10 quick thoughts from Week 14 as Washington’s win streak ends at four games
By Jerry Trotta
Terry McLaurin’s usage is (still) criminal: Sorry, but Terry McLaurin should NEVER go an entire half without making a catch. Whether it’s a bubble screen, a quick slant or something as simple as an intermediate curl route, Washington needs to do a better job getting the star receiver the ball early in games.
Feels like we’ve said that a lot this season.
To add injury to insult, McLaurin left the game in the third quarter to undergo testing for a concussion after he took a hard fall after trying to bring down a reckless jump ball from Heinicke.
For the first time in his 42 career games as an NFL player, McLaurin finished a game with zero catches. Just despicable.
CAM freaking SIMS: There weren’t many highlights from a Washington perspective, but Cam Sims delivered maybe the highlight of the game from either side in the third quarter when he hauled in a deep TD along the sidelines.
We’re not sure how Sims made the catch. In position to make a play on the ball, Trevon Diggs somehow didn’t get a fingertip on the pass and unsuccessfully tried to wrestle it away from Sims on the way down.
Give all the credit to Sims. Despite not getting many opportunities, he seems to always come up with the occasional big play.
https://twitter.com/WashingtonNFL/status/1470127390693150725
Offense’s limitations come full-circle: Make no bones about it, folks, Washington’s offense has become far too reliant on dominating time of possession. Yes, it’s a smart approach, but not if you’re playing from behind.
Sunday’s beatdown was just a reminder, and an untimely one at that, that this offense can only be successful when it rides Antonio Gibson and short underneath routes to move the chains. Heinicke has proven capable of overcoming one-score deficits late in games, but he doesn’t have the intangibles to pull off big comebacks.
Ron Rivera and Scott Turner need to go back to the drawing board, because Washington’s offense is way too one-dimensional right now.
We’d also be remiss if we didn’t mention Gibson’s third quarter fumble, his sixth on the year and fourth lost. Everyone recognizes his talent, but you can’t be a starting running back in the NFL if you can’t protect the football.
Cole Holcomb did his best to make things interesting with an improbable pick-six to bring Washington within a touchdown, but Kyle Allen and the offense went backwards on the final two drives to seal the defeat.
Luckily, there’s still plenty of football left in 2021. It just won’t end with a division title for Washington in all likelihood.