The Takeaways, Week 18: Washington over Dallas Cowboys
January 7, 2025
by Steve Thomas
Well, it counts as a win, and that’s ultimately what’s important. As a result of Washington’s victory over Dallas, Washington retains the #2 Wild Card position, which is the sixth seed overall, and avoids having to face the Philadelphia Eagles for a third time this season. However, this shouldn’t be a game that Washington is particularly proud of, because they did quite a bit of things poorly and were pretty fortunate that things didn’t end up far worse than they did. At the end of the day, though, a win is a win and the team gets the same “W” as they would for a game in which they played much better. On to the playoffs. The Takeaways for week 18 are below.
Washington gets the job done, barely
Washington won this game by a score of 23 – 19 primarily because the Cowboys are incompetent in the red zone. Seriously. Dallas ended up with 4 field goals after being inside the red zone on three of them, including one in which they were down on Washington’s 4 yard line. Dallas also turned the ball over on downs on the Washington 2 yard line on a separate possession. Almost any other, better team most likely would have gotten at least one or two touchdowns out of 5 series like that and won the game as a result. Washington also helpfully turned the ball over on a punt deep in Washington territory thanks to a fumble by Jamison Crowder. We emphasized in our game preview on The Hog Sty Podcast and in the written game preview that Washington needed to play a clean game, certainly in order to beat Dallas, but also to establish positive momentum heading into the playoffs. That didn’t happen.
Jayden Daniels final results; Marcus Mariota looks outstanding in relief
Daniels played his worst game of his rookie season this week, by far, going 6 for 12 for 38 yards passing, with no touchdowns, no interceptions, and 4 sacks, for a quarterback rating of 56.9. He came out of the game at halftime, reportedly due to leg soreness. If that’s true, then it was definitely the right call by Dan Quinn. Daniels finishes the regular season with 331 completions in 480 attempts, for a 69.0% completion percentage, 25 touchdowns, 9 interceptions, and 47 sacks, for a 100.1 quarterback rating. Irrespective of his performance in this game against Dallas, he almost certainly has the Offensive Rookie of the Year Award locked up, although I would think that this game may remove him from any League MVP consideration. For his part, Marcus Mariota came into the game and immediately made a difference, doing what Daniels failed to do, score touchdowns, including the game winner late in the fourth quarter. In two quarters of action, Mariota went 15 for 18, an 83.3% completion percentage, for 161 yards, and 2 touchdowns, for a quarterback rating of 96.4. Mariota is a perfect backup for Daniels; he’s a quality passer who can run nearly the same offense as Daniels. Mariota is a free agent after the season, and Washington needs to move mountains to re-sign him.
Washington has no running game
This team has at times this season been a decent non-Jayden Daniels running team. Not anymore. The fault lies in a combination of factors, including a poor and injured offensive line, a mediocre starter, and some questionable play calling strategies. In this game, Washington’s running backs had a total of 8 carries for 22 yards. For those counting, that’s an average of 2.8 yards per carry, with Brian Robinson going 5 for 10, 2.0 yards per carry, and Austin Ekeler going 3 for 12 in his return from injured reserve. The two quarterbacks, Daniels and Mariota, were Washington’s ground game, as Daniels has been nearly all season, with a combined 9 carries for 83 yards, which equates to 9.2 yards per carry. Simply put, this is unsustainable and will hold this offense back from beating better teams. I fault the playcaller, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury, more than usual for this particular game, because the team didn’t even try to establish a run game. They’ve at least given it a shot in prior weeks, even if it didn’t work. Washington needs to figure this part of their offense out fast, as in this week, if they are going to make a playoff run.
Mike Sainristil continues to impress
I have to be honest: when Washington drafted Sainristil, I liked him as a draft pick but thought that his size probably limited him to life in the NFL as a slot corner. That first impression appears to have been wrong, because he’s slowly proved over the course of the season that he’s more than just a slot corner. Sainristil has slowly emerged as Washington’s top corner behind Marshon Lattimore, who – hamstring injury aside – is clearly and obviously the #1 guy. Sainristil made a number of quality plays against Dallas and was officially credited with 3 passes defended. He’s gotten better and made more of an impact as the year has progressed. If he can continue to make progress, Washington could theoretically enter the 2025 season with a pretty high quality pair of starters, thereby giving the front office the option to focus on the other defensive deficiencies.
Washington to face Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round
It doesn’t matter how it happened. The point is that Washington nailed down the sixth seed this week and won 12 games for the first time in forever. It’s been 24 years since the team has this kind of success, and it comes in a season in which almost nobody predicted it. Daniels failed in this particular game, but he’s been an absolute revelation overall, and Washington was very lucky to have found him. Thanks to this victory, they will head back down to Tampa Bay to face the Buccaneers next weekend for the second time this season. That is much, much better than having to face Philadelphia for a third time. Irrespective of the fact that they took the long road in week 18, Washington got the victory and that’s what matters. If anything positive comes from this game, it’s that this team continues to show resilience – they’ve repeatedly come back from behind to win games they should have lost, including this one against the Cowboys, and that shows us quite a bit about their leadership and the character of the players.
That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next week with a playoff edition of The Takeaways, after Washington takes on the Buccaneers down in Tampa on Sunday night.