Commanders Vs. Falcons – Studs and Duds

Washington took a trip south to Mercedes-Benz Stadium to take on the struggling Falcons, and in typical fashion, allowed a team to get right against them. Atlanta failed to score a single point the prior week against their division rival Carolina Panthers but righted that ship in front of their home crowd putting up 34 points against Joe Whitts’ defense. That defense allowed Michael Penix to throw for 313 yards and two touchdowns while giving up 128 rushing yards – 75 of those to star Bijan Robinson.

The banged-up Commanders will need to figure out a lot of things this week before heading out west to take on the 3-1 Chargers who are also experiencing some injuries of their own.

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

Studs:

• Deebo Samuel: Deebo continues his excellent start to the season, again leading the Commanders’ wide receiving corps with six receptions for 72 yards and a touchdown, while adding 9 more yards rushing.

• Luke McCaffrey: Although the passing game was not very good against the Falcons, Luke had a solid game as a starting wide receiver, blocker and kick returner. He had two receptions for 21 yards and a touchdown while blocking his butt off for the ball-carriers and returned six kicks for 199 yards (including a 58 yarder). He even had two special teams tackles.

• Mike Sainristil: Sainristil corralled the Commanders’ first turnover of the season when he picked off Penix in the third quarter. He also had seven tackles and a pass defended on the afternoon.

• Matt Gay: Kicking inside for the first time this season, Gay connected on all four of his field goal attempts, including a 52 yarder.

Duds:

• Bobby Wagner: Despite leading the defense with 10 total tackles, Wagner also missed a few and was HORRIBLE in coverage allowing easy receptions to whoever he was ‘attempting” to cover. It’s VERY CLEAR that he needs to become a part-time player at this point of his career.

• Marshon Lattimore: Lattimore was picked on all afternoon, and he allowed Michael Penix and the Falcons receivers, mainly Drake London, to go off. Not only is he allowing separation, but he continues to commit penalties – and STILL allow receptions. I have been a defender of the trade, but I’m quickly starting to doubt the move.

• Quan Martin: Martin played his worst game since his rookie season, allowing easy completions and missing a bunch of tackles. He was late a few times getting over the top to help and he looked just as poor covering the middle in zone.

• Defensive line’s missed tackles: The defensive linemen missed an absurd number of tackles on the afternoon – many of which would have been for a loss in the backfield or a short gain. I understand the entire defense was missing tackles, but I feel this group stood out more than others that I didn’t already call out.

• Joe Whitt Jr.: Whitt’s defensive scheme was horrible all afternoon as he let the Falcons completely control the game. Any scheme that has the 35-year-old Wagner matched up in coverage on 4.3 athletes is a HUGE miss! Dan Quinn needs to have a “coming to Jesus” moment with his defensive coordinator.

Notes:

• Marcus Mariota did what he could to keep Washington in this game, despite getting ZERO help from his defense besides the Sainristil interception. For as poorly as the defense played all afternoon, we were just one late stop (the reception Lattimore allowed on the out-route to London) from getting the ball back to either tie or win the game.

• Frankie Luvu was very active during the game, recording eight tackles, one for a loss, a sack and four pressures, however he missed too many tackles to make my Studs list.

• CRod and Bill combined for 106 yards on just 14 carries (including a 48 yarder by Rodriguez). I think Kliff was forced to pass more being down by two scores.

• Ben Sinnott has stepped in for the injured John Bates and has done a real nice job blocking. He NEEDS to start seeing some targets in the passing game.

• Trey Amos continues to be Washington’s best cover man – and it’s not even close.
• Why is Chris Moore still on this football team?

• Jaylin Lane had two receptions for 18 yards but also fumbled two punts (none of which were recovered by the Falcons).
• I love Jeremy Reaves the person and special teams player, but he shouldn’t be seeing that much playing time with the starting unit. We need to get Savage up and running sooner than later.
• Daron Payne had a relatively quiet game; however he did have a nice forced fumble that unfortunately went tumbling right back to Penix.

• Adam Peters’ roster building with these aging vets has gotten me quite concerned. The injuries are PILING up, and many are happening to the older players he’s brought in or re-signed. Soft tissues injuries are more common in the NFL as players age and seeing how many are now hitting our roster, I contemplated giving Peters Dud status – HOWEVER, looking at the big picture, most of this is on Ron Rivera for missing on so many high draft picks. I have already declared Ron as a PERMANENT Dud, so no reason to add him to this list again.
• Coming into this game, the Commanders defense ranked 24th in the league in receiving yards allowed to opposing receivers. I have to imagine this game will drop them into the 30’s.