Commanders Week 9 key numbers: Victory slips away against Vikings

The Bad: Costly mistakes and questionable play-calling continues

2-0: Kirk Cousins is now 2-0 against his former team. If that wasn’t enough salt in the wound, the post-game Vikings celebration definitely is.

59:45: That is almost the length of one full game, but that 59:45 represents the amount of game-time between successful third-down conversions for the Commanders’ offense. The team’s last successful third-down conversion prior to Week 9 was with 1:18 left in the second quarter against the Colts. It took the team until 1:33 remaining in the second quarter against the Vikings to convert a third-down. Unacceptable.

8.58: The reason why fans are frustrated is that Scott Turner continues to make questionable decisions on offense. During the 1st half, Washington was averaging 8.58 yards to go on 2nd down, which ultimately led to long third downs, and the cycle continued.

3: Yes, Heinicke is undersized but he typically makes up for it by getting out of the pocket. In the first half, the Vikings did a good job limiting this, leading to 3 batted balls.

10: After taking a 17-7 lead with just over 14 minutes left in the game, Washington gained a total of 10 yards over its last three possessions. That’s not a misprint and speaks to the poor late-game execution to put teams away. The Commanders only ran 10 plays in the entire 4th quarter, letting. the Vikings control time of possession when it mattered most.

68: The Commanders came into the game ranked 22nd in total yards of offense per game, averaging 331, but fell short of that by 68 yards against the Vikings. You can’t win too many games with 263 total yards of offense.

1:52: The amount of time Washington would have had left to mount a comeback if it wasn’t for the completely idiotic penalty on John Ridgeway. Washington had already wasted a timeout prior to an unsuccessful 4th down attempt and on an unnecessary challenge, so were at a disadvantage already at the end of the game. Again, the lack of discipline and poor decision-making by Rivera and Turner continues to hinder the team.

0: After his offensive explosion against the Titans, fans were excited about seeing more from Dyami Brown. With Jahan Dotson injured, it gave him more of a chance to contribute but he has had 0 receptions since that game. 0 is also the number of wins the Commanders have against teams with a winning record.

With eight games remaining, we are just about at the middle of the season, and yet, the same issues continue to come up again and again. For Washington to have a chance to even sneak into the Wild Card, it will need to make key adjustments to the offensive play-calling…and quickly. The road doesn’t get any easier with a trip to Philly to face off with the undefeated Eagles next Monday Night.