Commanders Vs. Cowboys (Game One) – Studs and Duds

Washington lost another heartbreaker leaving fans speechless. The reeling Cowboys, who look like a modern-day MASH unit, came into Northwest Stadium and left with an improbable 34-26 victory.

The Commanders anemic offense mustered just nine points through three quarters. Kliff Kingsbury’s death-by-screen attack looked like it had been figured out all afternoon – until he decided to take the training wheels off his rookie quarterback and attack the middle of a Dallas defense that was playing in a Cover 2 shell. Somehow, after playing terrible all game, Washington found itself in position to tie the game with 20+ seconds left to play after Terry McLaurin took a pass 86 yards for a dramatic touchdown. All that was needed was an extra point conversion to tie the game up. Then the disaster hit. A poor snap and an even worse kick left the Cowboys ahead by one point. The rest you can read about on ESPN…

After dropping their third game in a row, are the Commanders frauds? I think this becomes a very serious question to be answered.

Below are my Studs and Duds of the game followed by some notes.

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Studs:

Frankie Luvu – Luvu was all over the field yet again, this time collecting a team-tying eight tackles, one for a loss, three passes defended and two stuffs.

Bobby Wagner – I have to give Wagner his props. He played hard yesterday. He’s no longer a great cover linebacker, but he plays his assignments well and is rarely out of position. He tied Luvu with the lead for tackles with eight and also had a nice strip of Dowdle where he just muscled the ball away from the running back. He did have a costly roughing the passer penalty, but he was falling to the ground and I don’t think the hit was intentional (although it deserved a flag).

Tress Way – If for nothing more, he handled the AWFUL snap by Tyler Ott, got the ball upright in time, and even had the laces facing out. Did the snap still throw off the timing of the kick – maybe, but Tress gave Seibert an opportunity to convert the extra point.

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Duds:

Austin Seibert – Seibert missed a field goal (badly, mind you) and two extra points. Now, the snap was bad on the last extra point, but Way handled it well and got the laces facing out in time for the kick to take place. Washington really needed those five points today.

Tyler Ott – You have ONE job – to put the snap in the hands of the holder or punter. In the biggest moment of the game, when this snap meant the most, Ott sent a worm-burner back to Tress Way on Seibert’s extra point attempt. UNACCEPTABLE!

John Bates – Bates’ only target of the game resulted in a fumble that was recovered by Dallas. It was a momentum-shifter and back-breaker for Washington.

Noah Igbinoghene – Noah had TWO very costly pass interference penalties. On the one, if he just turns his head, he gets an INT on an underthrown ball.

Jeremy Chinn – He did have a massive hit that could have been ruled a fumble, but he also had multiple coverage mistakes, one that allowed an easy touchdown to Schoonmaker, and some missed tackles.

Kliff Kingsbury – The offense was NOT firing on all cylinders today – this after the “mini-bye”. I asked this question before and I’ll ask it again – has the NFL figured out Kingsbury? If I had to watch him call another screen, I was going to pull my hair out! Washington’s offense was 4-12 on third down. PATHETIC!

Commanders Special Teams – This was the WORST special teams performance I have ever seen two teams display! The missed tackles and blown lane assignments on Turpin’s kickoff return touchdown were horrible. Larry Izzo is a good coach, but this was a bad all-around day for his unit.

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• If you just casually glance at Jayden Daniels’ stat line, you may wonder why he wasn’t listed as a Stud. if you actually watched the game, however, you know that he didn’t play that well, and the majority of those yards came in what Dallas fans would call “garbage time”. 86 of his 274 passing yards came on one freak play by McLaurin. He missed some throws in the first half, and all-too-often was locking on to his first read. I will say that the drops didn’t help him either, but the one that Robinson had go through his hands on the screen should never have been thrown. He needed to either ground that ball at BRob’s feet or take off and try to make something happen with his legs. He did do a nice job with his legs, totaling 74 yards and a score on the ground, and in typical fashion, showed up when the game was on the line with two touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Can we blame Kliff for a lot of his early inconsistencies – probably.

• Terry McLaurin’s 86-yard scamper that SHOULD have set up overtime was beautiful. What was not beautiful was the disappearing act he pulled for the better part of four quarters.
• I had Mike Sainristil on the Studs list but I decided to remove him. I do think he played a good game, despite allowing a TD. The kid continues to show he can really play!

• A lot of fans are going to question Quinn’s choice of going for the extra point instead of going for the 2-point conversion, but I question the decision to bringing Seibert back this week when he didn’t look to be 100%.
• Noah Brown makes some great catches, but he drops too many passes for my liking.

• Daron Payne played well today. He was especially impressive on the punt rush where he burst through the line and opened up a lane for Mathis to block the punt.

• Quan Martin had a nice tackle for a loss and a huge field goal block. I think the touchdown to Schoonmaker was the fault of Chinn – but we may never know.

• Why does this staff continue to play Michael Davis?

• Every game, Benjamin St-Juste does something unimaginably stupid, and that usually comes at a key time in the game. How do you let a receiver run right by you on a double-move with seconds left to play before the half???

• Mathis doesn’t really stuff the stat sheet on defense but he had a big blocked punt.

• Why was Lucas not put in at right tackle when Wylie went out? Trent Scott is AWFUL!

• WHY do Sinnott and McCaffrey not get more targets? Luke has one reception on one target and Ben was not targeted.
• Washington was penalized EIGHT times for 78 yards!
• This is NOT a good football team.