Key plays from Washington Football Team’s 30-27 loss to Detroit

Second half

WFT came out with a couple of stout defensive plays to begin the second half, and it looked briefly as if the defense might have been awakened at halftime. But the optimism was short-lived. On a second and 20, Kamren Curl blitzed and couldn’t get home, allowing Stafford to dump off a screen to Swift, who ran free for 25 yards.

Six plays later, Swift caught another swing pass in the right flat, abusing Jon Bostic for the touchdown.

Late in the third quarter and down by 21, WFT turned desperate and found some momentum. After once again seeming to stall out in the red, necessity forced Ron Rivera to attempt a fourth-and-8 conversion. A false start on Logan Thomas made it fourth-and-13. Then Thomas redeemed himself with an excellent sliding catch near the goal line, giving WFT a first down, and setting up their first touchdown.

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After solid defense forced a three and out, WFT again moved well in the middle of the field. On second-and-10, Smith threw to Isaiah Wright cutting across the middle of the field. The ball was tipped. How many times does this end up in another disaster for the offense? Not this time. Isaiah Wright made a quick adjustment and grabbed the ball for a first down in the red zone. Three plays later, Antonio Gibson made it 24-17.

WFT’s defense again got the ball back quickly when a massive blitz on third and seven forced Stafford to throw the ball away. It looked for a moment like Chase Young would be called for a facemask penalty, but after a conference, the penalty was waved off. (This would turn out to be a sadistic form of foreshadowing).

Antonio Gibson bounced a run outside for a five-yard touchdown to tie the score at 24.

With all the momentum in the world, the defense appeared to revert back to its first quarter ways, allowing a few nice runs by Swift. The killer was a simple sweep left in which the entire Washington front seven was collapsed. No one was even close to Swift until Kendall Fuller pushed him out of bounds. Detroit was already in field goal range.

Down by three and with time running out, Washington was saved on a failed fourth-and-4 by an iffy pass interference call on Detroit.

After a series of ugly plays, and another fortunate penalty on the defense, Cam Sims made a tough catch of a good Smith throw on third-and-10.

Again, the offense would stall, but Dustin Hopkins’ 41-yard field goal with 16 seconds remaining appeared to send the game to overtime.

On the final big play of the game, WFT both got lucky and made a huge mistake. Lucky, because Quintez Cephus somehow managed to break free behind the defense for a potential touchdown. Stafford’s pass was just out of his reach.

The mistake, which proved fatal, was Chase Young’s roughing call which moved Detroit to the 50 with 6 seconds left. It was just a push, but it also came clearly after Stafford has released the ball, and this time, the flag was not picked up. After a perfectly executed quick strike to Marvin Jones, Matt Prater won the game with a low, knuckling 59-yard field goal.

This was an enormously disappointing loss for Washington. Though they showed good character in clawing back into the game, they were undone by mistakes by several of their best players.

Kendall Fuller had his worst game of the year. Key mistakes by McLaurin and Young were major turning points. For the second straight week, the defense played against an offense prone to turning the ball over, and was unable to generate any real pressure or create any takeaways.

There were some nice performances from the likes of Cam Sims and Ronald Darby, but overall, it was a sloppy performance for the second straight week. WFT sits at 2-7, and that record seems fairly accurate for a team that makes far too many mistakes to overcome its rather modest level of talent.