Next Day Thread: What Was That? (Dallas Edition)

I watched the game again this morning (sucker for punishment I guess!)

First thing that struck me was that the Oline isn’t playing as well as it did.
Our run game was ineffective if your number isn’t 5 and JD had pass rushers in his face frequently.

Second, our WRs just aren’t getting open.

I tend to lean towards it being a talent/depth issue. Hopefully that gets resolved in the offseason.

Again, the D generally did enough to win this game. And weirdly our offense caught fire in the 4th. (I think JD plays his best ball under pressure-a good sign I think-and Kingsbury takes a less conservative view to his play calling.)

It’s another game we coulda shoulda won.

But lord that special teams, which has been a strength this season, picked the worst time to lay a complete egg! 1 missed FG, 2 missed PATs and allowed 2 KO returns for TDs! That’s like a 19 point swing! Can’t overcome that!

D should improve when we get Lattimore.
O needs to look at our late game success and see if we can translate that to the early quarters.
Special Teams needs to take a long hard look at itself!!

We also still commit far too many drive killing penalties, and our WRs drop some relatively easy catches. We need more talent for JD.

More concerning is that BRob could be out again, and looks like Eckler may be in concussion protocol.

Looking increasingly like stud WR and a stud RB may be in our draft future.
 
Average to good teams have to play complementary football to win consistently. This is the 2nd week in a row we got a mostly heroic effort from the defense only to have the other 2 units let us down completely. Yes, the offense made some noise in the 4th quarter. But they scored 3 points in a half against one of the worst teams in 2024. I will say this... Dallas has a pretty good secondary, not stellar, but good. Getting a ton of pressure on Daniels made them look very good. The bottom line is, if the offense and ST play even decently yesterday, Washington wins that game going away.

Brother Om has been saying it all year - this team is always ready to play. They have not come out looking flat and unprepared all year - until now. It's hard to understand how, with extra time to prepare, playing at home, and most importantly against a very familiar opponent, that we'd look like the team that wasn't ready to play.

We can slice and dice and rant and rave about players all we want today. But this felt like a coaching and gameplanning failure to me.
 
I was not comfortable all week as I read post after post claiming this would be our get well game. This is not Georgia vs The Citadel, in the NFL every game is a potential loss.

I have no idea why posters are being so hard on Jayden. Teams have not "figured him out" he ran for 74 yards yesterday, his third highest rushing game of the season. No I put this on KK and the coaching staff. When teams play up because you are a pussy and refuse to even throw a 10 yard pass why would you continue to run into a brick wall? The 2nd half dropoff with KK's teams are very real and I had always been concerned about that. But Jayden looks great physically, he just could not overcome the constant pressure and lack of desire to have a downfield passing game. KK had better figure out how to handle the blitz because they will see it from here on out. After starting the season with 2 drops in 2 months this receiving corp, and the OC, didn't give Jayden Daniels a chance yesterday. Open up the offense Kliff, this is not working and your QB is fine physically.

Lay off the kicker, he has been phenominal. Most bad kicks start with a bad snap, timing is eveything on this play and now once again it appears as if we have a long snapper problem because both missed PATs were off of bad snaps.

The defense. Oy. It's a given that they will give up long, taxing drives. Especially to start the game. But they always tend to hold them to field goals and eventually improve as the game goes on. We all felt they had not taken advantage of all the gifts the Cowboys gave early in the game, no way the score should have only been 3-0.. The offense lost this game. ST was a mixed bag, let's not forget they blocked a punt and a kick in the same game. Has that ever happened, even with George Allen's teams?

This is not revisionist history, I said it at the time. When the Boys have exactly 2 offensive players who can beat you why would you kick off to one of them in the final minutes? It's scary that the coaches had a week and a half to prepare and they were the reason for the loss.
 
