Washington must improve in this key area against Raiders

The Washington Football Team only beat the Seattle Seahawks by two points on Monday night, but the scoreboard didn’t accurately reflect how one-sided this matchup really was.

There are a litany of stats that highlight Washington’s dominance. For instance, Antonio Gibson and JD McKissic combined to log more touches (48) than the Seahawks’ offensive play total (45).

For comparison’s sake, the Football Team ran 79 plays and had more than double the time of possession than Seattle. On a different night, there’s no doubting Washington would’ve won in blowout fashion.

What prevented them from doing so vs Seattle? That would be their inability to convert short-yardage third and fourth downs. In the game, Washington failed to convert on 3rd and 1 (twice), 3rd and 2, and a 4th and 1.

Regardless of who’s at fault for this poor execution, Washington must improve in this area against the Raiders this Sunday.

The Washington Football Team needs to be better at converting short-yardage third and fourth downs.

Did Washington deserve to beat Seattle? Without a doubt. But they kept giving their opponents more life and are lucky they didn’t take advantage. If Russell Wilson was a couple more weeks removed from his finger surgery, we could be talking about a different outcome. And that’s not an overstatement.

Three shotgun handoffs for Antonio Gibson, one of which was negated by a holding penalty, and a stretch run to Jaret Patterson. We’re all for pounding the rock, but perhaps Scott Turner could’ve gotten more creative in these situations?

We hate to put Turner on blast. The second-year OC called a brilliant game outside of these short-yardage failures, but it feels like Seattle was ready for these plays. With Washington sporting an eight-point lead and dominating in every facet, there was no need to get so conservative in the third quarter.

Instead of being vanilla and running a basic draw to Gibson or hoping Patterson will squeeze through the thinnest of holes, why not give Taylor Heinicke a read option? He might be a pass-first quarterback, but Turner has to do better to utilize his athleticism and ability to make defenders miss in the open field.

That’s just one potential solution. There’s no rule stating Heinicke can’t drop back to pass when faced with a 3rd and short. Ask Terry McLaurin to go win a 1-v-1 slant route. Find a way to get Logan Thomas open. Heck, even run a two-tight end set and let John Bates go to work against an undersized DB.

Anything but four consecutive running plays. We get ground ‘n pound is Washington’s identity, but there’s no need to force it, esepcially when there’s zero creativity (motion, pre-snap movement, etc.) involved. Turner made it too easy for Seattle’s anemic defense, and they, to their credit, capitalized.

If Washington doesn’t show improvement in this area on Sunday, the Raiders, whose offense is in a much better place than Seattle’s (they just hung 36 points on Dallas) might make them pay the ultimate price.