Washington Redskins: Where Are the Playmakers?

As the New York Giants wrapped up the season sweep of the Washington Redskins in Week 13 of the NFL regular season, it became painfully clear what's missing from the Redskins: playmakers.

Santana Moss, Clinton Portis, and Chris Cooley all have steadily become invisible over the past six weeks of football. Clinton Portis get's a bit of a pass. He has sacrificed his body all season and paid for it with a multitude of injuries.

Santana Moss, however, is supposed to be the Redskins' big-play guy. But when the opportunities have presented themselves, he has NOT come through the way other "big play" players do.

This point was brought home to me as I watched Steve Smith of the Carolina Panthers make a catch that as close to an exact duplicate of a catch that Moss did NOT make against the Dallas Cowboys two weeks ago.

Difficult catch? Absolutely.

But Smith made the catch, and his team went on to win their game against the Green Bay Packers. Moss didn't, and his team lost. By four points.

The Redskins' defense played relatively well against the Giants. Holding them to only 23 points, the defense slowed down the Giants in the first half very nicely, thank you. The stats wouldn't show this, but the scoreboard would.

Giants' quarterback Eli Manning had a career half, with over 200 yards, but only one touchdown. The stat that counted the most in the first half was that the Redskins held the Giants to only 28 yards rushing.

But that wasn't enough, as the Redskins also had difficulty running the ball with only 47 yards rushing. That number included a 29-yard touchdown run on a reverse to rookie wide receiver Devin Thomas. Thomas and Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell would finish the game as the Redskins' top two rushers, with 29 and 38 yards respectively.

The point that finally hit home to me was the fact that the Giants were able to stay completely focused on stopping the Redskins' rushing attack because Campbell and the Redskins could not make plays in the passing game.

I cannot offer definitive "answers" to any of the "questions" facing the Redskins' head coach Jim Zorn and the Redskins' offense, but I can offer my own thoughts. And I ask, very simply, where are the playmakers?

Moss has disappeared. This seems largely due to the fact that there are no other "threats" in the passing game for defenses to worry about. A defense can key on Portis (or whichever back is in at the time) and double Moss. Done. No more to be afraid of.

Sure, Chris Cooley is a Pro-Bowl player. But he's not a "dangerous" player that puts fear into defenses as a guy who can "beat you" with a big play. The Redskins drafted two wide receivers in this past April's draft, they also included an athletic tight end, too.

This move was obviously intended to provide a boost to the Redksins' offense, and offense that's been sleep walking for many, many years. The only real question with these draft picks was: When will they contribute?

Well, they haven't done much to this point. Malcolm Kelly has been sidelined with a knee injury since preseason and is only now getting to see playing time. Devin Thomas was very raw coming out of college, with limited college experience in a very limited passing offense.

Were the Redskins counting on their rookies to make a difference THIS year? I don't know. But I do know that their time has come. Jim Zorn has actually played out the scenario I anticipated this season.

Zorn brought with him the "West Coast offense". This meant that young Jason Campbell had to learn the third offense in his four years in the NFL. Along with a new playbook came many very different philosophies in regards to the passing game as well. Campbell tweaked, adjusted, and re-made his techniques, both physically and mentally.

Most of us expected growing pains from the offense. The Redskins would need to play great defense, keep games close, and hope that the offense would catch up as the season progressed.

This is what I anticipated. What I did not anticipate was the absolute disappearance of the so called "playmakers". And with Campbell's apparent unwillingness (whether from coaching or a lack of understanding the offense well, or his own mindset) to take chances, calculated risks, the offense cannot score enough to help the defense.

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