What were the huge disappointments to emerge from yet another torrid Washington Commanders' home loss against the Chicago Bears in Week 5?
The offense didn’t show up until half-time. The Washington Commanders' defense simply took the entire night off. And for the second straight week, the special teams took a game that was already on life support and yanked the plug right out of the wall.
In the end, the Commanders introduced Josh Harris' ownership group to the particular miseries of owning this NFL team. And on the primetime stage, no less.
Was the Commanders' 40-20 loss to the Chicago Bears the most disappointing game in coach Ron Rivera’s tenure? Before last night, I thought that dubious honor went to the second game against the New York Giants last season, when, coming off a bye playing at home against a team that had not won in over a month - and with the playoffs easily within their grasp - Washington laid a massive egg.
But that game was at least understandable. The Commanders have not played well against the Giants during Rivera’s tenure. They had been lucky to salvage a tie against the G-Men two weeks earlier. And Washington didn’t really play terribly in that game. They were just sloppy and essentially gave the contest away.
Against Chicago - a team that had not won an NFL game in almost a year the Commanders were simply dreadful across the board. They were thoroughly outplayed by a team that was traveling on an ultra-short week. By a team that entered the game severely hamstrung by injury and which proceeded to lose multiple key starters once the game began. By a team whose coach was rumored to be on the chopping block should they lose again.
In terms of disappointment, this blows that Giants’ game out of the water.
I’ll pick five major disappointments to emerge from this game, but any of us could easily pick 20. Or 30. Or… well, there seems to be no limit to the ways in which this particular team can disappoint its fans.
Commanders preparation
The Washington Commanders have been outscored 87-44 in the first half of games this season. That’s close enough for me to call it two-to-one and it's a good sample size.
That’s atrocious, and it’s hard to absolve the coaching staff from blame. Whatever they are doing to prepare the team simply isn’t working.
It’s not as if the team is making sensational half-time adjustments either. They’ve also been outscored in the second half - just not by as titanic a margin.
After the Chicago Bears game, Washington has the unwanted distinction of a larger negative point differential than the Denver Broncos. And as we all know, Sean Payton's men lost one game by no fewer than 50 points against the Miami Dolphins.
Limited partner Magic Johnson decried the team’s lack of intensity early on. When an owner begins publicly doing that, it puts every coach and player on the hot seat.
They have 10 days off before facing another struggling team in the Atlanta Falcons. If the coaches don’t figure out a way to get this team starting fast, the season could be over before it ever really gets started.
Commanders LBs
This is actually a relatively minor disappointment, but only because we have come to expect virtually nothing from this group. And against the Chicago Bears, they did virtually nothing yet again.
Jamin Davis got credited with three tackles and was invisible most of the time he was on the field. Cody Barton was not invisible - he led the team in tackles with eight - but he once again played a very poor game.
Tackling totals are tricky. Barton was credited with five solo tackles and three combined tackles. I actually had the number at four and four, but it doesn’t really matter.
Look at his solo tackles on runs. They came nine, 16, and 34 yards downfield. That’s an average of 20 yards per run. Had Khalil Herbert not gotten hurt, I expect we would have seen several more.
His one solo tackle on a pass play came 23 yards downfield. And we all saw how helpless he was on Cole Kmet’s touchdown catch just before half-time.
Barton simply can’t get off blocks well enough to be a factor in the run game and seems to have totally lost his confidence in pass coverage. He needs to be replaced - I will have more on that in another day or two.
As for Davis, he should be rushing the quarterback on virtually every passing down.
Commanders secondary
We knew the linebackers were a problem entering this game. The implosion of the Washington Commanders' secondary was a much bigger disappointment. They were simply awful. And it very easily could have been worse.
On the game’s first play, Darnell Mooney cleanly beat Kendall Fuller deep and only a poor throw by Justin Fields led to an incompletion. At the beginning of the fourth quarter, D.J. Moore cleanly beat reserve cornerback Danny Johnson for a touchdown - but the signal-caller again missed him.
The Chicago Bears wide receivers - primarily Moore - were running free all night, and Fields didn’t miss them often enough to save the Commanders.
By the way, I love Johnson. His tackle on Fields in the open field shows how tough he is. But within a minute of replacing Emmanuel Forbes, he ended up guarding Moore alone on the perimeter, which is something he simply cannot do. That is very poor coaching.
I’m not all that worried about Fuller, who was awful but has been good until now. And Benjamin St-Juste appears to be the only cornerback playing at a consistently high level, though even was beaten against Chicago.
I am more concerned about the safeties. It looks to me like Kamren Curl, Darrick Forest, and Percy Butler are so cognizant of the fact that Washington’s linebackers cannot make plays against the run that they are constantly cheating forward, which in turn makes them late in helping out on deep throws.
I predicted this before the season, and it is happening with alarming frequency. Against Chicago, the Commanders gave up nine “big plays” - passes of more than 20 yards and runs of more than 10. That is a huge number against a good offense. To surrender that many to a mundane offense like Chicago’s is almost inconceivable.
Commanders rookies
Tyrique Stevenson and Terell Smith combined for 15 tackles. Gervon Dexter Sr. had two quarterback pressures and a tipped pass. Zacch Pickens made a tackle inside. Darnell Wright held his own against a formidable defensive end. All in all, it was a pretty good night for the rookies.
Oh wait. Those are the Chicago Bears' rookies.
How did their Washington Commanders' counterparts do? Let’s take a look.
The top pick got benched after getting torched for the second straight week. Second pick? Didn’t see him out there. Third pick? Didn’t play. Fourth? Didn’t make the roster. Fifth and sixth? Inactive. Seventh? See the second pick.
It’s still very early and some of these players could certainly develop into quality pros. But five games into their first season, this is shaping up to be Washington’s least productive draft class in at least a decade.
It begins with Emmanuel Forbes, the talented cornerback who has struggled mightily the last two weeks. I’m still not too worried because he’s young and it’s early, but consider this:
Christian Gonzalez, Brian Branch, JuJu Brents, and D.J. Turner are all performing at a high level for their teams. All four cornerbacks were drafted after the Commanders took Forbes.
At least four other rookie corners, all drafted after Forbes, are starting or playing serious minutes for their teams, including the aforementioned Stevenson.
Washington is getting virtually nothing from its draft picks - especially its top two picks who were supposed to elevate the secondary. If you watched the Bears game, you will note that it hasn't.
To add insult to injury, a cornerback drafted by Washington did play a big game on Thursday. Greg Stroman, who could never stay healthy when he was in D.C., was a true monster of the midway for Chicago.
Commanders special teams
Joey Slye is talented but inconsistent, and I think we have to accept that is not likely to change. It’s unlikely the Washington Commanders would have won even if he had made his third field goal of the night late in the game, but his miss just put a punctuation mark on a depressing evening.
Against the Philadelphia Eagles, punter Tress Way picked the worst possible time for his worst possible punt, setting up the winning overtime field goal. Against the Chicago Bears, it was Slye's turn to snuff out any lingering hopes.
I don’t think Washington should make any rash moves at kicker because I don’t think they could find someone better than Slye at this point. He will get the rest of the year to prove he can be relied on at big moments.
If he fails, add kicker to the ever-growing list of off-season needs.
This was an embarrassing loss, but it was still just one loss. In the NFL, the most important game is always the next one.
The Commanders need to figure out how to play a full 60 minutes against the Falcons next week. It’s getting harder and harder to keep these “disappointment” pieces under 1,500 words.