Quick Hitters: Redskins 34 Raiders 13

After another terrific game, QB Jason Campbell now has established a career high in touchdown passes [17] and is on pace to record career highs in completion percentage [65.3 right now], passer rating [89 right now] and is less than 300 yards from a new career high in passing yards. With the free agent market so weak on quarterbacks and the draft being a 3-year crap shoot with a 50% failure rate, hanging on to Campbell is clearly the smart thing to do. [Sonny Jurgensen has apparently come around to that view.] Campbell has now moved up to 14th in the NFL in passer rating, ahead of such highly-paid quarterbacks like Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler, Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan and Matt Hasselbeck.

Let’s recall that if the front office had been able to complete their hare-brained trade for Jay Cutler, the Redskins would now have a starting quarterback who leads the NFL in interceptions [22] and they wouldn’t have Brian Orakpo because the 13th pick in the 2009 draft would have been part of that deal. In addition, the Redskins would not have a first round pick in 2010, a selection desperately needed to upgrade the offensive line. The only reason the Redskins couldn’t finish that trade was because the Broncos wanted Kyle Orton more than they wanted Jason Campbell. That shows that Washington isn’t the only team with boneheads in the front office. So just imagine the Redskins as a team worse off at quarterback, with no rookie sack-master and no first round pick to improve the offensive line in 2010. THAT is depressing. That’s what Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato wanted to do to this franchise. As if they hadn’t already done enough.

While we’re on the subject of Brian Orakpo, the kid is just as good as advertised or better. He and DE Andre Carter are now tied for 4th in the NFL with 11 sacks. The only players ahead of them are Elvis Dumervil, Jared Allen and Dwight Freeney. Both Carter and Orakpo have more tackles than all the players ahead of them in sacks. By the way, Orakpo and Carter did all this yesterday without DT Albert Haynesworth, who was inactive due to injury.

The Redskins had drives of 80 yards 77 yards and 60 yards yesterday, each of them resulting in a touchdown. The Raiders, by contrast, did not have a single drive longer than 56 yards and half of Oakland’s 12 possessions yesterday resulted in less than 10 yards. Washington’s offense did not commit a turnover, as Jason Campbell and Quinton Ganther were very careful with the football.

Speaking of Ganther, he looked pretty good yesterday. He averaged only 3.6 yards per carry, but he ran hard near the goal line, scoring two 1-yard TD runs. He also caught a screen pass, broke two tackles and raced for 42 yards. The only real problem with Ganther yesterday was the blitz pick-up, where he missed a couple of assignments and allowed pass-rushers to get to Campbell. Blocking is the toughest thing for most tailbacks to master and hopefully Ganther will show some improvement on that in these last 3 games.

Read it all at

http://dcprosportsreport.com/2009/12/14/quick-hitters-redskins-34-raiders-13.html