LANDOVER — There was always beauty in simplicity for Alfred Morris. For four seasons with the Washington Redskins, one-cut-and-go was a model he used often and to great effect. In three of those four seasons in burgundy and gold, he ran for more than 1,000 yards.
He replaced his Redskins uniform with the blue star of Dallas Cowboys as a free agent in the offseason, which made Sunday all the sweeter. When he stuck his right foot in the ground late in the fourth quarter, Morris was taking the final steps to cap another harrowing week for the Redskins’ defense. He veered right, then ahead for a 5-yard touchdown. Morris celebrated with his familiar post-touchdown home run swing.
The Redskins’ defense trudged off the field, deliverers of a second forgettable week. Following the opener on Monday night, there was merit to explanations based around the greatness of Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and receiver Antonio Brown. But, 27 points allowed to a team that scored 19 at home the week before? A 103.8 passer rating for a rookie quarterback, Dak Prescott, in his first road game seven days after he delivered a 69.4 in his debut? Duped and dissected by the play-action bootlegs over and over? Those things were not so easy to explain away for a Redskins team that is 0-2 following two home games.
“It sucks we lost,” Washington cornerback Josh Norman said. “Yeah, we all know that. At the end of the day, what’s going to separate you from the teams that lost? You going to put your head in the dirt or going to come out fighting?”
Much of Sunday’s failure took troubling cues from the week before. Wide open receivers. Yardage gains in chunks. Not being able to get off the field on third down. The Redskins’ defense was not disadvantaged by field position throughout the day. In fact, it was the opposite. Seven of the Cowboys’ 10 drives started at their 25-yard line or deeper. Only once, when they took over on downs with 1:56 to play, did they start a drive with the ball on Washington’s side of the field.
Despite the poor location to start, Dallas put together multiple tyrannical drives. Five-plus minutes of grind and torment that ended with points. It started in a dominant first quarter when Dallas possessed the ball for 10:48, producing 10 points. An already thin Washington defensive line lost nose tackle Kedric Golston (hamstring) following the first play. Twelve plays later, Dallas kicked a field goal. A touchdown followed on the next possession that began at the Dallas 6-yard line.
Even when leveraged, the Cowboys were rarely rebuked. They converted 50 percent of their third downs. The Steelers converted 64.3 percent of their first downs. Two weeks into the season. Washington’s defense has allowed the opposition to make hay on 57.7 percent of their third-down chances.
“It sucks not winning on third-and-longs,” linebacker Will Compton said. “It’s pretty deflating. For the most part, we situationally had what we wanted. We just couldn’t get off the field.”
The Cowboys protected Prescott by moving him. He started working play-action boot legs in the first quarter, then continued them throughout the day against a confused or ineffective Redskins defense.
“We just were overeager on the run sometimes, sometimes we got fooled,” safety DeAngelo Hall said.
The bootlegs smoothed the decision-making process for Prescott, who is an effective runner but also not at a stage of his career where the Cowboys want him to stand and process reads from the pocket. In that sense, he is the antithesis of the grizzled Roethlisberger. Washington could not stop either.
The Redskins even delivered a wrinkle their defensive coordinator, Joe Barry, said midweek he was against. Norman and fellow cornerback Bashaud Breeland stopped playing just their sides later in the game. Norman was assigned to trail bulky Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant, who had six of his seven catches by the fourth quarter, when Breeland said the switch occurred.
Next Sunday, the Redskins will tug their shoulder pads on in the Meadowlands at 0-2, two games behind the Giants in the NFC East. A week after a rookie quarterback was able to pocket his first career road win against them, the Redskins face Eli Manning, owner of two Super Bowl trophies and a completion percentage of 73.9 this season.
“We got to get tougher,” Hall said. “Hell, we all got to look in the mirror and figure out a way to make plays. Get tougher, whether it’s in the run game, in the pass game. At the end of the day, our will has to be stronger than theirs. I don’t feel like we wanted it as much as they did.”
Morris produced little other than his touchdown. He gained seven yards on five carries, five of which came on his score. But satisfaction can be measured in multiple ways. For Morris, it came when swinging a fictitious bat in the end zone. For the Redskins’ defense, it’s yet to be found.
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