New Orleans Saints at Washington Redskins: Continuance and Redemption

In Week Two of the NFL regular season, the Washington Redskins will host the New Orleans Saints in their home opener at FedEx Field in Landover, MD.

For the Redskins, it presents an opportunity for redemption, to show that their poor offensive showing in a disappointing loss to the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants in Week One was not indicative of their season moving forward.

For the Saints, it’s an opportunity to continue building on a solid, if not spectacular, defensive performance in Week One’s win over one of their division rivals, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Saints may be short handed on the defensive side of the ball this week, as starting safety Roman Harper, starting cornerback Randall Gay, starting linebacker Scott Fujita, and Fujita’s primary backup Mark Simoneau reportedly sat out practice Wednesday and Thursday.  

The injury situation could leave the Saints with rookie Tracy Porter the only starter from Week One returning for a second week in a row at cornerback. With veteran Mike McKenzie working his way back from last season’s knee injury, the Redskins could try to test their depth in the secondary.

The loss of Fujita could be large as well, tied with veteran line backer Jonathan Vilma for the team lead in tackles last week, Fujita is also a team leader and would be sorely missed. Depth at defensive tackle could be a much more relevant issue this week however.

The Redskins are still attempting to reach a comfort level with rookie Head Coach Jim Zorn’s version of the West Coast offense, and it’s reasonable to expect a heavy helping of standout running back Clinton Portis.

With a relatively poor showing against the run last week, the Saints will need to stop the Redskins’ running game in order to put pressure on quarterback Jason Campbell. Campbell’s play last week was far from stellar, and the Saints would likely aim to put the game on his shoulders and dare the Redskins to beat them through the air.

The Redskins offense will need to attack the Saints at their weakest point, stopping the run. Last week, the Saints allowed an attractive 7.3 yards per carry on only 20 attempts. Bucs Head Coach Jon Gruden called on veteran quarterback Jeff Garcia (24-41 for 221 yards, one TD and one INT) to “fling it around” rather than take advantage of his team’s success on the ground.

With only a 5.6 yard average per pass, the Bucs couldn’t move the ball consistently and the Saints’ defense made stops when they had to. There may well be opportunity for the Redskins to exploit the Saints’ defense, they will need to take advantage of those opportunities to keep up with the Saints offensive attack.

Offensively, look for Zorn to run early in an attempt to slow down the pass rush of the Saints’ stand out defensive ends Will Smith (three tackles last week) and Charles Grant (three tackles and a sack last week).

The Redskins’ offensive line played well in pass protection against the Giants, only allowing one sack of Campbell, but the run blocking was not up to their standards. Standout running back Clinton Portis and his backup Ladell Betts could be in for a busy day. Betts had success in the Redskins’ win in 2006 with Portis on IR, and Portis seems to be in top condition.

Redskins’ quarterback Jason Campbell will need to improve on his output from last week (obviously) and should hope to get the ball downfield to keep the Saints’ secondary honest and not allow them to get close to the line of scrimmage to help out against the run.

If strong safety Roman Harper (five tackles last week) can’t play this week, or is ineffective, last year’s starter Josh Bullocks (one tackle in a backup role last week) may be called upon to play the free-safety position while veteran Kevin Kaesviharn (six tackles last week) moves over to play strong safety in Harper’s stead.

This change would not be ideal for the Saints, and tight end Chris Cooley may be able to exploit the weakness. Rookie wide receiver Malcolm Kelly may make his debut this week, offering Zorn and Campbell more options offensively.

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