old stuff every time he starts. He can move the ball 30 to 30 fine. Then he falls apart . It never fails. He has happy feet . Too many times he just needed to step up or to the side, but he instantly runs and tries to throw while on the run when he has plenty of time and room to set his feet. If he actually threw the ball past 5 yards and could hit a guy in stride, the offense could have a fighting chance. Instead we're looking at a loss when we held a team to 250 yards and 1 TD. Defense was great, run game too. There was no passing game and the punter apparently had never heard about the importance of hangtime.

I disagree with a lot of this but KG did a good job of touching on that so I'll skip that part and just say...

... and you think RG3 will be any better WHY???

This was Cousin's, what 10th start? I don't know if I can think of one of RG3 starts since his 2012 injury that was better than this one. 2012! I want Robert to live up to his potential too but if you care about your team winning and not just helping RG3 be better, then playing the guy(s) that did the best job in the presesaon is what makes sense. 2012 gave Robert a pass for 2013 and 2014... that's enough. He still makes rookie mistakes.

Seriously, the way you nitpick Cousins (while ignoring everything that KG pointed out), if you took that fine toothed comb to any of Robert's games you'd be wondering why he wasn't cut.

[N51_rob]

Funnies part is Griffin and Cousins have basically the same YPA something south of 8 yards. Neither one is airing it out.

As someone who's spent the last three years defending Griffin. The Tampa Bay game was the end of the line for me. I won't begrudge anyone who is still on the Griffin train.

But I'm already through the first quarter of the coaches film and Cousins decision making was fairly spot on if not conservative, but so we're the play calls.