Week 11 Reality Checks: Washington at Carolina

The Washington Football Team’s win over Tampa Bay last week was delightful on so many fronts. Watching Tom Brady and Bruce Arians lose is always a pleasant. To see the Burgundy and Gold step up to the unique challenge of facing the defending champs coming off a bye of their own was surreal. To see the defense finally put together a complete game was satisfying. To see the offense remain balanced and patient while not killing themselves with penalties and mistakes was so enjoyable. Basking in the immaculate glory of the 19-play, game-sealing touchdown drive was about as sublime as any experience I’ve had has a WFT fan since the magical 2012 season. Terry McLaurin’s clutch catch and iconic celebration on the final third down conversion of that drive epitomizes all the best things about what Washington Football should be about.

Many articles and hours of podcast and radio air-time have been dedicated to the question of “what did that win mean?” in the past week. So rather than re-mitigate that question, it’s time to simply bask in the clear and immediate results of the win – that for just one week, we don’t have to talk about the long-term trajectory and viability of the Ron Rivera era in Washington. No existential questions about tanking versus building momentum need to be answered. Neither does the world need more analysis of the return of Ron Rivera to Carolina to face Cam Newton.

Winning changes everything, and in my book, the Washington Football Team earned a one-week reprieve from discussions about the future this week by flipping expectations on their heads with a win over the Bucs. For this one week, The Reality Is, we can just look at the X’s and O’s of a good matchup and discuss who we expect to prevail.

So, let’s get to our Week 11 WFT Reality Checks.

5. The Reality Is, without Chase Young and Montez Sweat, Washington will have to get creative up front.

Casey Toohill and James Smith-Williams have been decent rotational players for Washington this season, but are certainly not the type of established EDGE rushers that offensive coordinators lose sleep over.

Without Sweat and Young’s athleticism and sheer size on the edges, Washington will need to find more crafty and deceptive ways to contain and pressure Carolina’s quarterback(s). Assuming PJ Walker and Cam Newton participate in some sort of rotation this week, Washington will need to both contain the possibilities of quarterback keepers as well as applying traditional pass rush pressure.

Look for Toohill and Smith-Williams, along with their backups like Shaka Toney and Bunmi Rotimi, to focus more on containment and setting the edge to let the interior of the defensive line, led by Jonathan Allen be aggressive in attacking. Washington can’t afford to let Cam Newton beat them with his legs, so containment and generating hits on him may even be more valuable than sacks when he’s on the field.