Wild Card Playoff: Skins vs Seahawks (Sun, 4:30pm)

[LyricalRico]

First division championship in the 21st century for the Skins! And now a home playoff game against the only team that may be hotter than they are - Seattle Seahawks. A few questions about this game:

1. Will Cedric Griffin be activated to bolster the secondary?
2. How will traveling cross-country affect the Seahawks?
3. Who plays better between Russell Wilson and RG3?

Discuss!

[Rafael122]

Griffin is back and practicing I believe. Him being out there is going to help.

Seahawks were 3-5 on the road this year. None of their wins came against playoff teams, and aside from the losses, they had trouble closing out against the Panthers and Bears.

[LyricalRico]

Seahawks were 3-5 on the road this year. None of their wins came against playoff teams, and aside from the losses, they had trouble closing out against the Panthers and Bears.

Yep, and that makes me feel a whole lot better about our chances.

[LyricalRico]

Man, tough to go up 14-0 at home and then lose. And tough to watch RG3 limp around out there. Thought they should have gone to Cousins earlier than they did, while they still had the lead.

[closg00]

Everyone I was watching the game with thought that RGIII should have been pulled, it was obvious that he was barely mobile. Keeping RG in the game playing injured actually had the opposite intended effect. Cousins should have been given wn opportunity.

[CJ_18]

Im not sure if how I feel about the question about if they should've pulled him earlier.. but I do know that i just feel really bad for the guy..

[LyricalRico]

Everyone I was watching the game with thought that RGIII should have been pulled, it was obvious that he was barely mobile. Keeping RG in the game playing injured actually had the opposite intended effect. Cousins should have been given wn opportunity.

Yep, Shanahan should have had the guts to make that call. They were dominating Seattle and then RG3 goes down untouched, goes to the locker room, comes back, and they can't move the ball for the rest of the game. There's no doubt in my mind they could have held that lead with Cousins playing the second half.

And going forward, hopefully Shanahan's inaction hasn't doomed us to now have a QB with a bum knee from here on out. I mean, that knee went in directions it wasn't intended to on that last play. If RG3 is never the same, it sets the franchise back 10 years. Epic fail by the coach IMO.

[Illuminaire]

I was angrily shouting at the screen after the second quarter, when it was clear RGIII couldn't run without a significant limp and a pained grimace. Shanahan had to show the balls to pull him. HAD to.

He didn't... and I'm still seething about it. That indecision probably cost us the game, and might have cost us a franchise QB to boot.

[Nivek]

I think Griffin probably should have been pulled, but I can understand the "heat of the moment" decision to keep him in the game. I suspect much of this criticism would be praise if the Skins had found a way to win.

That said, I think the bigger issue is the atrocious playing surface at FedEx Field.

Wrote about it here.

Skins should use the offseason to examine their process for making decisions about whether or not a player should be on the field. They need to decide ahead of time who gets to provide input, how the decisions will be made, and who gets final decision-making authority. My thinking is that the play/don't play call should be made by doctors, not the coach and player.

[Illuminaire]

I can't understand the "heat of the moment" decision, Kevin. Sometimes it's hard to tell how bad a player is hurt, and that makes sense. Griffin was clearly in a great deal of pain, and it was obviously hindering his play in a significant manner. He barely got off the field on a designed run.

Moreover, I kept thinking back to his first run of the game, where he could have easily stepped out of bounds but instead darted back into a defender, taking a hit to gain an extra yard. Griffin IS a gamer. That's awesome. But it was clear in the moment that he was a danger to himself, and not helping the team.

Could Cousins have actually done better? Probably not. But that didn't matter. The right decision (medically and football, short term and long) was to pull Griffin in the second quarter. Fans, announcers, pundits, and even opposing players could see that as it was happening. Shanahan couldn't, or wouldn't, and that is a problem.

[LyricalRico]

^ Agreed. It would be different if Griffin got hurt towards the end of the game and then he went back out for one last drive to try to win it. That would be "heat of the moment", but this was different IMO. Shanahan had the end of the first quarter, the entire second quarter, halftime, the entire third quarter, and most of the 4th quarter to see what was happening and do something.

[Nivek]

The more I think about it, the more I'm coming to the same conclusion many others have -- Shanahan should've pulled him at halftime. It was clear that Griffin was hurting by then, and he wasn't throwing well either.

The real issue (aside from crappy field) is the football culture, of course. There really isn't a long-term outlook when it comes to injuries. It's "how soon can we get him back on the field"?

I don't know that Griffin was trying to prove his toughness to his teammates. I think he wanted to play, he wanted to win, and he believed that he could go out there and do it despite the pain in his knee.

Like I wrote in my blog, the team needs to take a look at HOW they're going to make these kinds of decisions in the future.

[Illuminaire]

Agreed 100% Kev. Something is terribly broken about the way the Redskins decide on game-time medical issues.