Washington Football Team: Studs and duds from Week 15 loss vs. Seahawks

Washington Football Team Dud: S Jeremy Reaves’ slip

Reaves was partially responsible for one of the worst plays of the day by the Washington defense: The 50-yard Carlos Hyde touchdown run.

Early in the second half, Washington had been building some momentum and were looking to slow down (or stop) Seattle’s offense. Then, Hyde got a carry and burst through Washington’s front line. He made his way through the linebackers and the last line of defense was the secondary.

Jeremy Reaves had reacted to the play and he was bearing down to try to make the stop. Unfortunately, he took the wrong angle and slipped on his way down. With Reaves on the ground, Hyde was able to skate by on the right side untouched and scored to put the Seahawks up 20-3.

Here’s a look at the play, via the NFL’s official Twitter account.

Reaves was doing the right thing by coming down to help in run support there, but he has to come in with a better angle. He needed to know that there wasn’t really any help behind him so if he missed, Hyde would virtually be gone.

Instead, Reaves got a bit too aggressive, and that ended up costing Washington.

Reaves did finish the day with six tackles and held up well for the most part on the back end, especially helping to limit DK Metcalf’s production, but that one miss proved to be a bad one. Reaves can certainly learn from this, so hopefully, we’ll see week-to-week improvement from the team’s young starter.