His defense, which dominated in years past, has allowed the most points, the second-most rushing yards and the fourth-most yards in the NFL this preseason. But Washington Redskins assistant head coach Gregg Williams remains fully confident that his unit is as good as the top 10 defenses he guided the past two years.
“You don’t like some of those things that go on, but in those things are correctable errors,” Williams said three days after the Redskins lost 41-0 at New England. “Sometimes you even have a more receptive audience when you come back after one of those kind of [games]. It’s been nice in the meeting room this week; ’Coach, what do you think you can do to help me?’ It’s never as bad as it seems. It’s never as good as it seems.”
That’s probably true, but after giving up just three plays of 10 yards or more in the first two games, Williams’ regulars [minus the injured Phillip Daniels, Cornelius Griffin and Shawn Springs] surrendered a staggering 13 such plays to the Patriots.
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Not included in those 13 plays was the 17-yard interference penalty on third-and-10 on cornerback Carlos Rogers that kept New England’s first drive alive and led to a field goal. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady completed consecutive passes of 39 and 36 yards on the next series and New England led 10-0 less than 10 minutes into the game. Another 35-yard completion two possessions later put New England in position to go up 17-0 midway through the second quarter.
“We had a couple of big plays that popped out on us,” admitted Williams, whose starters were victimized for a 61-yard touchdown on a reverse against the New York Jets on Aug. 19. “It’s funny for me to see everybody place such importance on that third preseason game.”
The Patriots played the game as if it was the last serious regular season tuneup, but Williams said the Redskins saw the light after game-planning for opponents last summer.
“We spent way too much time talking about other people instead of talking about us,” Williams said. “We tried to indoctrinate new staff members and new players into how a regular season work week would be. But half the guys [weren’t] going to be here. So we haven’t done any of that this year. We’ve installed, not game-planned.”
Williams’ two new starters aren’t worried either.
“I don’t know if we’re going backwards,” safety Adam Archuleta said. “We’ve had games where we’ve played well against the run [minus-8 yards on three carries at Cincinnati] and we’ve had games where we’ve played well against the pass [the Jets passed for just 45 yards on 13 attempts]. If we put it together, we’ll be where we need to be. We didn’t play up to our expectations last week, but we’re not sounding the alarms.”
Defensive end Andre Carter referred to the 41-0 drubbing as “more of a disappointment than a shock.”
“Fortunately, our mistakes can be corrected before the real bullets start flying [in the Sept. 11 opener against Minnesota],” Carter added.
Of course, that’s the date Williams has his eyes on, too. And the coach saw the bright side of the extended absences of Springs, Daniels and Griffin, noting that it has allowed the Redskins to give roster hopefuls more of an extended look as has the NFL’s roster increase from 65 to 75 for this year’s preseason finales.
“We’ve been working incrementally toward that Monday night contest to open the season,” Williams said. “In the last two games, we’ve been as generic as we can because we wanted to see all different kinds of combinations. We wanted to see some pass rush out of guys, some one-on-one coverage for communication reasons, technique reasons. Certain guys can’t do certain things, but you don’t know that until you let them play. [Having] the extra [10] guys in this last game will be helpful.”
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