The Takeaways, Week 17, San Francisco 49ers at Washington
January 2, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Washington displayed a valiant effort against the 49ers on Sunday, sort of, at least by the standards established by a 4 – 11 team facing a Super Bowl contender. Washington was in this game until the fourth quarter, and at one point almost threatened to make it a legitimate contest, for the first time in several weeks. At the end of the day, though, normalacy returned to the NFL world, with San Francisco getting a 27 – 10 victory in a game that was closer than the final score may imply. Therefore, Washington continued its march to the offseason and what will likely end up being an entirely new football staff for the 2024 season. The clock is definitely ticking on Ron Rivera and company. Everyone can look forward to one more beating in week 18, but, for now, we’ll tackle The Takeaways from week 17 below.
Washington did what they need to do
Yes, they lost the game, so if you were rooting for a win, then Washington did not do what they needed to do. If you are rooting for draft positioning, then, well, mission accomplished. With this loss, Washington is now 4 – 12, and since the Cardinals helpfully decided to beat the Philadelphia Eagles, Washington is now tied by record with both Arizona and the New England Patriots. Draft order ties are first broken by strength of schedule, with the lower number getting the higher pick. Therefore, as of this moment, Washington currently has the second pick in the 2024 draft. That can change next week, but for now, things look good for Washington to be in a position to select their franchise quarterback of the future in April. Losing is never good, but if you have to lose, at least do in in a way that nets you the highest draft pick possible.
Sam Howell looked like . . . Sam Howell
With Jacoby Brissett going down with a hamstring injury 5 minutes after he was named as Washington’s new starter, Sam Howell somewhat ironically found himself right back in as starter. In this game, he looked exactly as he’s been all year, which is to say he produced some good plays and a bunch of not so good plays. In total, Howell went 17 for 28, for a 61% completion percentage, 169 yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions, for a 60.0 quarterback rating. He leads the NFL with 19 interceptions. Look, folks, Howell is finished for this year, and maybe permanently in Washington. He has good arm talent and is athletic enough to create plays, but he currently isn’t capable of processing each play and making a timely throw on any sort of consistent basis. This might because of his NFL-leading 61 sacks, but it might just be who he is; after all, he was very inconsistent in his final year at North Carolina as well. Perhaps he needs additional development time, but it could be that Howell simply isn’t ever going to be a franchise quarterback. It will be interesting to see whether Ron Rivera chooses to start him next week for Washington’s final game of the season.
Exactly who’s left in the secondary?
Washington was already down both of their starting corners, Kendall Fuller and Benjamin St-Juste, to start this game. This put probable first round-bust Emmanuel Forbes in as the #1 corner, which is bad enough, but both Tariq Castro-Fields and Christian Holmes went down with injuries during the game. This left Washington with Forbes, Jartavius Martin, and new signee Kyu Blu Kelly for the remainder of the game. Under this conditions, honestly, it’s something of a miracle that the 49ers’ formidable receiving group didn’t really light things up. Aiyuk had 7 receptions for 114 yards, but all of the rest of San Francisco’s receivers were under 40 yards. This probably was more due to the fact that the game wasn’t competitive for much of the afternoon, but I didn’t see too many obvious coverage busts, relatively speaking, from Washington’s group of backups. That’s good, kind of, perhaps the best of an ugly situation.
Brian Robinson’s big game, relatively speaking
Robinson had 9 carries for 44 yards and 4.9 yards per carry, and a long carry of 12. That’s one of his better game averages in his career, with the caveat that 9 carries isn’t much. In fact, this was Robinson’s third-best game average of the season, with only week 3 against Buffalo and week 8 against the Eagles being better. As has been true all year, Eric Bieniemy should’ve done much more to help out his struggling pass game by calling significantly more running plays, but he continues to refuse to do so. At this point, I’m convinced that Bieniemy is overrated as an offensive coordinator. Regardless, congrats to Robinson for looking like a legitimate starting NFL running back against an overall outstanding defense. I’ve been critical of Robinson at times, but he showed his worth in this game.
Khaleke Hudson continues to produce
Hudson continues to produce and perform, with 11 tackles, including 4 solo, against the 49ers. For those paying attention, that’s the third game in a row in which Hudson has had double-digit tackles. It’s almost like the coaching staff should’ve been giving him significant defensive snaps all along instead of burying him on the depth chart behind a group of substandard linebackers. He’s never really been given a chance to consistently play before now. I hope Hudson has another quality game next week; if so, he should be a candidate to be re-signed by the new staff this offseason.
That’s it for The Takeaways for this season. I’ll be back next week for the final edition of the 2023-24 season, when Washington faces Dallas in an attempt to keep the Cowboys from winning the NFC East.