Cousins has targeted a wide receiver 101 times in 2017, the third lowest total after the Chicago Bears (80) and Buffalo Bills (73), and a significant departure from other seasons during Gruden’s tenure, when his wideouts received an average share of passes during the season, relative to the rest of the league.

And this lack of trust is also preventing Cousins from tossing the ball too far down the field — his average pass is traveling just 9.7 yards past the line of scrimmage, the third-shallowest throws after the Green Bay Packers (9.6) and Dallas Cowboys (9.2). His average depth of target was no lower than 10.6 yards past the line of scrimmage in each of the previous three seasons.

Making short passes isn’t necessarily a bad thing — the West Coast offense is predicated on emphasizing a short, horizontal passing attack to help stretch out the defense from sideline to sideline — but it is obvious the team misses the speed and deep threat of Jackson who, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats tracking data, averaged 2.9 yards of separation from the nearest defender at the time of catch or incompletion. His anticipated replacement, Pryor, is averaging 2.2 yards of separation. That is, when he is playing.

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For the first time this season, Pryor played less than half of Washington offensive snaps in Monday night’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, lining up just 30 times and getting four targets — all in the fourth quarter.

The loss of Jackson and lack of involvement of Pryor has also limited the Redskins’ deep-ball threat. Cousins attempted 24 and 22 deep passes — those traveling 20 or more yards in the air — during the first seven games in 2015 and 2016, respectively, but just 11 in 2017.

Doctson, meanwhile appears headed for a larger part in the Redskins’ offense, yet it remains to be seen how much life he can inject into this group with only nine career catches since 2016. He caught a career-high three passes on Monday against Philadelphia, but his overall game performance placed him 61st out of 99 graded wideouts by the game charters at Pro Football Focus for that week.

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You’d expect third-year pro Jamison Crowder, who caught 67 of his 99 targets for 847 yards and seven touchdowns last season, to have the confidence of Cousins and those running the offense, but he has seen fewer targets this season despite maintaining his role as the team’s primary slot receiver. One reason could be that due to the loss of Jackson and Garcon, Crowder is seeing better defenders in coverage. He managed to put the second-most distance between him and his defender in 2016 (3.6 yards) but has only created an average of three yards of separation in 2017. That could also be the result of lingering hamstring and hip injuries. Either way, Cousins’s passer rating on passes to Crowder has dropped from 112.9 in 2016 to 49.4 in 2017. To put that futility in perspective, if Cousins just threw the ball away rather than take a chance on Crowder his passer rating would be 39.6 on those throws.

The overall effect has reduced a receiving corps that ranked as the eighth-most talented group in 2016, per Pro football Focus, to the sixth-worst a year later, through seven games. That’s dragged down an otherwise above-average passing game along with it.

Redskins Completion percentage Yards per Attempt Yards per Completion Air yards per attempt Yards after the catch per completion Passer Rating 2014 58% 8.4 14.4 11.0 6.5 76.8 2015 65% 8.0 12.3 10.6 4.2 93.1 2016 63% 8.9 14.0 11.0 4.7 95.5 2017 60% 6.8 11.3 9.7 4.0 89.1

Thankfully for Washington, the team is having success passing to tight ends Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis plus running back Chris Thompson.

Reed is averaging 1.6 yards per route run, ninth-highest at the position, with three catches on four targets in the red zone, two ending in touchdowns. Davis is 2-for-2 in the red zone with one touchdown. Only the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals are seeing a higher completion rate to the position this season.

Thompson leads the team in receiving yards (366) with three touchdowns, vaulting him to No. 10 overall in PFF’s position grades through the first seven games of the season.

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Unfortunately, it won’t be enough. The Redskins have fallen to 3-3 with a significantly reduced chance of making the playoffs — teams with three wins in six games average 8.1 wins on the season, far below the average division winner or wild-card team.