Washington ruins Cam’s homecoming: Key numbers from second straight win

The Bad: Gibson fumbles and costly penalties

6: Washington’s defense has allowed six touchdowns on opening drives this season, which leads the NFL. The Panthers went 75 yards on nine plays and finished with a 10-yard touchdown from Newton to DJ Moore.

20.9: Washington has averaged only 20.9 yards on its opening offensive drive, with six punts, a turnover on downs, two field goals, and one touchdown. That’s very inefficient.

5: Antonio Gibson has five fumbles this season, most in the NFL for running backs, with three lost fumbles. His first lost fumble was at the Washington 4 against the Chargers, the Chargers scored three plays later, taking a 20-16 lead. His second was at the Washington 34 against the Chiefs. The third was at Carolina’s 13 and kept Washington from scoring with 3:10 left in the first quarter, leading to Gibson’s benching for the rest of the half. Gibson also ran out of bounds with under two minutes left in the games, which gave Carolina more time with the ball to try to win the game.

65: Washington had 65 penalty yards, leading to three first downs for Carolina, all of which ended with Carolina touchdowns. With Washington’s defense already short-handed, it needs to stop shooting itself in the foot with the penalties.

6.47: Washington has struggled with mobile QBs all season, allowing 6.47 yards per rushing attempt and three rushing touchdowns to mobile QBs (Daniel Jones, Josh Allen, Jameis Winston, Patrick Mahomes, and Cam Newton). Newton had 46 rushing yards with a 24-yard touchdown run.

So what’s changed for this team over the last few weeks?

Jonathan Allen summed it up succinctly, “We’re just making the plays that we were missing at the beginning of the season.”

With a Monday night matchup coming up against the Seahawks, who have lost five of their last six, if Washington continues making plays, it can show these last two weeks weren’t a mirage and continue its playoff push.