Ugh. I feel for the 'skins. RGIII should still be sitting and Cousins should be playing (from game 1 onward).
Adrian Peterson set the bar too high on ACL returns - people should remember it used to take you out for a year+ (and before that it was career ending), and RGIII had the surgery only 7 months ago or so.
You owner needs to get FedEx field fixed, that field is a piece of crap. Seahawks are still missing Clemons (our best pass rusher), who also tore an ACL in the same playoff game (had surgery a bit after RGIII, and is about ready to go, but the coaches are delaying to make sure). That field is soup.
At least Morris bounced back in game 2.
Totally disagree on Cousins for several reasons:
- physically, doctors say RGIII's knee is healed
- mentally, RGIII isn't there yet, but how can he trust his knee if they don't let him play
- there may be other factors like the wishes of RGIII and his dad as to why they are not running him. Washingtons failure to run RGIII is affecting the entire offense. Without the threat of RGIII running, Morris can't be effective either. Additionally, offensive line has several noticeable weaknesses that are exposed when RGIII doesn't run. He's not protected long enough to get off the throws that the coaches are calling. So why they aren't running him is an unknown that still needs to be resolved and if he's not going to run then play calling needs to be adjusted short term and long term they need to get some different o-line guys in there to give the protection griff would need to succeed as pocket passer. But the only way to resolve that possible unknown is to keep him in and try some different things and figure out what works for everyone.
- perhaps most importantly... There's a strong possibility that cousins doesn't even give the skins a better chance at winning! Lets remember that the game cousins won last season was against the dreadful BROWNS. I doubt he still looks like Tom Brady against a good team like the packers.
So basically, if they play cousins, the deprive their franchise guy of the chance to get the in field work the skins need for griffin to show the mental improvement that he needs to start playing more like himself, and they might not even have a better shot at winning. Playing cousins instead of griffin keeps the skins playing like garbage even longer!
People forget that AP didn't look stellar his first few games either. Or Tom Brady for that matter. All the sudden when RGIII starts to look like the star he is again everyone's going to forget about this rough patch.
Supposedly some improvements are going to be made in maintaining FedEx field this season, but I'm dubious. Last year it was a mud pit and you have to think that playing on slippery mud is dangerous for a guy with a bad knee. Why they don't switch to nice, safe turf is a mystery to me...
If Skins go 2-2 into the bye they still are okay to look at the possibility of taking NFC east again... A little more iffy at 1-3, but as RGIII shakes the rust, the current issues they're having suddenly become non-issues again like they were last year. Even if this season is a bust while RGIII heals, the long-term prospects for the team I feel are good because they will be free soon from the salary cap penalty and they'll start getting their first round draft picks again after they finish paying off the picks they traded to draft griffin.
