The Takeaways, Week 12: Dallas over Washington
November 26, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Well that wasn’t fun, was it? Washington ended up losing to the Dallas Cowboys by a score of 34 – 26 in an absolutely crazy game that was 3 – 3 at halftime. After two straight losses to good teams, my hope was that Washington would be able to turn things around this week by beating up on a lesser opponent. As we all know, Dallas has been a mess this season, so it seemed like such a result was a pretty likely possibility. That clearly didn’t happen, as Washington looked mostly terrible, at home against their most hated rivals. Since Washington has 5 games left to go this season, there’s still time to turn things around, but honestly, right at this moment, it’s hard to see that happening. Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m Mr. Negative, but in my view it’s hard to have any other opinion after watching this disaster of a game. The Takeaways for this week are below.
Special teams disaster
This one technically applies to Dallas too, since they missed two field goals. For Washington’s part, they were able to block one field goal, but that note of positivity was overtaken by the two – yes, two – kickoffs returned for touchdowns by Dallas in the fourth quarter. KaVontae Turpin’s touchdown return was ridiculous and caused by the laziness of Washington’s special teams. The coup de grace of special teams play, though, which was Austin Seibert’s missed chip shot extra point with 21 seconds left in the game that followed Terry McLaurin’s incredible 86 yard touchdown reception. That miss caused Washington to remain down a point instead of being tied. Seibert also missed a 51 yard field goal late in the first quarter. That miss was excusable, sort of, as an attempt that long isn’t a guarantee, and Seibert is known to not be good from over 50 yards. The extra point, though, was a bad kick that was inexcusable. That isn’t the totality of Seibert’s negative day, though: his onsides kick with 14 seconds left – which came on the heels of his missed extra point – was very poor. It traveled only about 7 yards and didn’t bounce much, which gave Dallas’ Juanyeh Thomas the opportunity for a return. All in all, this was certainly one of the craziest games I’ve ever seen in terms of special teams performance. If Washington had been merely competent in this area in this game, they probably would have won.
Kliff Kingsbury’s play calling was . . . unhelpful
Hey, Kliff, what happened to the run game and passing plays designed to take advantage of the short to intermediate middle of the field? I realize that starting running back Brian Robinson Jr got hurt and finished with only 5 carries for 13 yards, which was 2.6 yards per carry, but that shouldn’t have been a license to just ignore that aspect of the game. They still had Jeremy McNichols on the active roster and could have used him more. I also realize that Dallas’ defensive front played a monstrous game, but Washington basically surrendered the interior run game. In total, Washington’s running backs, including Robinson, McNichols, and Austin Ekeler, combined for 17 carries for 57 yards, which is 3.4 yards per carry, and no touchdowns, against a defense that had been poor against the run this year. That’s atrocious, with shades of the anti-run philosophy of the 2023 Washington team. Furthermore, Kingsbury repeatedly failed to open up the offense in the air in a way that would have most benefitted the offense, ignoring the middle of the field for much of the game. It appears as though Washington’s run game is going to get worse before it get better, with Ekeker being hospitalized with an apparently serious concussion, and Robinson headed for an MRI on his ankle.
The continued regression of Jayden Daniels
I think I have an obligation to be totally honest with you, the readers, and not sugarcoat the truth with positive platitudes. So here it is: Jayden Daniels has regressed from his level of performance he achieved early in the season. In this game, he went 25 for 38 for 275 yards, 65.8% completion percentage, with 2 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions, for an 82.7 quarterback rating. Those numbers aren’t terrible on the whole; however, it’s important to note, though, that the vast bulk of this yardage came in what amounted to garbage time. He was 2 for 7 for 3 yards with 10:55 left in the second quarter and 12 for 22 for 80 yards and an interception with 12:53 left in the fourth quarter. Dallas’ defense went into drop-back mode late in the fourth quarter. Daniels missed several reads in this game, which is something he didn’t do often in earlier weeks, and once again misfired several passes. The Cowboys put a significant amount of pressure on Daniels in this game, and he didn’t handle it very well, which is, again, a regression from the norm of earlier in the season. Certainly, the big 86 yard touchdown to Terry McLaurin was a great play, but it shouldn’t go unstated that McLaurin got the final 40 yards on his own after the catch. To be fair, one of his two interceptions was the hail mary at the end of the game, so it’s tough for me to blame him for that one. Also, his receivers dropped a couple of passes that they should have caught. On the positive side, he did look healthy this week and had 7 carries for 74 yards, which is an improvement. All in all, though, this was almost certainly Daniels’ worst game so far. I haven’t paid too much attention to the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award contenders, but I have to think that the last three weeks have reduced him to some degree from his previous sure-fire winner status.
Offensive line shortcomings
Part of the problem for Daniels in this game was the offensive line’s poor pass blocking against Dallas. The Cowboys repeatedly blitzed and designed defensive schemes to create mismatches, and put pressure on Daniels in ways that, as I said above, Daniels didn’t always handle very well. To top it off, both Tyler Biadasz and Andrew Wylie were evaluated for concussions. As regular readers know, the purpose of The Takeaways is to serve as my instantaneous reactions to that week’s game, but I believe that Wylie is now in the concussion protocol. Regardless, the point is that Dallas’ defensive front seven got the better of Washington in the trenches in this game, which had a profound impact on the result. This is an area that Washington will need to look to continue to improve in the 2025 offseason.
Mistakes hurt the game, again
Clearly, the two interceptions didn’t help, particularly the first one. Beyond that, though, exactly how many times are we going to see important, game-changing penalties by this team? The offensive line had two illegal formation penalties. Noah Igbinoghene had an important pass interference penalty in the third quarter. They had two fumbles, by John Bates and Austin Ekeler, with the Bates’ fumble being lost to Dallas. Those are just what I can remember without looking at game notes. This team shot itself in the metaphorical foot in many ways in this game, as they’ve been doing quite a bit recently. Teams that are in contention for playoff runs don’t continually make serious mistakes. Washington will get better as the Quinn era continues, but right now, they don’t appear ready for serious contention.
That’s it for this week. Sorry about the negativity, but that’s what this game deserved. Next up are the Tennessee Titans at home in Raljon.