Joe Bugel berated them. The Carolina Panthers’ highly regarded defensive front challenged them, and a renewed commitment to the running game inspired them.
Whatever the reasons, the Washington Redskins’ offensive line finally rose last week and powered the struggling team to a 17-13 upset of the Panthers.
“I didn’t think we were playing up to our standards, and I let ’em know about it,” said Bugel, the position coach.
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Bugel was angered by the Redskins’ loss the week before to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a defeat in which his team averaged a season-low 3.2 yards a carry and was beaten for two sacks.
“We had too many 1- or 2-yard gains,” Bugel said. “We went back to the drawing board, back to work, and they bought into it. We went to the power stuff. We moved the line of scrimmage against a [heck] of a football team.”
The Redskins ran 37 times — the third-highest total for the club the season — for 143 yards and allowed only one sack against the Panthers. That effort was more impressive considering the Panthers held the St. Louis Rams to only 31 rushing yards and sacked quarterback Marc Bulger seven times the previous week.
The Atlanta Falcons, the Redskins’ opponent Sunday, are the only NFC team that ranks in the top 11 in both rushing defense and sacks per pass play. Bugel, however, said the Redskins will stick with the power running game because that’s what coach Joe Gibbs wants.
“That’s a commitment Joe made to the football team,” Bugel said. “It’s still his team. He’ll do what he wants to do. He wants to run the ball.”
That’s what the offensive linemen wanted to hear.
“We ran a lot of inside stuff, stuff that we love,” center Casey Rabach said. “There weren’t a lot of pulling-type plays where if you have one guy break down it can be a disaster. Everybody’s got a helper. If someone misses a block, there’s another guy there to cover his back and pick up that defender.”
The line produced Sunday even when the Redskins weren’t playing smashmouth football.
The Redskins rank among the top 12 in the league in the critical categories of fewest sacks allowed per pass and yards a carry. They have accomplished that with either immobile Mark Brunell or raw Jason Campbell at quarterback and top running back Clinton Portis missing four starts because of injury.
The Redskins rank fourth in the league in the former (14 sacks in 332 dropbacks) and ninth in the latter (4.3 a carry).
Offensive linemen don’t tend to be big believers in numbers beyond win-loss records, but those numbers prompted some smiles.
“When you get to this point of the year, numbers start to show what you’ve been able to do,” right tackle Jon Jansen said.
The line performed well against some of the highly regarded defensive fronts it has faced this season, such as Kevin Williams and Pat Williams of the Minnesota Vikings, Marcus Stroud and John Henderson of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Julius Peppers and Kris Jenkins of the Panthers.
They struggled, however, against lesser groups like the front of the Bucs, who played without the injured Simeon Rice.
“We’ve played great against great players, but we haven’t played as well against the guys some would classify not being great. I don’t know if it’s a lack of concentration or overconfidence on our part,” Jansen said. “We need to treat everybody the same.”
This week’s “everybody” includes the Falcons’ two elite pass rushers, left tackle Rod Coleman and right end John Abraham, and massive run stopper Grady Jackson.
“We’ve got a good challenge this week,” Rabach said. “Grady Jackson is listed at 345. He’s probably 400-plus. They’ve got some big guys who can rush the passer. Hopefully that motivates us. Last year when we got on that [season-ending 5-0] roll, it didn’t matter who we were playing, who lined up across from us. We dictated the tempo. Hopefully last week gave us a springboard for this week and the games to come.”
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