Alfred Morris' Struggles Hampering Washington Redskins Offense

Alfred Morris is struggling, and without his usual dominance on the ground, the Washington Redskins offense is being hampered. With Morris unable to get going, there's no balance, and that's left both Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins trying to win games with their arms.

Morris' indifferent 2014 season is put into perspective by some depressing numbers. He doesn't have a 100-yard game this season and is averaging just four yards per carry. That's a career low.

In his last two games—Week 5's 27-17 defeat to the Seattle Seahawks and Week 6's 30-20 loss to the Arizona Cardinals—Morris averaged 2.2 and 3.2 yards per rush, respectively.

That's not good enough from the player who supposedly entered this season as the fulcrum of the offense. Most worrying is the fact that the problems can't all be attributed to the change of head coach.

Jay Gruden succeeded Mike Shanahan during the offseason but retained his predecessor's zone-based ground schemes that had made Morris an instant star. The player's struggles began during the latter days of the Shanahan regime, as ESPN 980 reporter Chris Russell has noted:

So, what exactly is the problem with Morris in 2014? Supporters of the two-time 1,000-yard rusher will point to the quality of defenses he's faced recently.

That isn't entirely without merit. After all, the Seahawks and the Cardinals are the sixth- and third-stingiest run defenses in the NFL.

But there are plenty of reasons this argument doesn't provide a conclusive answer for why Washington can't get Morris going. For one thing, top players are those who still deliver when the opposition gets tougher.

A closer look at this season's Cardinals and Seahawks offers even less of an excuse for Morris not doing more in the last two weeks. The Arizona front seven lost Karlos Dansby this offseason and is currently missing Daryl Washington, John Abraham, Matt Shaughnessy, Darnell Dockett and Calais Campbell.

That ought to make them prime candidates to be exposed on the ground. Then there's the Seahawks, whose bubble was burst by the Dallas Cowboys in Week 6.

The key to that upset win was another 100-yard rushing effort from DeMarco Murray. He clocked up 115 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries in Seattle.

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So why couldn't Morris do the same on his home field the week before? A big part of Murray's success has been the awesome play of a stellar offensive line. That's certainly not a luxury Morris enjoys with the Redskins.

Washington's lightweight and talent-challenged linemen routinely are pushed back and fail to get off blocks to attack the second level. Watch any of the team's trademark zone-stretch runs from the last three weeks, and you'll see this damning trend in action.

So maybe the scheme is at fault. That hardly seems likely, though, based on both its long history of success and how many of this season's running backs are thriving within it.

The zone scheme Shanahan installed produced a catalogue's worth of 1,000-yard runners, with Morris just the latest example. However, Shanahan disciples, including former Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, are using it successfully in other cities.

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The younger Shanahan is now running the offense for the Cleveland Browns. Those are the same Browns who rushed for 158 yards against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 6.

Zone runners Ben Tate and Isaiah Crowell amassed 78 and 77 yards, respectively, and they combined for three rushing touchdowns to key an emphatic 31-10 win. The Browns boast the third-best rushing offense in the NFL and a 3-2 record.

Staying in the AFC North, Gary Kubiak, Mike Shanahan longtime assistant with the Denver Broncos and Kyle Shanahan's former head coach with the Houston Texans, has taken the zone scheme to the Baltimore Ravens.

It's allowing journeyman Justin Forsett to average 6.4 yards per carry. His latest effort was comprised of 14 carries for 111 yards in Baltimore's 48-17 demolition of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Ravens are the owners of the league's ninth-rated run offense and a 4-2 record.

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The scheme still works, but perhaps it could benefit from a slight tweak here and there, a riff on the established formula. The Texans, Kubiak's old club, still run the zone-stretch ground attack with Arian Foster lugging the rock.

But new head coach Bill O'Brien, whose pro background includes time spent with the New England Patriots, has added some power concepts likely picked up during his days in the AFC East.

This eclectic approach has helped 28-year-old Foster produce four 100-yard running games out of five this season. Included in that group is the 103-yard effort that helped Houston beat the Redskins 17-6 in Week 1.

Since Gruden often favored power-based principles, both in blocking and design, when he ran the offense for the Cincinnati Bengals, he should sprinkle in a few for Morris.

It would be nice to see a few counter plays run behind trap blocking as well as more inside zone runs. But the biggest issue isn't what type of running plays Gruden calls; it's how often he calls runs at all.

Simply put, Gruden doesn't need much encouragement to abandon the running game altogether. That's what he did with his team down just four points in the dying minutes of the third quarter in Arizona, per Mike Jones of The Washington Post:

But it's not simply a case of when Gruden opts to run the ball; it's how he structures his calls that's most disturbing. The man seems offended by the notion of consecutive carries.

That's a dreadful approach to adopt with a rhythm runner such as Morris. He's the type of workhorse who needs to take a few hits before he really gets warmed up.

Sadly, 2012's sixth-rounder just isn't getting the ball enough. Take a look at these numbers for proof:

Week	Game	Carries	Yards	Touchdowns	Result
1	Away vs. Houston Texans	14	91	0	6-17
2	Home vs. Jacksonville Jaguars	22	85	2	41-10
3	Away vs. Philadelphia Eagles	23	77	0	34-37
4	Home vs. New York Giants	12	63	1	14-45
5	Home vs. Seattle Seahawks	13	29	0	17-27
6	Away vs. Arizona Cardinals	13	41	0	20-30

Not reaching 15 carries in his last three games is a very sorry state of affairs for both Morris and the Washington offense. It makes a mockery of Gruden's claim prior to the season that the running game would be the feature of his offense, per CSNWashington.com's Rich Tandler:

"

Our identity needs to be found. What are we going to be? We’re going to be a running team, I guess.

Our identity needs to be diversity. We have to be able to be good at both. We have to be able to run the ball, we have to be able to do some play actions off the run and there are going to be some times that we have to do some drop back.

We need to be pretty good at everything but obviously the strength of our football team would be, I would say, our running game. We have to continue working on that, work on handing the ball off and being good at something, really good at something and I think we are pretty good in the running game.

"

Gruden is playing a foolish game not giving Morris more opportunities to snap his struggles. With two troubled quarterbacks under center, a dual-1,000-yard rusher ought to be Gruden's best friend as a play-caller.

Morris needs to do more, but he can only work with what he's given. Until he's afforded more chances to improve, the Redskins and their one-dimensional offense will continue playing losing football.

All statistics via NFL.com.