Five Keys: Redskins Must Protect Against Bradford, Letdown

The young quarterback had success playing Washington last season

The Redskins head out to St Louis to take on the Rams after a short week of preparation following a disheartening Monday night loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

With a bye week on the horizon, Washington would like to beat the winless Rams and take the week off with a 3-1 record in hand. However, they’ll have to be careful not to overlook a matchup that has been decided by six points or less in four of the teams’ past six meetings.

Here are five keys to the game:

1. Slow starts have been an early season trend for the Redskins, as they have just six first-quarter points through three games. Conversely, the Rams have given up 42 first-quarter points, which should provide the Redskins the perfect opportunity to explode out of the gate this week.

If Washington can take command of the game right away, you have to like the odds. When trailing after three quarters, the Rams have lost 45 straight games. Just to further put that in perspective, they haven’t had a come-from-behind fourth-quarter win since 2006 against the 49ers.

2. The third game of Sam Bradford’s career came against the Redskins in 2010, but he didn’t play like a rookie in the Rams 30-16 victory. Bradford completed 62.2 percent of his passes, going 23 of 37 for 235 yards, a touchdown and an interception.

It wasn’t a dynamic performance -- he completed just one pass of over 20 yards -- but Bradford picked apart the Redskins' secondary with quick throws to offset the pass rush and keep the defense on its heels.

The Rams offense has morphed into more of a vertical attack under Josh McDaniels, and though Bradford is quite capable of leading it, injuries have taken away some of his best weapons.

But that doesn’t mean the Redskins are regarding him lightly.

“You can see the talent level,” Mike Shanahan said. “He’s going to be one of the top quarterbacks in the league for a long time. He’s that talented and hopefully that doesn’t come out this weekend.”

3. It’s time to get the ground game in gear. The Rams are ranked dead last in run defense, surrendering 174.3 yards per game, and after abandoning the run against Dallas, Kyle Shanahan might want to think about throwing a bone to his running backs and offensive line this week.

The matchup is favorable to the Redskins, and if Washington either can’t establish the run or chooses not to, the playcalling will be under further scrutiny on Monday morning. There isn’t nearly enough balance to Kyle Shanahan’s gameplans, and this is the perfect week to work on adding an extra dimension to the offense.

4. Red zone success is another shortcoming on offense drawing plenty of criticism, and with good reason. The Redskins have converted just three of their last 10 red zone trips into touchdowns.

“Usually the teams that move the ball the most consistently usually score in the red zone,” Mike Shanahan said. “You’ve just got to be able to run the ball, you’ve got to be able to throw the ball, you’ve got to be able to keep the defense off-balance and you’ve got to be at your best down there. And hopefully we can keep on getting better.”

With the Rams defense yielding a success rate of 50 percent in the red zone, Shanahan better hope there’s some improvement this week.

5. This is a big game for Rex Grossman. One week ago his job seemed perfectly safe, but given his track record all it took was a pair of turnovers in Dallas to bring out some John Beck supporters.

Grossman already has five turnovers in three games, putting him on pace for about 26 this season. He’s still the guy and rightly so, but a poor performance in St. Louis could lead to a re-evaluation of the quarterback position during the bye.

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