Washington Football Team: Studs and duds from Week 8 as Landon Collins shines

The Washington Football Team lost their fourth straight game on Sunday.

In other words, they’re one loss shy of matching last season’s high of five consecutive losses. With the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are coming off a loss, on deck in Week 10 after the bye, there’s a good chance that happens.

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, though. We still have plenty to talk about from Washington’s loss to the Denver Broncos, who did everything in their power down the stretch to lose the game.

Despite some head-scratching play-calling and Melvin Gordon’s lost fumble, the Broncos pulled out a season-altering W.

For Washington, it was just the latest season-defining loss, though it wasn’t all bad for Ron Rivera’s side. To bring some positivity to an otherwise hellacious Halloween, let’s highlight some studs (and duds) from Sunday.

Washington Football Team: Studs and duds from Week 8

Stud: Landon Collins

LANDON. COLLINS. Talk about a bright spot from the game. It’s not crazy to think the longtime safety has a future as a box linebacker in this defense, because he was flying all over the field against Denver.

What is crazy, though? That it took Rivera and Co. this long to realize Collins has no business being dropped into coverage.

For the game, Collins compiled eight LOUD tackles and had a big sack of Teddy Bridgewater in the second quarter to derail a promising Broncos drive. The former All-Pro was in on a number of other key plays as well.

Rivera was right saying Collins is at his best when he’s lined up close to the line of scrimmage, and Sunday was living proof of that.

Collins gets our (and hopefully everybody’s) game ball.

Dud: Chris Blewitt

Any time you release a stable veteran kicker in favor of somebody who’s never kicked in an NFL game in his life, the new guy isn’t going to get graded on a curve. He needs to be an instant upgrade. Period.

Unfortunately for Chris Blewitt, his start with Washington has been a disaster. The former Pitt standout has made just 2-of-5 field goals, but it’s worse than that. Three of them haven’t made it past the line of scrimmage. His first miss on Sunday was so low it hit a teammate. The second was low and blocked.

It’d be one thing if Blewitt was barely missing these kicks. The fact they aren’t even coming close makes this an awful look for Rivera. If you’re a fan who pushed to run Hopkins out of town, we hope you’re happy.