Skins lose to Iggles

So there was obviously a ton of hype with the return of RG3.  Unfortunately, the Skins came out flat.  Just a nightmarish first half.  It happens.  I don't like it. I don't know how to explain it but those things happen. Nothing seemed to go right for the Skins in the first half.  Give Chip Kelly, Vickles, and the Iggles credit.  They came out with their up tempo offense and the Skins couldn't find an answer until later in the game.  Still, the question is how much of it was the Iggles offense or the Skins ineptitude in the first half?  The answer is probably some where in the middle.

Skins continually shot themselves in the foot with turnovers, bad/untimely penalties, and just poor execution. The good news is that those things are correctable.  It was good to see them come back from a 33-7 deficit and make a game of it to finish 33-27.  I understand the Iggles game philosophy changed when they were up but still it wasn't like the Iggles gave the Skins points or didn't try to score anymore so the Skins do deserve credit for not quitting and continuing to fight. 

This pretty much sums up the Skins first half: their first seven plays: lost fumble by Alfred Morris, 3-yard loss by Morris, penalty for illegal shift, screen to Morris that got back some yards, interception thrown by Griffin into triple coverage, pass dropped by fullback Darrel Young, safety that occurred when Morris bobbled a pitch in the end zone.  Not a recipe for success.

Along with these miscues, the Skins had terrible field position the entire first half.  I believe the average starting position for the Skins was at the 10 yard line compared to the Iggles starting from their 35 yard line.  It's a huge difference.

Rookie PR/KR Chris Thompson made a number of mistakes catching punts inside the 10 yard line and trying to return kickoffs sent deep into the end zone.  I understand he is a rookie and wants to make a play but it didn't work out and cost us valuable field position.  Other rookie Baccari Rambo needs to play better.  He does not break down in open field tackling allowing guys to get right by him.  I also think he was out of position at times in coverage.  On the flip side, I thought rookie David Amerson was solid at CB.  Rookie Jordan Reed had himself a nice game with several catches. 

As far as RG3 is concerned, I know many people are saying that he didn't look 100%.  For me, he looked 100% but he just looked a bit rusty.  It shouldn't be a surprise that some of his passes were off and his timing was off a bit.  He never got a chance to play in the preseason and that hurts.  In the end, I thought it was a solid first game back all things considered.  It will take him another game or two to get back into the rhythm but I don't have any doubts about him.  The tough part was that we got down so big so early that we were forced out of our running game and had to pass.  In this game, our best defense was going to be our offense as we needed to keep their up tempo offense off the field .  It just didn't work out that way. 

Will be interesting to see how well the Chip Kelly offense is over the course of the season.  This is one game so you can't get too high or low on anything.  We seem to say this every season but it takes 3 or 4 games before everything normalizes and you can weed the contenders from the pretenders.  I will say that our defense seemed much more effective against Vickles when we sent additional pressure.  We'll see how other teams decide to defend against them.

In the end, I'm disappointed but far from concerned.  As mentioned, it's one game and we have to learn from it and move on.  Next week is the Puckers who present their own set of challenges.  Rodgers will definitely put our suspect secondary to the test.  With both teams losing their opening games, no doubt both will be fighting to stave off an 0-2 start.

HTTR!!!