The Takeaways, week 3: Washington at Cleveland
September 29, 2020
by Steve Thomas
Whelp. That didn’t go so well, did it? The final score of 34 – 20 was very close to my prediction on The Hog Sty’s pregame show, but I didn’t anticipate Dwayne Haskins throwing 3 interceptions or his fumble. This game was without a doubt the low point of the 2020 season so far, and plenty of headlines came out of it. Don’t worry, I’ll talk about it all here in The Takeaways, which are my weekly effort to give you the big-picture talking points that came out of that week’s game. I want you to be educated when you talk about the Redskins Washington’s game around the watercooler at work on your virtual Zoom calls from your home office. Enough; I’ll quit stalling and just jump right into it. Here are this week’s Takeaways:
Haskins was bad, but it wasn’t all on him
Look, I agree with you. Haskins was bad on Sunday and I’m not here to defend him. The three interceptions were awful, and they were all his fault. Haskins isn’t seeing the field very well, he’s locking his eyes on his receivers, and throwing high on a regular basis. He has thusfar only given fleeting and sporadic indications that he’s going to live up to his draft status and become a franchise quarterback. It’s also fair to say that his mistakes were the leading cause of WFT’s I’m not referring to this franchise by that idiotic nickname Washington’s loss this week. But if you bought a ticket on the Metro bus to the Dwayne Haskins Tar and Feather Parade on the Mall this week, I’d like to remind you that this offense has almost no redeeming qualities other than Terry McLaurin. The offensive line is a total disaster, surely bottom three in the NFL, the other wide receivers scare literally no one, and the running game is inconsistent and, optimistically, average at best. Nobody beyond McLaurin can get separation on any sort of consistent basis, and the running backs are a committee in a bad way, not a good way. This is more like a case of the blind leading the blind, not one quarterback holding everyone else down. So, yes, Haskins = bad, but so was everyone else, too. That having been said, though, there’s no need to start talking about backup quarterbacks for awhile. He deserves a chance to right the ship.
Ron Rivera reiterated that he doesn’t respect his players
As he did last week against the Cardinals, Rivera once again mismanaged the clock and his timeouts at the end of the first half and the end of the game. Washington was only down by 11 points with all three timeouts intact when the Browns were driving for their final field goal late in the fourth quarter. Washington could have gotten the ball back with 3:30 or so left on the clock, at least, with time for one good drive and a miracle. Rivera instead chose to tell his players and the world that he didn’t trust or respect them enough to even give them a shot at winning. I heard his explanation this week and last week that it was about injuries or some such nonsense . . . blah blah blah . . . I’m not buying that load of garbage. Did you ever contemplate giving your team some experience with the 2 minute drill, Ron? The bottom line is that he intentionally surrendered instead of allowing his players a chance to win. Rivera’s actions are a direct slap in the face to his entire offense. Somebody, whether Haskins or another offensive leader, needs to challenge him on this next time. I’d rather Rivera either just throw in the towel and take his team to the locker room early or have the quarterback kneel down a few times than go through the charade of running a couple of pointless running plays or dump off passes. At least that would be honest. Rivera’s actions were disrespectful to the players, the fans, and the game of football and need to stop immediately.
Antonio Gibson needs more carries
Gibson’s performance against the Browns gave me an inkling of hope that he could possibly develop into an every down back. He’s very inexperienced, with only 33 carries in one real year of college ball, but it looked to me like he’s starting to get the hang of inside running in the NFL. Gibson wasn’t great against Cleveland and won’t be ready for the Pro Bowl any time soon, but I’m about ready to cautiously hope that he might be more than just a gadget player and receiver-running back hybrid. It appeared as though Gibson was hitting interior gaps in a more decisive manner than he had in the past, and he’s also able to produce the most consistent results of the team’s running backs (of those we’ve seen – Bryce Love was inexplicably inactive for a third week in a row). Ron Rivera should get him 15 – 20 carries against the Ravens next week to see how he does.
The defense might be overrated
This is a defense with four first round picks, a three-time Pro Bowler who makes $84M, and another guy in the secondary with a $40M contract in the starting lineup (yes, Fuller seemed to do fairly well this week). Fan expectations were sky-high for this defense, in particular the defensive line, and many thought this unit would take a massive step forward and become a top-quality unit. To date that hasn’t happened, and in hindsight their one half of good performance against the Eagles now looks more like a mirage caused by a really bad Philadelphia offense. Good defenses don’t give up 30 or more points in 2 out of 3 games. Quite a bit was expected from the front seven, and while it’s true that they’ve gotten good pressure on quarterbacks, 8 of those sacks came against an Eagles offensive line that wasn’t really NFL starting quality. They were able to get three sacks against Baker Mayfield on Sunday, but he had all the time in the world in the pocket for much of the day. They let Nick Chubb run over 100 yards. Jonathan Allen looked good at times on Sunday, but he and his partner Daron Payne have both gone long stretches of being fairly invisible, and the guy who might be their best overall defensive lineman is a fifth round draft pick from Temple who went down with an injury. Hopefully Chase Young (who left the game with an injury in the first quarter; get well soon, please) can eventually make the kind of impact that the team needs, but for right now, it’s a group of mostly underachievers who aren’t producing the results expected of such a highly drafted unit. Yes, many of the Browns scores came on a short field as a result of turnovers, but with so many resources invested in this defense, they ought to be achieving some significant levels of performance, but it hasn’t really come to fruition, yet. Between Washington’s offense and defense, they are certainly the better of the two, and unlike the offense they are at least posting mediocre numbers so far, but I’m a bit underwhelmed right now.
Injuries take their toll
I’d be remiss in not pointing out that Washington suffered a significant number of critical injuries against the Browns, including the aforementioned Young (groin), Matt Ioannidis (bicep), plus defensive end Ryan Anderson and receiver Dontrelle Inman (arm). Washington has mostly avoided the injury bug so far this season, and Sunday was the first day that it became an issue. It looks like Ioannidis may be out for the year. Let’s hope that the team gets good news on the others.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this week. Washington battles the Ravens at home at Fed Ex Field next week.