More MMQB: 42 Minutes of Frantic Finishes | Saints Can't Be Ignored | Checking in on Top Draft Prospects
In past years, my 10 Takeaways have been included within my larger MMQB column on Monday mornings. This year, they’ll be published as a separate post each week. Here are my weekly notes and observations from across the NFL.
And eventually, Ron Rivera conceded that to me, when we discussed how the final frame started with Washington up 14–12 and quickly devolved with two Carson Wentz picks that led to the Jaguars going up 22–14, which ultimately set the stage for hosts to rally for a stirring 28–22 win.
“You know how many people said that to me privately afterwards, that it was the best thing that happened to [the players]?” Rivera told me, a few hours later. “I said, They said, . For him to come back in that situation, do what he did, that was pretty damn good. I was like, He stuck with it; he hung in there and he kept fighting.”
It’s one day, of course, and it wasn’t a perfect one for Wentz. He finished 27-of-41 for 313 yards, four touchdowns and the two picks. His team won, which is the important thing. There are a lot of things he wants to clean up.
But the truth is, he did answer some questions, mostly because the meltdown was there to be had, and Wentz didn’t just sidestep it—he flipped it on its head.
“Obviously there’s a lot you can’t control in this game,” Wentz said over the phone, leaving the stadium. “For me, you dig yourself a hole and you want to go fix it. You want to go make it right. But at the same time, you can’t do it all in one play, so it’s just, And just keep checking them off, checking them off, and next thing you know, we were rolling.”
How they got rolling is relevant, too, because it plays right into the plan that Rivera and coordinator Scott Turner had to maximize Wentz coming out of his experience in Indianapolis—a plan that would work to create better rhythm for him in the passing game and leverage his big-play ability as a downfield thrower.
The first was accomplished via play selection. Turner called just four runs in the 17 snaps that encompassed the two scoring drives, which allowed for Wentz to gather momentum.
The second happened, in large part, because of what was around Wentz, which is a big reason the Commanders thought this would work from the start. Between Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel alone, Washington has a skill group that can really run, get downfield and make real the threat that Wentz’s big arm brings.
“For sure,” Wentz affirmed. “I mean, quite frankly, I think they’d make a lot of guys in my position’s lives easy. And I think anybody in my shoes would be extremely lucky and extremely excited to get to work with those guys, because they’re all just different and dynamic in their own way. And, in some cases, very interchangeable because they all have speed, they can threaten the defense, they all do so much with the ball in their hands.”
In this case, with two big shots, it won Washington the game.
• The first came after Wentz connected with Logan Thomas to convert a third-and-8, which put the ball at the Jags’ 49. At the snap, both McLaurin and Samuel got vertical, which put safety Andre Cisco in a tough spot, forcing him to choose, and leaving McLaurin to run past Shaquill Griffin down the sideline. When Wentz launched the ball to McLaurin, Cisco came over to him, but the throw landed in the hole between Cisco and Griffin.
“Coach was feeling it, wanted to take a shot to Terry,” Wentz said. “They played a different coverage, but one we talked about all week. In that Cover-2 shell, Terry was able to kinda get in that hole shot, so to speak, and with his speed, I mean that makes it hard to defend. And we had Curtis running down the inside, so you put that speed on any safety, that puts them in a bind. That was a huge play for us.”
• The second came after Wentz dinked and dunked the Commanders 66 yards in 12 plays to get them to a third-and-8 on the Jags’ 24. And this one was simpler. Wentz saw man coverage, and had his matchup with Jacksonville’s Tyson Campbell covering the rookie Dotson, who would essentially shield Campbell from the ball before bringing it in down the left sideline.
“It was a double-move, and it was man-to-man on the backside there with Jahan,” Wentz said. “So that’s what we had talked about, that exact play against that look in that situation, and it’s nice to hit it the way you talk about it like that. That’s huge.”
And it wound up putting the Commanders up for good.
Which adds up to, for now, a nice start for Wentz in Washington, and what seems like a pretty good fit, too. The 29-year-old, for his part, wouldn’t go too much into how different this might be than Indy or Philly. He knows it’s early, and he doesn’t want to start slinging rocks at this point. But other people will say it for him.
That starts with the coach who welcomed him in March by telling him how he was wanted in Washington, and confidently told him on Sunday, after the second pick, that it was his game to win.
“Everything he’s gone through the last couple of years, it kind of feels like us,” Rivera said. “We’ve been stepped on. We’ve been pushed around. Every time, people listen to what other people say about us. And I just felt he fit in and he deserved to know that we really appreciated him, we really wanted him and we were happy to have him on our team. So I just wanted him to know that that’s how we all felt.
“He’s the guy we wanted to be here. We wanted him to be our quarterback. And we just feel that a lot of things that he’s gone through, we can relate to.”
Including the test they mutually got, and passed, on Sunday.