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Only thing I'll quibble about is that the decision to throw downfield is not just about Kingsbury's playcall. There were a number of times where receivers were marginally open yesterday and Daniels would not pull the trigger. I'm not sure if he lacks some confidence to make tight window throws right now with the rib injury, or whether he's being coached to play more cautiously, but Kingsbury isn't the one choosing whether to throw or not on a lot of these plays. We should've been able to run on Dallas. They have one of the worst russhing defenses in the league in 2024. So I expected a rush heavy gameplan because it made the most sense. And lets be honest - if Kingsbury goes pass heavy when the rush was mostly ineffective, the fanbase is screaming that giving up on the run cost us the game. The bottom line is always the same. If you don't take risks, there is no reward. If you can't execute, it doesn't matter what the playcall was or wasn't.
 
Darrell Green Fan said:
I was not comfortable all week as I read post after post claiming this would be our get well game. This is not Georgia vs The Citadel, in the NFL every game is a potential loss.

I have no idea why posters are being so hard on Jayden. Teams have not "figured him out" he ran for 74 yards yesterday, his third highest rushing game of the season. No I put this on KK and the coaching staff. When teams play up because you are a pussy and refuse to even throw a 10 yard pass why would you continue to run into a brick wall? The 2nd half dropoff with KK's teams are very real and I had always been concerned about that. But Jayden looks great physically, he just could not overcome the constant pressure and lack of desire to have a downfield passing game. KK had better figure out how to handle the blitz because they will see it from here on out. After starting the season with 2 drops in 2 months this receiving corp, and the OC, didn't give Jayden Daniels a chance yesterday. Open up the offense Kliff, this is not working and your QB is fine physically.

Lay off the kicker, he has been phenominal. Most bad kicks start with a bad snap, timing is eveything on this play and now once again it appears as if we have a long snapper problem because both missed PATs were off of bad snaps.

The defense. Oy. It's a given that they will give up long, taxing drives. Especially to start the game. But they always tend to hold them to field goals and eventually improve as the game goes on. We all felt they had not taken advantage of all the gifts the Cowboys gave early in the game, no way the score should have only been 3-0.. The offense lost this game. ST was a mixed bag, let's not forget they blocked a punt and a kick in the same game. Has that ever happened, even with George Allen's teams?

This is not revisionist history, I said it at the time. When the Boys have exactly 2 offensive players who can beat you why would you kick off to one of them in the final minutes? It's scary that the coaches had a week and a half to prepare and they were the reason for the loss.
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I don't think teams have figured Daniels out... I think they've figured out our team... and I don't think that necessarily falls on Kingsbury, either.

At the end of the day we have an overall talent deficiency on offense. Injured running backs (routinely) [speaking of, I think we need to start using McNichols more. He's healthy, he's solid and he needs to be integrated so when we have Ekeler and Robinson hurt we have a running game], our receivers are flat out not great aside from Terry (though our 4/5 spot is loaded with talent and Noah is potentially a 3) and most importantly our offensive line, especially tackle, is bad.

It limits what we can do. Teams have figured out the plan... get the ball out quick and if there is nothing there get Daniels on the move. Occasionally take a shot down field, but we need to pick our spots because we don't have the protection to do that most times.

While I agree there is more Kingsbury and even Daniels can do, I don't think there is a whole lot more. They are playing behind on the talent front and doing well with what they have.

People tend to forget how talent starved this roster is and was. We have a roster put together with duct tape after replacing our roster from last year at a near historic % turnover.

Perspective is key here, and blaming everyone currently involved does no good. It takes time to turn things around.
 
Great post KDawg. I think that sums it up about as concisely as it could be. The other thing is, we captured some magic in a bottle early, and that rightfully lead to a ton of excitement. That makes the inevitable struggles a lot more painful. We should be excited to be a 7-5 team in the first year of a massive rebuild. We may still be a playoff participant.

And please, spare me the 'they could be 5-7' stuff - because you can say that about literally any team. Nailbiters and games that are decided on a play or two are a dime a dozen in the NFL.
 
