Positives are scarce for the Washington Football Team after Week 2, even with the Thursday Night Football win over the NFC East rival Giants.
Even for a (sometimes overly) positive person such as myself, sometimes the positives are hard to find. The Washington Football Team beat the New York Giants on Thursday Night Football to kick off Week 2. In doing so though, there weren’t all that many positives.
Washington won the game, 30-29. So there were absolutely some positives. First of all, after two miserable drives to start the game, quarterback Taylor Heinicke looked superb. He was making throws left and right.
Even at the end of the game, that interception wasn’t really all his fault. Terry McLaurin got bumped into a bad spot and, while it wasn’t a great throw, it was mostly just solid defense and odd play calling. Heinicke looked very much ready to take over as the starter for the Washington Football Team.
Speaking of McLaurin, earlier in the week I spoke about how the receiver getting only four targets in Week 1 was unacceptable. That was fixed. The star wide receiver finished the game with 11 receptions on 14 targets, racking up 107 yards and a touchdown. That’s a major positive. Another positive is that the offensive line looked solid for most of the game.
What about the defense though? Giving up 29 points to the Giants isn’t exactly encouraging. They picked up four sacks, but that’s nothing “special” especially considering New York’s offensive line isn’t great. For most of the game, Washington wasn’t bringing all that much pressure.
There was a nice stretch where they were getting through, but it didn’t last too long. Meanwhile, they were getting eaten alive by the option; quarterback Daniel Jones was running all over them. If it wasn’t for a holding penalty, his numbers (95 rushing yards and a touchdown on nine carries) would have been even more astronomical.
The defense wasn’t just not getting pressure though. They were getting touched in the secondary. It felt like they were playing extremely soft, more than happy to give up 10 yards if it meant they weren’t going to give up a touchdown. This led to a number of third-and-longs being converted.
New York did go just 4-for-12 on third-down conversions, much better for the Washington defense compared to last week. It still felt like they were struggling to get off the field though.
There was also that legendarily bad drop by Darius Slayton. Wide-open for a touchdown on a blown coverage, he dropped the pass. That might have saved Washington from losing.
Of course, that’s without even mentioning the offsides penalty on Dexter Lawrence at the end of the game. Kicker Dustin Hopkins missed his initial attempt, but was given a second chance due to the penalty, and drained the kick to win the game.
So we saw a bad hold that probably wasn’t necessary that led to a Jones touchdown being called back. Then we saw a dropped touchdown pass with no one within 20 yards of Slayton. And finally, the offsides on a missed field goal that would have ended the game. New York lost the game.
Heinicke was very promising. McLaurin was given star treatment and of course didn’t disappoint. Dyami Brown played better, Logan Thomas is still great. Adam Humphries had a few solid plays, and Antonio Gibson ran well. The offensive line looked pretty good. Jonathan Allen already has three sacks. Montez Sweat is now up to two.
The kicking got bailed out though. So did the defense on a number of occasions. Jack Del Rio didn’t seem to want to bring much pressure, which is mind-boggling. When he did, it worked. Kendall Fuller got a sack in about one second on one play, and they forced tough plays a few other times. Outside of that, the defense was playing soft coverage and it kept biting them in the butt.
Going up against a division rival and winning should be cause for celebration. And you should be happy as a fan. They struggled but managed to leave with a win. And in the end, nothing matters but the result and how it stands for the regular-season record.
There felt like more negatives than positives though. So it should be cautious optimism. The good news is, the Washington Football Team built on some things from Week 1. If they keep improving, things will be going great soon enough. They got the job done and now have a 1-1 record. Now we just need to hope that the coaching staff and the players can identify what went wrong, and work to fix it.