There are plenty of questions surrounding the Week 3 matchup between the Las Vegas Raiders and the Washington Commanders, including whether an injured Jayden Daniels
or backup Marcus Mariota will be the Commanders’ quarterback on Sunday. To get some answers and preview the game for Raider Nation, we reached out to our friends at Hogs Haven and Andrew York was kind enough to provide more information on Washington.Q: What’s the likelihood that Jayden Daniels will play on Sunday? If he can go, what
limitations do you think he/the Commanders’ offense will have? And if he doesn’t, what’s the confidence level in Marcus Mariota?
A: Twitter doctor David Chao (@ProFootballDoc) seems to think Jayden is likely to play based on watching game film of the injury and of Jayden playing through to the end of the game after being injured. However, Jayden hasn’t practiced so far this week (as of Wednesday when I write this). Coach Dan Quinn has said he wants to make a determination only after seeing Jayden practice, so presumably, he will have to practice by Friday to be considered for the game. If he can play, I think it’s likely he wears a brace and they scale back the designed QB runs. It’s also very unfortunate Jayden isn’t able to practice, because he’s looked a bit rough these first few games, with poor ball placement and, in particular, poor chemistry with Terry McLaurin (who sat out all of camp while negotiating a new contract). He needs these reps.
If Jayden can’t play, it will be Marcus Mariota starting for us. Mariota is one of the higher-paid backup QBs at $8M per year and the team is paying him that much because they believe he’s one of the best backups available. He also has a similar skillset to Jayden as a highly mobile QB with a good arm, good accuracy, and able to get the ball out quickly. He played most of Week 7 last year after Jayden went out with an early rib injury and threw for 205 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, and a 78.3 completion percentage, though that was against a terrible Panthers defense. He also played the 2nd half after Jayden got injured in Week 18 against the Cowboys (a much better defense) and threw for 161 yards, 2 TDs, and an 83.3 completion percentage. Fans definitely have confidence in Mariota.
Q: It’s only been two games, but what has Deebo Samuel brought to Washington’s offense so far? How does he complement Terry McLaurin?
A: Terry McLaurin is more of a pure traditional WR, with polished route running and the speed to take the top off a defense. As such, he’s best used on intermediate and deep routes with traditional passing concepts. Deebo is more of a versatile WR/RB hybrid who is quicker than fast and has the power and contact balance to get yards after contact. As such, Deebo is best used on short to intermediate routes, screen passes, and as a second RB on trick plays in the backfield. OC Kliff Kingsbury’s offense features a lot of screen passes and two RB misdirection plays, so Deebo has been a great fit for his offense. Another way to put it is that Terry does more to stretch the field vertically, whereas Deebo stretches the field horizontally.
Q: From an outsider’s perspective, it seems like Marshon Lattimore has been a disappointment since getting traded to Washington midseason last year. What’s the general consensus on Lattimore? Is the secondary a weakness for the defense?
A: Lattimore was certainly a disappointment last year, though he had a nagging hamstring injury for basically the whole year. This year, he is finally healthy and played pretty well in week 1 vs the Giants. When matched up with Malik Nabers, he allowed only 1 reception on 4 targets for 11 yards. He played worse against the Packers, drawing several holding penalties and getting burned by Dontayvion Wicks deep. However, most of his poor play was in the first half and he settled down in the second half. Some fans are ready to run him out of town, but I’d like to wait and see how he plays in a few more games. I think it’s too early to conclude he’s washed; he has shown enough good play to wait and see. If he has a weakness though, it’s that he seems to have trouble with speedy WRs.
The rest of the secondary has played well with one exception: safety Will Harris got absolutely roasted by TE Tucker Kraft all night last Thursday. Either the Commanders foolishly intended to have him shadow Kraft or the Packers were scheming to exploit that matchup, but either way, it seemed like Kraft was dunking on Harris for most of the game. If anything, I’d say Harris is the matchup to exploit over Lattimore based on our 2-game sample size, but hopefully that was just a bad night for Harris and he’ll bounce back from it.
Q: The Commanders’ pass rush was considered a need during the draft, but they didn’t use a pick to address the problem and opted to sign Von Miller instead. How has that impacted the defense so far, and are there any pass-rushers whom the Raiders should be concerned about?
So far, Von Miller has been a depth/rotational player and hasn’t been especially noticeable in games. Based on the reports out of camp, he’s more of a pass-rush specialist and is likely to only be used on obvious passing downs. Our biggest DL contributors so far have been DE Dorance Armstrong, DT Daron Payne, and DT Javon Kinlaw. According to PFR in our 2 weeks of play, the three of them combined have 4 sacks, 5 QB hits, 5 TFLs, and 20 combined tackles. It’s fair to say pass rush is still a need for us, though we pressured Russell Wilson on 22 of his 45 dropbacks (almost 50%) in Week 1.
Q: Can you give us one under-the-radar player on each side of the ball who could make an impact in this game?
A: On offense, I think it would be RB Jacory Crosky-Merritt (he goes by Bill Merritt). Bill is a 7th-round rookie who fell in the draft due to an eligibility issue that forced him to sit out most of his final season of college football, but his talent level is much higher than a typical 7th-round pick, and he’s looked like our best pure rusher so far, able to get good yards after contact.
On defense, I think it would be CB Trey Amos. He was our 2nd-round pick in this year’s draft and the reports of his play out of training camp have been glowing. He’s looked good so far in games, allowing only 5 catches on 9 targets (55.6% completion percentage) over two games according to PFR.
