The Takeaways, Week 1 edition
September 10, 2024
by Steve Thomas
This series, The Takeaways, is something I’ve each week during the season for many years, with the exception of the 2022 season. The point of this column is to give me a weekly vehicle to get out my unhinged, off-the-cuff thoughts on Washington’s last game. The idea here is that I’m just going to give my immediate, unresearched views on what just happened to the Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington in that week’s contest, without any research or film study of any kind other than looking at the game’s basic stats. This week, in the first game of the 2024 season, Washington got whacked by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 20 – 37. What are my thoughts about this game? Let’s dive right in.
Jayden Daniels was . . . okay
Daniels was 17 for 24 passing, for a 70.8% completion percentage, for 184 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 93.1 quarterback rating. He also had 16 carries for 88 yards, 5.5 yards per carry, and 2 touchdowns. Overall, he didn’t look bad and didn’t make any terrible, game-changing mistakes; that having been said, he also was unable to effectively drive Washington’s offense with his arm. I’d give his debut a C+ in terms of his command and execution of the passing game, with bonus points for his rushing ability. Daniels checked down quite a bit, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but only rarely tried to make difficult passes over the middle and deep. The Buccaneers didn’t appear to be threatened by his arm, which is probably fair. To his credit, he tried to hang in the pocket on many occasions, only to be stymied by either the pass rush or Tampa’s strong secondary. In my view, this was a game that won’t necessarily raise his stock in the eyes of the NFL, but it also won’t hurt him as did Caleb Williams’ performance apparently did yesterday. Daniels wasn’t great, or even “good”, but his performance does qualify as something to build on.
Take the training wheels off of the passing game
All of that having been said, I wasn’t impressed by Kliff Kingsbury’s offensive gameplan. It seemed pretty apparent that Kingsbury intentionally had a pretty simple passing attack in mind in order to ease Daniels into the NFL. I made a specific point about saying in both my game preview column and, I believe on The Hog Sty Podcast as well, that this sort of plan wasn’t going to work against Tampa Bay given the quality of their offense. Next week, I want to see Kingsbury take off the training wheels, for better or worse, and allow Daniels to use a wider variety of passing strategies beyond a string of dump offs and screens. Daniels has potential and might just develop into the answer, but he needs to use the full scope of an NFL passing attack as quickly as possible.
Daniels can’t be the entire running game
Along those lines, Washington needs to somehow find a running game that can help Daniels. Something is most likely eventually going to go horribly wrong at some point if he has to be his own rushing game. The problem, of course, is that Brian Robinson Jr. isn’t a plus-level player, and the team doesn’t appear to believe that Austin Ekeler is anymore, either, at least based on his 2 carry game on Sunday. Getting the interior offensive line to improve would go a long way towards helping in this area – a good offensive line can make an average running back appear to be better than he is. That didn’t happen against Tampa Bay, at all. With all apologies to Lamar Jackson, who somehow makes this kind of play work without getting injured, I don’t want to see 16 carries from Daniels again, at least not on a regular basis. Quinn, Kingsbury, and company need to make a distinct effort to dream up a sustainable and productive running game that doesn’t involve Daniels in order to give both him and the offensive as much of a chance to succeed at possible.
The offensive tackles are predictably bad
I haven’t looked at the snap count yet, because, as I said above, this is The Takeaways, and I don’t do research for this, but instead just unload all of my immediately thoughts. Cornelius Lucas started the game, but at some point, Brandon Coleman got some playing time. Coleman appeared to be at least slightly better. Neither Lucas nor right tackle Andrew Wylie, though, did much to dispel the thoughts amongst some that Washington is badly lacking in that regard. Daniels was only sacked twice, but was continually under pressure and repeatedly saved himself with his outstanding running ability. I also didn’t see the tackles creating much room in the running game, either. Hopefully Coleman is the answer at left tackle – he’ll eventually get his opportunity to start, probably soon – but this game didn’t convince me. There’s nothing Washington can do about it right now. The season will just have to play out. Gulp.
Washington’s low-rent secondary isn’t good enough
I realize that Washington was facing a future possible Hall of Famer in Mike Evans and his high quality counterpart, Chris Godwin. Not every team is going to have a tandem of players at that caliber. That having ben said, though, it seemed pretty clear that this group isn’t good enough, particularly the corners, but also the safeties at times. Forbes is a bust and, while St-Juste has had his moments, he has no business covering the likes of Mike Evans one on one as Washington’s #1 corner. I mentioned in the written game preview that Washington needed to shade a zone towards Evans and not put St-Juste in the position in which he’s left in press-man coverage against Evans. Well, that happened on Sunday, which resulted in a Tampa touchdown. My preseason view that the corner group was the team’s biggest defensive problem was not changed at all on the basis of this game, unfortunately.
That’s it for week 1 edition of The Takeaways. Washington faces the terrible New York Giants at home in Raljon next week.