Washington Football Team: 4 incredible stats that defined WFT’s win over the Giants

It wasn’t pretty, but the Washington Football Team picked up a massive division win over the New York Giants on Thursday night.

Did Washington deserve to win? Probably. They made fewer mistakes and looked like the more dynamic offense, though the defense getting bamboozled on nearly ever Daniel Jones zone read was infuriating to watch.

But we digress. We’ll harp on the negatives from the game at a different time, because there were plenty. For now, however, let’s celebrate what could prove to be a season-defining win once the regular season wraps up.

After all, the Football Team travels to Buffalo in Week 3 and the schedule doesn’t get any easier after that. Take our advice and don’t even look it up.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Given that this was one of the most thrilling Thursday Night Football games in recent memory, let’s highlight a couple of incredible stats that defined Washington’s big win.

4 stats that defined the Football Team’s win over NYG

4. Taylor Heinicke on play action

We had a feeling that Washington was going to have to lean on play action to help Taylor Heinicke get into a rhythm and that’s exactly what happened. It helped that Antonio Gibson set the tone in the running game, taking off for 69 yards on an efficient 5.3 yards per carry, but Heinicke was unstoppable on play action snaps.

Per Next Gen Stats, Heinicke went 13-of-15 (86.6%) for 153 yards and two touchdowns on passes that included a play-fake.

It’s fitting that both of Heinicke’s touchdowns came on play action, but that stat is still difficult to wrap your head around. It turns out the 28-year-old can really sling it when he’s not running for his life. Who would’ve thought?

In all seriousness, credit to offensive coordinator Scott Turner for recognizing how much Heinicke was flourishing in play action. Turner kept going to it and the Giants’ supposed elite defense had legitimately zero answers.