The Takeaways, Week 10: Tampa Bay at Washington
November 14, 2021
by Steve Thomas
Welcome to The Takeaways, week 10 edition, which is The Hog Sty’s effort to provide you with the big picture, “around the watercooler” story lines from each week’s Washington football game. This week, the Redskins Washington surprisingly won its third game of the season over the defending Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Taylor Heinicke truly has made a career against Tampa. It’s nice to do a Takeaways piece with more positive than negative, for once. I’ll cover it all here, so keep reading.
Washington’s offense played aggressive, mostly mistake-free football
Washington really had their stuff together Sunday, for the most part, consistently gaining yards and scoring points on offense without making the kind of soul-crushing mistakes that have characterized most of the season to date. Washington’s running back group didn’t have much success against the Buccaneers, averaging just 2.5 yards per carry, but they did manage to get first downs and make plays when it counted. For his part, Heinicke completed over 80% of his pass attempts and didn’t throw an interception. Washington didn’t go downfield much, but kept at what was working, namely the screens and flat passes, which culminated in the game-winning 19 play, ten and a half minute drive that took up most of the fourth quarter. Seriously, congratulations to the entire team for pulling this off.
Tampa had an uncharacteristically bad day, but that’s not why they lost
NFL teams don’t see Tampa at their worst very often, but that’s what happened in Sunday, with Tom Brady throwing two interceptions and their defense unable to get Washington’s offense off the field all day long (say what???). However, most impressively from Washington’s perspective, this wasn’t just poor play by the Buccaneers – Washington’s defense put Brady under consistent pressure for most of the game and forced Tampa to stick to a short-passing offense for most of the game, with only two plays going for over 25 yards. And on offense, Washington scored and stayed on the field when it counted. So, yes, Tampa Bay didn’t play well on Sunday, but this wasn’t a case in which Washington lucked into a win. The stars were somehow able to align just right and Washington got their act together and outplayed Tampa. In the immortal words of Al Pacino, “on any given Sunday . . . . ”
Taylor Heinicke comes back from the brink
Every time people are ready to toss Taylor on the trash heap of failed NFL quarterbacks, he comes back from the dead to impress once again. This is what happened in week 10. After Washington media and fans had mostly concluded after week 8 that Heinicke was a failure as a starting quarterback and were looking for the team to make a move. Taylor responded with his best game of his career, completing 26 of 32 pass attempts for 256 yards and an 81% completion percentage, plus one touchdown and no interceptions, despite being pressured and harassed all day by Tampa Bay’s defensive front seven. No offensive player was more responsible for Washington’s offensive success than Heinicke, who spread the ball around to 9 different receivers. Heinicke led the team to scores on six of their nine drives, including an 11 play, 64 yard drive, another that went 8 plays and 71 yards, plus the game-winning 19 play, 80 yard, 10 and a half minute drive. All of this is a minor miracle considering what the offense has produced this year and considering what Tampa Bay’s defense has done to most teams this season. Does this change Washington’s long-term need from a franchise quarterback? Probably not, but for this one day, at least, Heinicke was the star.
The defensive line had an outstanding day despite the numbers
While Washington was unable to sack Tom Brady and had just one quarterback hit courtesy of future Pro Bowler Jonathan Allen, they nevertheless had Tom Terrific under significant pressure for most of the game and forced him to primarily look short. Did you notice that Brady only went deep a few times all day? He didn’t have time for more. It’s a bit ironic that a game that was perhaps the defensive front seven’s best effort all season came without the services of Montez Sweat and with Chase Young going down to what appears to be a season-ending knee injury in the second quarter. Thank goodness for Jon Allen.
Where’s this secondary been?
Yes, Kendall Fuller was beaten by Mike Evans for a touchdown in press-man coverage, and William Jackson III also gave up a long gain, but those things happen. The big picture point is that the secondary didn’t have any obvious blown coverages or make any other serious mistakes. The fact that one of the best pocket quarterbacks in NFL history was unable to pick apart Washington’s secondary is a sign of how well this unit played for most of the game. Granted, both Ron Gronkowski and Antonio Brown were out, but Tampa still featured two of the best in the league, Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, and they were held mostly in check. I suspect that the All-22 film will show that this was probably the secondary’s best game of the season.
Bonus Takeaway: Dustin Hopkins Chris Blewitt Joey Slye watch
Washington’s third kicker of the year was very good in his first game, making three field goals in three attempts, converting kicks of 25, 28, and 45 yards, and also went 2 for 2 on extra points. He didn’t put every kickoff into the end zone for touchbacks, but that’s a small price to pay for the lack of drama in kicking. Let’s hope this is a harbinger of things to come.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back with another edition of The Takeaways when Washington travels to Carolina to face Ron Rivera’s old team next Sunday afternoon.