John Beck solid in preseason debut as Redskins top Colts

On first-and-10 from the Indianapolis 18 in the second quarter, Beck rolled out and did not throw to an open Fred Davis down the middle. Instead, he ran for 6 yards.

The Redskins ultimately settled for field goals of 28, 27 and 26 yards while Beck was in the game. Grossman’s failure to get the Redskins in the end zone in last week’s victory over Pittsburgh was one of the coach staff’s talking points during the week.

“We want to get good at that,” Beck said. “Right now we’re doing a decent job of moving the ball, but we have to be able to finish. Things to improve on.”

Grossman played four series in the second half. He was 7 of 12 passing for 67 yards and an interception with the second-string offense. Washington scored all 16 of its points before Grossman entered the game.

“Other than the one interception, I tried to do the best I could,” Grossman said. “I thought I handled the situations pretty well except I didn’t see that [weak-side] linebacker reading the play.”

On the other side of the ball, Indianapolis’ offense was lifeless with quarterback Curtis Painter at the controls instead of Peyton Manning. Washington’s first-string defense played the whole first half and held the Colts to 41 yards.

“The Colts without Peyton Manning is like a car without a steering wheel,” Redskins nose tackle Barry Cofield said. “You don’t get excited about stopping the Colts without Peyton Manning. We know what we did right. We know what we can do better. I think next week with Baltimore we’ll get a stiffer test.”

First-round pick Ryan Kerrigan recorded his first sack of the preseason. Seventh-round cornerback Brandyn Thompson intercepted Colts third-stringer Dan Orlovsky late in the game.

This night belonged to Beck, though. The last player to leave the locker room, he threw his bag over his shoulder and walked out with a smile

“He did what was expected of him,” receiver Anthony Armstrong said. “He took charge of the offense, made very wise decisions and was able to move the ball down the field and put points on the board. That quarterback battle between him and Rex is kind of heating up a little bit.”

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