The biggest weapon on offense outside of the quarterback this season has been Austin Ekeler. I fear that he is on the Tua path and would be surprised to see him again the rest of the way. Two concussions in a short time-span, with one being very scary, is obviously concerning to say the least.
 
Yeah, I agree. I never saw a replay of that specific play but would've liked to.
 
Just watching him walk of the field with help like a cast member of The Walking Dead was sobering for me. (Metaphorically)
 
I suspect the NFL will eventually have mandatory limits that shut players down for the season at a certain point, and perhaps at some point make them ineligible to continue playing and force retirement. If I were running the show I would change the verbiage from 'Concussion' to 'TBI' (Traumatic Brain Injury) - because that's exactly what the players are experiencing and reflects the seriousness of these injuries.
 
Im not mad at our kicker im mad at the staff for allowing him to come back when he obviously was not ready
 
Quinn let the team down by not going for 2.

We had our foot on their neck ready to finish them and instead he put the game into the hands of a long snapper you can't name and kicker who shocked the world by hitting a 50 yard field goal.

That could have been our greatest game of the past 20 years. Instead, it's the worst.
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Quinn said post-game he 'never considered going for 2 there' but I think that's clearly nonsense. He had to have at least thought about it. On the kind of day we had yesterday, I think it's a low probability we are 2/2 on 2 point attempts, but I agree I would've liked the aggressiveness of going for it while we had them on their heels. The whole 'fortune favors the brave' thing.
 
Hail Raiser said:
How do you know his injury status? Are you implying that we'll be penalized for lying on the injury report?
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No i just know he was out with surgery and should have been out until the bye week. There was zero reason to hurry back unless he was worried about losing his job. Which may happen anyways
 
Boone said:
Quinn said post-game he 'never considered going for 2 there' but I think that's clearly nonsense. He had to have at least thought about it. On the kind of day we had yesterday, I think it's a low probability we are 2/2 on 2 point attempts, but I agree I would've liked the aggressiveness of going for it while we had them on their heels. The whole 'fortune favors the brave' thing.
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Eh, I don’t know. Going for two at home is a real conundrum. If we were in Dallas I’d have done it. At home, with momentum? Probably not.

As someone who has made those calls in real life, it’s one of those things that seems real easy to do from our position but in the moment there are a ton of factors. I do not fault Quinn one bit and completely believe he never considered it. It’s the NFL. Your kicker should be able to make a XP and missing two in one game has such astronomically small odds I think he played the odds correctly.
 
Boone said:
Quinn said post-game he 'never considered going for 2 there' but I think that's clearly nonsense. He had to have at least thought about it. On the kind of day we had yesterday, I think it's a low probability we are 2/2 on 2 point attempts, but I agree I would've liked the aggressiveness of going for it while we had them on their heels. The whole 'fortune favors the brave' thing.
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I would have though the better move was going for it in the second quarter on the the dallas 38 instead of kicking the fg . Earlier in the season he was doing that but after gettin 6-7 wins he became way too conservative
 
tomwvr said:
No i just know he was out with surgery and should have been out until the bye week. There was zero reason to hurry back unless he was worried about losing his job. Which may happen anyways
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You don't take a guy off of the injury report unless he's healthy. You don't bench a starter, because he was injured before and is now healthy.

I think a better reason for him missing kicks, probably has something to do with why he was available to us in the first place. He's not a great kicker.
 
KDawg said:
Eh, I don’t know. Going for two at home is a real conundrum. If we were in Dallas I’d have done it. At home, with momentum? Probably not.

As someone who has made those calls in real life, it’s one of those things that seems real easy to do from our position but in the moment there are a ton of factors. I do not fault Quinn one bit and completely believe he never considered it. It’s the NFL. Your kicker should be able to make a XP and missing two in one game has such astronomically small odds I think he played the odds correctly.
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The call to not go for 2 doesn't irk me as much as the 51 yarder on 4rth and 2 earlier in the game.
 
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