I'm a Skins fan, but I'd love to get some insight from "the other side". There is a famous book on military strategy by Hart, The Other Side of the Hill, where he interviewed German generals and got their perspective on which Allied generals were good/not (Patton better than Monty), which servicemen were braver (English better than Americans), etc.
Now of course fans are interested in how their players did (not the opposition). So the norm on fan sites is to read about "how our guys messed up" in a loss. This is the same for y'all, for Commanders, for the Browns, etc. And nothing wrong with that. Of course that is your focus.
But still, I'm curious what your impressions of the Skins defense were, from "the other side of the hill". It's perplexing to me how they were able to stymie Dallas, which has an explosive offense, when the Skins were down several starters (DT Allen, S Kurl, C BSJ (and Jackson before that), LB Davis and Bostic (and Holcomb before that).
We are very excited by Howell (and maybe there should be an analysis on why/how you didn't abuse him). But it seems like the victory was much more about the defense than the offense. A pick six, two turnovers on downs (one in punt defense), a fumble recovery in punt defense, and only 6 points conceded. Also, they seemed to stop both the run and the pass (from yardage totals).
Was there something schematic that Washington did to confuse Dak/Moore? Or some standard defense that matches well against them (might be repeated by other opponents)?
Just from snap counts, it looked like our normal "no base", with 4-2-5 (nickel) 80% of snaps, with a small amount of 5-1-5 (we call it "cinco", but it's really just a 3-4 front in nickel--one-two of the DEs standing up like an OLB in 3-4, and one MLB missing) and 4-1-6 (dime). So, our normal packages that we've run all year at least (not some strange Belichick thing). [I guess the one thing I heard was that for SS they switched a lot...tried to sub in Reeves, a coverage liability, on run downs and Butler on pass downs.]
Of course, I don't know how the DBs were deployed or how the line played their gaps. Hard to evaluate for a non-expert, watching live broadcast.
Obviously some aspects are luck (the punter sack), but others like the pick six seem more non-flukey. Fuller was in position for that two plays in a row. He also had a very similar pick six against the (other) Texans a few weeks ago.
Anyhow, just appreciate your thoughts. Was it all luck (or Dallas poor play) or was there something schematic (or even personnel strengths) of Washington that affected the outcome?
P.s. Off topic, but we really enjoy the Vanilla Gorilla. Just something funny about his attitude or how he looks. And he does some to shed well, to make tackles before they even get to the next level, in run defense.
