The Takeaways, Week 18: Washington at New York
January 11, 2022
by Steve Thomas
It’s time for our final edition of The Takeaways of the 2021-22 season. This column is The Hog Sty’s attempt to address the big picture, “around the watercooler” topics from each week’s Redskins Washington football game. This week’s game against the New York Giants went well, with Washington earning a victory over a really, really bad opponent. Washington actually hurt their draft status with the win, but, really, who cares about that? Not me. Give me a win every time. Let’s dive into this week’s Takeaways.
Washington’s won a battle to determine the least worst team on the field
This game wasn’t exactly a battle of two NFL titans. Neither team duplicated their hayday in the 1980s on Sunday. The second quarter of this game featured 8 straight punts. Nevertheless, Washington’s offense did just enough, barely, to earn a victory, with an assist from Bobby McCain’s pick 6. Washington’s offense looked downright stagnant for much of this game, but fortunately, the Giants’ attack was far, far worse. Neither team is going to put this game on a highlight reel, so fans shouldn’t take much from this sort of victory. Washington’s offense only scored 16 points, which would’ve been a loss against even an average team, although it was good enough against the horrible Giants.
Welcome home, Antonio Gibson
This biggest positive of this contest, by far, was Gibson’s resurgence. He had the best game his career, earning 146 rushing yards on just 21 carries, for an average of 7.0 yards per carry, and 1 touchdown, plus one reception for 5 yards on 3 targets. His previous high was 128 yards on 20 carries against Dallas in week 7 last season. This is important because Gibson hasn’t produced this season as compared to his rookie year. He has certainly been banged up for the majority of the season, so the fact that he played at such a high level in week 18 was a major benefit to the team heading into the offseason. Granted, the Giants are a trainwreck, but perhaps Gibson’s problems this year really were due more to his injuries than to some sort of drop off. At a minimum, it should give the team some pause before thinking about reorganizing the running back room, if they were so inclined in the first place.
Welcome home, Terry McLaurin
Before this game, McLaurin had gone 6 straight weeks with 61 yards or less receiving, including 0 yards against Dallas in week 13. It was refreshing to see him have a good game again, with 93 yards on just 4 receptions in 6 targets. Furthermore, a significant percentage of those yards came after the catch, meaning they were gained completely by McLaurin. He most likely would’ve had a much bigger game if it had been an important contest, not the final game of the season by two losing teams playing out the string. Hopefully Washington’s front office will make McLaurin a large, multi-year market-value contract offer as soon as possible in order to keep him with the team for the foreseeable future.
Taylor Heinicke doesn’t finish strong
Heinicke has had his ups and downs this season, but overall looked like he belonged and drastically outplayed any expectations when he was originally signed as a COVID-10 emergency quarterback late last season. That said, Sunday wasn’t his proudest moment, with just 120 passing yards on 9 completions in 18 attempts, for a 71.5 quarterback rating. This game probably doesn’t change much in terms of the team’s plans for the offseason, whatever they are, but he certainly didn’t help his cause. Heinicke was repeatedly late on his throws this week, which is a problem he’s had all year long. His leadership qualities and moxie aren’t at issue; his arm strength and mechanics are. A great against the Giants to finish off the season would’ve given the team something to think about, but that didn’t happen.
Take this week’s defensive stats with a grain of salt
Yes, Washington held the Giants to just 83 net passing yards, which is amazing, and just 94 rushing yards – also a quality day – but the Giants offense was absolutely horrid in every way. It wasn’t all Jake Fromm’s fault – head coach Joe Judge embarrassed himself as a playcaller, and Kenny Golladay acted like he didn’t want to bother making an effort on a deep 9 route that should’ve been caught and might have even been a touchdown. Washington held Saquon Barkley to just 30 yards in 11 carries, which is a great defensive result, but honestly, he looked like a shell of himself as compared to how he performed pre-knee injury in 2018 and 2019. So, congratulations to Washington’s defense on a job well done, but neither the fans nor the front office should put too much stock in what happened on Sunday.
Bonus Takeaway: Dustin Hopkins Chris Blewitt Joey Slye Brian Johnson Lirim Harullahu Brian Johnson Joey Slye watch
This section was originally much longer; instead, look forward to a separate column from me on the kicking situation in the next few weeks. For now, here’s a list of field goal percentages made for all of Washington’s kickers this season, in order. This includes all season attempts, whether for Washington or not:
Johnson: 100% (10 attempts)
Slye: 92% (25 attempts)
Hopkins: 88.2% (34 attempts)
All non-Hopkins kickers combined: 87.5% (40 attempts)
Blewitt: 40% (5 attempts)
For extra points, the results are:
Blewitt: 100% (2 attempts)
Hopkins: 90.9% (44 attempts)
Slye: 81.8% (22 attempts)
Johnson: 69.2% (13 attempts)
Did Washington upgrade the kicking position by getting rid of Hopkins? No, not really, but they probably didn’t lose anything either, at least between Hopkins and Slye. It was a pretty even trade in that regard. Those two are basically neck and neck, with Slye slightly ahead of Hopkins on field goal percentage, but on 9 fewer kicks in just 12 games as compared to Hopkins’ 17 games. The difference in field goal percentage is essentially one miss. The difference in the extra point percentage is skewed by Slye having attempted half as many extra points as Hopkins. As I mentioned above, though, I’m going to do a deep dive into the numbers to determine a more complete answer, so stay tuned.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this year! This column will be back for week 1 of the 2022 season.