Washington Football Team: 10 quick thoughts from Week 7
By Jerry Trotta
Washington is a trend-breaker: Coming into Sunday’s game, the Packers had allowed opponents to score on 15 straight trips in the red zone. Fifteen. Care to guess how many trips inside the red zone Washington had on Sunday? Three. Care to guess which ones resulted in points on the scoreboard? Zero.
A goose egg. Unbelievable.
Hustle plays are admirable: Look, when you’re not a good football team, you have to out-hustle your competition to have a chance to win. Washington hasn’t been in positions to win games this season, and they weren’t on Sunday.
However, that didn’t stop Heinicke and Chase Roullier from digging deep and delivering some quality hustle plays. Heinicke’s came nearly 30 yards down field when he recovered a DeAndre Carter fumble. It’s plays like this that encapsulate why fans in Ashburn will always have a soft spot for Heinicke, even if he isn’t long for the starting job.
Roullier, meanwhile, recovered an Antonio Gibson fumble. This one came in the red zone with Washington driving. The game was likely out of reach at this point, but Roullier pounced on it to spare his teammate a huge turnover.
You gotta love a team player.
Taylor Heinicke didn't lead these guys to a win but the lifelong Green Bay fan went 100% on every snap. Passing, running. Willing to block. Recovered a fumble down the field. Did a (premature) Lambeau Leap. Life moves fast and he breathed it all in. Good for him. Alas...
— Ben Standig (@BenStandig) October 24, 2021
Time to be concerned about Gibson’s fumbles?: Gibson has committed three fumbles this season, and they’ve all come at horrible times. He lost a back-breaker in Week 1 vs the Chargers and has now coughed it up twice in as many weeks. Gibson was a wide receiver in college so he’s clearly learning on the job, but this needs to be nipped in the bud yesterday.
The WFT’s offense is already limited enough. It doesn’t need its star RB to derail possessions by not being able to hold onto the football.
Refs are all-time bad: Before you ask, yes, we’re referencing Taylor Heinicke’s dive that was ruled short of the goal line, but should’ve been a touchdown. Replay showed that Heinicke was in, but the NFL loves over-complicating things near the end zone. We can’t believe we even have to say this, but USE YOUR EYES.