Redskins: Too early to panic

A meaningless, abbreviated attempt to run some basic plays, undermined by a few freak occurrences? Or an ill omen of things to come?

The debate should linger a few days following the Washington Redskins’ poor debut in Saturday night’s 20-0 preseason loss at Carolina. Redskins first-stringers struggled on offense, defense and special teams. Coach Steve Spurrier, who hadn’t been shut out since coaching at Duke in 1987, labeled the performance “embarrassing.”

However, many players and other members of the organization weren’t quite as down in the postgame locker room and yesterday at Redskin Park. It was, they argued, only preseason. Problems like penalties, drops and tackling would get fixed. And those issues might even have been rectified Saturday if the starters had gotten more than a quarter of play.

“The first game is always frustrating because you’re never out there long enough to get a rhythm going,” tackle Jon Jansen said. “You’ve got to do things right away, and we didn’t do that.”

Still, the performance at Ericsson Stadium wasn’t pretty, and that was a disappointment considering the club’s offseason overhaul. Only a pair of goal-line stands kept Washington’s first-stringers from being outscored more than 6-0 in their brief appearance.

Spurrier was most frustrated with his offense. The starters generated just 53 yards — or just 5 yards outside of a 48-yard bomb to wide receiver Laveranues Coles — in three series, lasting a little more than a quarter.

The problems were widespread. There was no run game. Quarterback Patrick Ramsey was pressured into one bad pass and sacked on another occasion. Three passes were dropped — two of them wide open and in position to convert first downs. And Jansen committed a false start and had a holding call declined.

“Obviously we’re disappointed,” Ramsey said. “We’re competitors, and we want to win. But at the same time, this provides us with the evaluation process.”

In that manner, Ramsey seemed to wage an internal struggle during his postgame remarks. On one hand he wanted to accept blame for the poor performance. But at the same time he seemingly tried to convey that he didn’t feel that bad about things.

“We were in there for what, two, three series?” Ramsey said. “We moved the ball fairly well. Obviously we want to move the ball great down the field, and we didn’t. But I don’t think we need to start jumping ship already.”

In truth, a couple more completions could have altered the offense’s brief effort. Fullback Bryan Johnson dropped a sure third-and-6 conversion, and tight end Zeron Flemister couldn’t hold onto a fourth-and-1 conversion that ended the starters’ night.

“We’ve still got a bunch of guys nervous and scared, it seems like — in preseason,” Spurrier said. “We have to find out who can catch the ball, do things to help us win.”

Washington’s starting defense wasn’t much better, though the unit was hurt by the absence of middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter and defensive ends Regan Upshaw and Bruce Smith, all of whom were rehabbing knee injuries.

Former Redskins running back Stephen Davis rushed seven times for 74 yards. The performance reignited the debate over the quality of Washington’s defensive line, and the club is in line to make a minor adjustment today by signing defensive tackle James Cannida. However, there appeared to be a more immediate issue than personnel.

“I don’t think we were getting beat on pass coverage,” safety Matt Bowen said. “I don’t think we were getting beat on blocking. We were missing tackles. Fundamentals. Those are correctable.”

Special teams also struggled. Bryan Barker kicked one punt just 26 yards and had another returned 31 yards, replacement kicker Matt Simonton missed his only attempt (35 yards) and the return game generated no significant runbacks.

Washington’s backups did little, too, after dominating last preseason as the Redskins set scoring records and went 4-1. Not even Danny Wuerffel, the golden child of Spurrier’s offense who re-signed last week, could get anything going in Saturday’s fourth quarter.

Among Redskins reserves, quarterback Rob Johnson performed fairly well with 10 of 16 passing and a couple decent scrambles behind a confused young line. But he was hurt by three turnovers. Meanwhile, undrafted running back Sultan McCullough (nine carries, 50 yards) and first-year receiver Scott Cloman (one catch, 36 yards) had nice moments.

But everyone has a lot of work to do this week. The 2001 Redskins also opened with a 20-0 loss; they ended up not improving in the preseason and opened the regular season 0-5. And while this club might not have as many issues as its predecessor, it certainly has a tougher opening schedule, with its first six opponents coming off playoff years.

“We have a place to start,” Jansen said. “We’ve got some film to watch. We can look at it and go from there. We’ve got to improve. Luckily we have three games to do that.”