What Alfred Morris' Week 1 Performance Means for Washington Redskins

At the center of the Washington Redskins' season-opening 17-6 loss to the Houston Texans was head coach Jay Gruden's reluctance to establish Alfred Morris and the running game.

Despite being the focal point of the team's lone scoring drive, the Redskins had only 23 rushes, with Morris toting the rock just 14 times. Netting 131 rushing yards as a team, Washington's lack of running the ball was just confounding. As Morris stated postgame, via ESPN.com's John Keim, Houston couldn't stop the run.

"That's one part of the game we can say we dominated. That's our bread and butter," Morris said.

In contrast, Robert Griffin III threw 37 times and was battered all game long. Succumbing to Houston's pressure, he was hit 14 times and sacked on three occasions.

Reviewing the comments he made to CSNWashington.com's JP Finlay prior to the game, Gruden already knew this outcome would accompany a pass-happy attack:

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It's going to be very important for us to establish some kind of running game. If we get behind and it turns into a dropback pass fest, it won't be pretty. So it's very important for us to stick with the run, run the ball and do the best we can in that regard to take some pressure off our quarterback and our linemen.

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While game plans can change in the heat of the action, the play of the Redskins' offensive line never should've inclined Gruden to abort the rushing attack. This unit couldn't pass protect, but it had no problem opening up rushing lanes.

As a team, Washington averaged 5.7 yards per carry; Morris' average was 6.5 yards—the second highest of his career. Looking at the team's passing attack, the offense averaged only six yards per pass.

A one-score game up until the final two-minute warning, a more prudent strategy for the Redskins would've been to keep riding Morris in an effort to make Houston's defensive backs play closer to the line of scrimmage. It's a move that would have slowed the Texans' pass rush, and it also would've allowed Griffin to throw the ball downfield.

Just looking at Morris' career, it's evident that Washington is at its best when he gets his touches. In the past 33 regular-season games, there hasn't been a Redskins victory in which Morris carried the ball fewer than 16 times.

Set to face a Jacksonville Jaguars team that had five sacks and four hits on Nick Foles in Week 1, Gruden has to feature Morris more if he's to keep his quarterback clean.

As ESPN.com's John Keim notes, Houston's strategy of conceding short passes and making Griffin engineer long drives could be one that other teams copy. Still uncomfortable in the pocket, RG3 isn't at the stage yet where he can thrive doing this. Hesitant to trust his reads at times, Griffin's much more likely to hold on to the ball and get sacked.

With Griffin's transition into a pocket passer incomplete (it's a process that will likely take all season), Morris' Week 1 performance should be an anomaly—at least his amount of touches, anyway. While the weapons are there for Washington to boast a potent aerial attack, Gruden's first loss should serve as a lesson that, for the time being, the offense should flow through Morris and the running game.

Judging from what Keim reported, it's a lesson Gruden's already learned:

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Gruden says if he had to do it all over again, he would have run the ball more.

— John Keim (@john_keim) September 8, 2014"