Redskins vs. Giants: Into the Heart of Darkness

 When the Redskins walk into The Meadowlands on Thursday they will be entering a place that has haunted them for years.  Since 2000 the Redskins are 4-11 against the Giants in East Rutherford and they have been outscored 291-187 in those fifteen games.  The Redskins will also literally walk into darkness as they play at night, where they are 5-14 since 2000 in either Monday or Thursday Night games.  But alas Jay Gruden has espoused the mantra of a New Day for this Redskins team. The St. Louis game gave the fan base cause to buy into this notion, and the win against the Rams also forced the pundits of the world to come up with a better argument than condescending laughter to the notion that the Redskins can contend in the NFC East.  With the way the Giants have been playing it should not be outright lunacy to think that the Redskins can go on the road with their new found sense of grandeur and come out with a win that could cripple one of their challengers to the aforementioned division title.  But if 2007 taught us anything it is that the Eli Manning led Giants respond well to adversity, and they find themselves in the same position as in 2007; 0-2 and facing the Redskins.  If Washington expects to win in the Meadowlands for the first time since 2011 they will need to show that the Rams game was not a fluke, and the focus of this game plan should be on one man.

Kirk Cousins Needs to Drive the Offense:  This may sound crazy based on the way the Redskins have been able to run the ball the past two weeks, but the game plan should be focused on giving Cousins opportunities to move the offense.  Matt Jones and Alfred Morris are the best running tandem in the league, but it may surprise you that the Giants run defense has only given up 136 yards rushing and allows only 3 yards per rushing attempt.  The Giants know this and may take the advice of almost every talking head and load the box in order to try and stop the Redskins running attack.  If this is the case, and one can almost assume the Giants will at least try this, it means that Cousins will have to take control of this offense in order to keep drives moving on a defense that has given up 702 passing yards so far this season.  Those yards were given up to pass happy teams, but the Redskins may need to show that they can get a little pass happy in order to take pressure off of the run game.  Cousins already sports the fourth best completion percentage in the league (75.9%) and half of his completions have gone for first downs.  This means that he is asked to throw the ball in pressure situations in order to keep drives moving and he delivers in those situations more often than not.  This game will challenge Cousins to be more than a situational passer by seeing if he can make mid to long distance throws in order move the ball, and Sean McVay must give Cousins a game plan that allows him to throw the ball downfield.  Cousins will need to throw for over 250 yards if the Redskins expect to win in a game with less than 2 Giants turnovers.  Which brings us to the defense.

Secondary Needs to be on High Alert: The Redskins number one ranked defense may have benefitted from the fact that they did not have to face a top tier receiver the past two weeks.  They will Thursday when they face Odell Beckham, and he is the difference in an otherwise pedestrian passing game.  Eli Manning has a lower completion percentage, yards per attempt average, passing attempts, and passing yards than Ryan Tannehill so far this season so one begins to ask why should this week be any different than the past two for the Redskins secondary.  The answer is Odell Beckham.  He opened up last week and showed he can be a threat to score or get big chunks of yardage on every play.  The secondary must find a way to limit his big play ability, and keep his average under 15 yards per reception.  Aside from his 67 yard touchdown last week, Beckham averaged 11 yards per reception so anything over 15 yards per reception means Beckham is going for big catches that will lead the Giants to victory.  The secondary also needs to be on high alert for runs to the outside, and play action off of those runs.  The Rams were able to get the most yards on the ground from jet sweeps and runs away from the middle, and their touchdown was scored on a fake jet sweep that caught the corner looking in the backfield with no safety help.  You can bet the Giants will try to set the edges and test how physical the corners really are, and don't think they haven't noticed that the Redskins defense really has not been tested this year in the run game.  The Redskins have the lowest amount of rushing attempts against them in the league yet they give up the seventh highest yards per attempt.  Expect Culliver, Hall, and Breeland to be busy in both run and pass defense as the Giants try to favor the outside runs early to set up the Redskins cornerbacks for big plays later on. 

Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object: The one area where the Giants stand out statistically is in the efficiency of their offensive drives, and it may be the key to this game.  The Giants have scored on 45% of their drives and average about 6.6 plays per drive.  The Redskins defense, however, has allowed teams to score on only 19.6% of their drives with an average of 4.9 plays per drive.  Something has to give.  Either the Redskins stymie The Giants' offense and allow their offense to have a chance to operate their brutal running assault with impunity, or the Giants field goal themselves into a position to hit Beckham on a long touchdown late in the game that forces the Redskins to abandon their run heavy approach.  Limiting turnovers and big plays will be the key to winning this nerdy stat game. 

This has the makings of a game that has an outcome that no one saw coming.  The Redskins' running game could be shut down to the point where Kirk Cousins needs to make plays on a regular basis and have a respectable NFL stat line.  The Giants could come out running the ball to test the Redskins defense in order to open up things for Odell Beckham and keep the Redskins defense on the field longer than they have been all season.  All of these will be attempted, but Morris and Jones do their best vintage Joker impression and show the Giants who the new beasts of the east are:


Score: 27-20 Redskins win.