Washington Football Team improves despite losing to Ravens

The Washington Football Team didn’t win against the Ravens, but they did show improvement.

Nobody expected the Washington Football Team to beat the Ravens. The gap in talent between the two sides was evident on paper and few expected that Washington would stay competitive.

That prediction came true. The team lost by a final score of 31-17 and saw Robert Griffin III play at FedEx Field for the Ravens late against his former team. Despite the defeat, there were still some bright spots for Washington.

The brightest spot of all was the team’s ability to avoid penalties throughout the game. Washington didn’t commit a single penalty until the fourth quarter. They played with discipline in that aspect of the game and it was a far cry from the problems they had with that in the Jay Gruden years. So, that’s certainly a positive.

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The other positive was that the team only committed one turnover with the game still in the balance. A J.D. McKissic lost fumble was costly but after that point, the team was able to avoid turning the ball over. They sustained drives and Dwayne Haskins avoided making risky throws and instead took what was available to him. And that was a big part of the reason that Baltimore wasn’t able to rack up more points against Washington.

Speaking of Haskins, he had a decent game, going 32-of-45 yards for 314 yards and a rushing touchdown. He certainly showed improvement after his woeful outing against the Browns, and he threw the ball with accuracy and avoided risky throws.

Haskins wasn’t great in this game, but he was decent. He did take three sacks for a whopping 40 yards and was unable to push the ball downfield until a late-game deep shot to Terry McLaurin. But it seemed that he was making a concerted effort to avoid drive-crushing turnovers, so that, at least, was a step in the right direction against a very tough opponent.

Washington’s more notable performance on offense came from Antonio Gibson. The rookie RB stepped up and was the team’s most dynamic weapon for Washington not named McLaurin. Gibson ended up with 128 total yards and a TD on 17 touches. He was explosive and ran well with the ball in his hands. He should continue to lead the Washington backfield in touches as the season goes along.

The biggest issue for Washington was their defense’s complete inability to stop Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. As the game went along, Jackson was able to scramble for a lot of yards, including a 50-yard TD where he squeezed through an impossibly-thin hole and out-ran everyone on Washington’s defense to get the score.

Elsewhere, blown assignments in the secondary, particularly the safeties, remains an issue. Troy Apke and Landon Collins need to improve moving forward. Otherwise, safety will be one of Washington’s biggest weaknesses and one of the few things holding them back in a winnable division.

Next. Halftime takeaways - Washington fighting to stay in it. dark

We’ll soon see if Washington can build on this performance. It wasn’t a pretty game, but at least there were signs of growth from the team. Now, it’s onto facing the Rams as Washington continues their quest to make it to first place in the NFL’s weakest division.

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