Washington Football Team: Offense responsible for early lead over Cowboys
Takeaways from the first half of Washington Football Team’s game against the Cowboys.
The Washington Football Team is accustomed to starting slow, but that didn’t happen against the Dallas Cowboys. They were able to get their team going early and after a three and out on the first drive, they have been nothing short of terrific.
So far in this contest, Washington’s offense has been humming along. Much of their success is thanks to the efforts of Antonio Gibson, as the rookie running back has been able to rack up 43 yards on the ground while catching five passes for 21 yards. He also ran for a touchdown to extend his scoring streak to five games.
Gibson has been running with power and elusiveness. He also is showing off great burst. He looks like a true No. 1 back at the NFL level and should continue to power the Washington offense to success.
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Beyond the excellence of Gibson, Scott Turner is calling a great game. Washington’s offensive coordinator has taken some risks in this game and dialed up a couple of successful trick plays — a 28-yard pass from Logan Thomas to Terry McLaurin and a J.D. McKissic fumblerooski in the red-zone. Those plays have kept the Cowboys off-balance and that has allowed the team to run the ball and check it down, as Dallas is worried about another trick play coming.
If Washington can keep operating efficiently on offense and if they can avoid turnovers, they should continue to take advantage of a bad Cowboys defense. Then, the question would just be about whether or not they can hold up on defense.
On defense, Washington was a bit up-and-down. Despite injuries on the Dallas offensive line to Cameron Erving and Zack Martin, Washington did allow the Cowboys to move the ball easily early on. They did come up with a couple of massive stops on third and one and fourth and inches late in the second quarter though, and that set up their go-ahead touchdown.
However, there were some mistakes on defense as well. Ronald Darby had one of the worst plays of the first half for Washington. He was running step for step with Amari Cooper before he turned back to look for the ball after evidently losing sight of it.
For a split second, he slowed down while looking up and Cooper blew by him, caught the ball easily, and ran into the end-zone untouched. That put Dallas up 10-7 at the time and showcased an issue that has long troubled Washington: They have a knack for blowing coverages at the worst time.
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Still, even despite some of the issues the team has had, they are up 17-13 at the half. That’s huge for the team and if they can continue to play well in the second half, as they have all season, they should have a chance to knock off their rival, sweep them, and take control of the NFC East.