Washington Redskins week-by-week season prediction
By Ian Cummings
Week 16 – Redskins at Titans
Copy and paste the current Redskins squad into 2017, and they’d win this matchup. But the 2018 Titans are not the Titans of old.
Mike Mularkey is gone, unable to stagnate one of the league’s most talented offenses any further. In his place is not only Mike Vrabel, an established defensive mind, but also Matt Lafleur, an offensive guru who swung over to the Titans after spending a year with Sean McVay.
Lafleur will bring some of the same excitement to the Titans’ offense that we saw from Jared Goff and Todd Gurley in 2017. Derrick Henry isn’t on Gurley’s level, but conjoined with Dion Lewis, he becomes a part of a deadly rushing tandem. Marcus Mariota, on the other hand, is more athletic than Goff, and in the right hands, he can become a breakout player. Lafleur’s hands fit the bill.
The defense was decent last year, and now, they return almost all of their starters from last year, and they added an elastic edge presence in Harold Landry, as well as established starters in the secondary in Malcolm Butler and Kenny Vaccaro. Under the oversight of Vrabel, with All-Pro players such as Jurrell Casey and Kevin Byard returning, the Titans’ defense has a chance to be just as dangerous as the offense.
The Redskins, sitting at 8-6 in a competitive NFC, can’t afford to win this game. But after a hard-fought battle against the Jaguars and ten prior weeks of non-stop football, they’ll be outmatched in the clinching game of the season. The Titans will come out victorious at home, and although Alex Smith will get the Redskins close, he won’t get them the win.