The Takeaways, Week 5: Cleveland at Washington
October 7, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Honestly, it’s a bit tough to believe that we’re actually watching the Washington Redskins the Washington Football Team the Washington Commanders a Washington football team. Granted, they haven’t exactly faced the cream of the NFL crop so far, but Washington had legitimately run up the score for three weeks in a row and beat down two straight opponents. This teams has shades of the 2012 team, only with a quarterback who seems like more of a complete player than was Robert Griffin III. This week, Washington easily handled the Cleveland Browns in a game that was never in doubt and was essentially over by early in the third quarter. That’s not what we’re all used to from Washington football. Let’s hope it continues in the weeks to come. My Takeaways are below.
The offense keeps on rolling
It’s hard to believe that Washington has rung up 34 points or more for the third straight game. The offense started a bit slow, but shortly thereafter began to once again regularly move the ball down the field. Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury’s gameplan continues to get better each week, with more of a variety of plays, including additional downfield shots than they took to start the year. They’ve made significant progress since week one, even despite Daniels’ somewhat lesser stats in this game. One area of concern continues to be the offensive line in pass protection – they were bailed out several times by Jayden Daniels’ elite-level ability to scramble and move. He was sacked three times in this game, but there would have been several more absent Daniels’ mobility.
Jayden Daniels came back down to earth slightly, but it doesn’t matter
From a statistical perspective, Daniels had a bit of a down day as compared to his previous efforts, going 14 for 25, which was a completion rate of just 56%, for 238 yards, 1 touchdown, and 1 interception, for a quarterback rating of 75.8. That isn’t “bad”, mind you; my point is that his numbers were slightly more in the realm of reality this week. This bound to happen at some point – he was never going to maintain an 80% completion percentage, particularly as Kingsbury He also had a couple of poor / missed reads as well. Nevertheless, he continued to show an unusually high level of leadership and situational awareness. It’s clear that he was the lynchpin of Washington’s offense, which has been the case all year long. I’m not concerned about the completion percentage; the point is that Daniels had about two and a half quarters of highly successful football.
Welcome to the Frankie Luvu era
I can’t honestly said that I foresaw the depth of the impact that Frankie Luvu has had on Washington’s defense. He was all over the place in this game, including 3 sacks, and single-handedly stopped Cleveland’s defense in both the run and pass games on multiple occasions. It’s been a pleasure watching him perform on a team that essentially lacked any true starting-quality linebackers last season.
Washington will need more consistency from their running backs
Don’t misunderstand me: the ultimate results of the running game were outstanding: 34 total carries for 215 yards, which is 6.3 yards per carry, and 3 touchdowns. That’s better than an NFL team has a right to expect. However, I think two points are worthy of consideration. First, the fact that Daniels was the leading rusher is a great thing in terms of it being an example of Daniels’ abilities and performance. Ideally, though, I’d want a running back to be taking the punishment of 11 carries, not the quarterback. The running backs themselves had 20 carries for 119 yards, which is 6.0 yards per carry. That having been said, 78 of those yards came from Ekeler’s 50 yard run and McNichols’ 28 yard run. Removing those two plays yields a remainder of 18 carries for 41 yards, which is 2.3 yards per carry. Robinson retreated from his two straight outstanding games with just 7 carries for 18 yards. I’m not complaining here, or trying to be negative; it worked in a blowout game. My point is that ideally, the offensive needs a running game that can reliably get about 4.5 yards per carry, not just on a couple of big plays.
Surprise! Washington had a pass rush
Heading into this game, Washington had just 8 sacks in 4 games, which was tied for 25th in the league, and an overall pressure percentage of 23.5%, which was ranked 20th. That all changed against the Browns, because Washington had 7 sacks for a loss of a combined 33 yards, featuring Luvu’s 2.5, plus 1.5 from Bobby Wagner, and one each from Jonathan Allen, Dorance Armstrong, and Dante Fowler Jr. This is the sort of pressure that Washington is going to need against the better teams on their schedule this year.
Bonus Takeaway: Secondary improvement
The secondary didn’t have any big, obvious blown coverages or surrender any wide-open touchdowns this week. That’s progress, particularly against someone like Amari Cooper, who has burned Washington at times in previous matchups. Granted, this probably had quite a bit to do with the fact that the NFL’s resident perverted creep, Deshaun Watson held to form and wasn’t particularly good, but still: in a season in which the secondary has been the weak link on defense, I’ll take it. Whether or not this was an anomaly, or it can continue against better teams remains to be seen.
That’s it for this week. Next up is what could be an epic battle against the Lamar Jackson and the 3 – 2 Ravens in Baltimore.