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Commanders vs. Chiefs Week 8: Three must-know storylines for ‘Monday Night Football’ showdown
Commanders’ running game vs. Chiefs’ run defense
Washington has an avenue to making life easy on Marcus Mariota: Its rushing offense entered Week 8 tops in the NFL with 5.4 yards per carry. Some of that is, of course, predicated on Jayden Daniels’ proclivity to gash opponents using timely scrambles, but there’s still a system in place to take advantage of Kansas City’s 15th-ranked unit against the run. Jacory Croskey-Merritt must shake off his funk to make it happen, however. After besting
all ball carriers with 6.6 yards per carry in Weeks 1-5, he’s since plummeted to 3.1 yards per carry the past two games. He’s been getting the feature back treatment of late, with 14.6 attempts per games the past three weeks, so the task of taking apart K.C.’s D will likely again fall to him, with Chris Rodriguez Jr. and Jeremy McNichols pitching in from time to time. If the Commanders are able to find ground versus the Chiefs, it will hopefully somewhat mitigate the pass rush led by George Karlaftis, the owner of 30 pressures in 2025, and Chris Jones, who has propelled the Chiefs to a 41.5 pressure percentage when on the field.
Commanders Wire
Commanders must find ways to limit explosive plays
The Commanders‘ defense ranks fifth-worst in the NFL, allowing 5.8 yards per play through their first seven games. Add to the fact that they are surrendering so many yards each play, they have also only produced three takeaways in seven games. That’s a rough combination when you are trying to win games in the NFL. Going for the trifecta, the Commanders have the second-most missed tackles in the NFL (56).
When talking about the pass defense, the Commanders have given up the sixth-highest total passing yards (1668). The 12 passing touchdowns allowed by opposing offenses rank 10th-worst this season. Their net passing yards they are yielding is even worse, ranking third at 7.1. What that means is they are not getting to the quarterbacks either, because net passing yards include sacked yards and times sacking the quarterback.
This statistical list of touchdowns per team shows the Commanders’ offense is not the problem.
43.2% of the opposing offensive possessions have concluded in scores against the Commanders’ defense. That is the tenth highest in the league. A terrible combination is the fact that the Commanders have the second-lowest rate in the NFL of their defense creating turnovers, as only 4.1 percent of opposing offensive possessions have resulted in a turnover.
The Athletic (paywall)
NFL Week 8 staff picks, preview: Do or die for Ravens and Commanders
Washington is still a very good team, and we are in the early days of Jayden Daniels’ sure-to-be awesome career, but last year’s soft schedule and six of their 12 wins coming on the game’s final play masked the flaws present at this stage of their build. This is what it looks like when injuries bite at the wrong time.
Unfortunately for the Commanders, this dip — and the temporary loss of Daniels to injury — coincides with the moment they need to play their best football of the season. The Chiefs look like the best team in the league currently (playing the Raiders will do that), and have spent all of one game with their full complement of weapons. No disrespect to the Colts, but Kansas City appears to be all the way back to championship form on both sides of the ball.
If Washington goes into Arrowhead and loses (and a 12.5-point spread in KC’s favor says they will), they will be 3-5 and have to face Seattle and Detroit the next two games. They get Miami after that and then a bye, but when they return in Week 13, their schedule is a gauntlet all the way to the end. They simply cannot carry seven losses into the final six weeks and hope to have any shot at the postseason. It may be Week 8, but it’s do-or-die time for the Commanders.
The Athletic (paywall)
The Washington Commanders seem off-course. Maybe this is where they always were?
It was around this time a year ago when the Commanders, then 7-2, acquired veteran cornerback Marshon Lattimore just before the NFL’s trade deadline. Their rebuild seemed ahead of schedule, and the team shifted to win-now mode.
But as the Nov. 4 deadline approaches this year, and the Commanders struggle to replicate last year’s success, it’s worth considering: Maybe this is where the Commanders always were. Maybe the success of 2024 — and of Jayden Daniels — masked much of what was still missing for Washington.
The Commanders allowed an average of 7.35 explosive plays a game to opponents last year. Their average this year is only a hair higher, at 7.57.
They gave up 5.4 yards per play last year and missed 8.1 tackles per game. This year? Both are up only slightly: 5.8 yards per play and 8.9 missed tackles a game, the latter according to Pro Football Focus.
They allowed a 38.2 percent conversion rate on opponent third-down attempts last season. This season? Around the same, at 39.1 percent on third downs.
They entered last season without a big-name true pass rusher and did the same this season.
The storyline going into the season was whether Daniels would endure a Year 2 slump. But the injuries have made it almost impossible to judge his and the offense’s progress.
A to Z Sports
Terry McLaurin’s return is major for the Commanders, but it’s just part of something that has been missing
The Commanders can get back on schedule if McLaurin returns at full strength.
It’s been a nightmare of a season for McLaurin, who has only played in 11 quarters through eight weeks, and only two games with Daniels. He was paid to be the X-Factor of offense, but he’s been the missing piece instead. You can’t control injuries, especially on an effort play where he stretched out for the touchdown, but it’s still an unfortunate situation.
McLaurin only has 10 catches for 149 yards, and he’s still trying to find the endzone for the first time this season. His lone deep pass actually came from Marcus Mariota, who will be starting Monday night, so hopefully he can hit the ground running in his first game back. We aren’t sure what to expect in his return, and coming back from injury can be tough.
McLaurin’s return is huge, but now he needs to create the big plays on the field that we know he’s capable of.
Heavy.com
Jayden Daniels : Testing hamstring Sunday
Daniels will test his injured hamstring in workouts on Sunday, and the Commanders think he has a chance to return in Week 9 against the Seahawks, Jay Glazer reported on Fox NFL Sunday. No matter how the testing unfolds, Daniels will still miss Monday night’s game against the Chiefs, but he’s made enough progress during the week to create some optimism for next week. Marcus Mariota will start on Monday night in Daniels’ stead versus Kansas City.
Washington Post (paywall)
An exercise in pain: Documenting the extent of the Commanders’ injuries
Injury luck contributed to last year’s breakout season. This year, Washington has been hit time and time again with damaging losses.
While every NFL team deals with attrition, Washington’s has been abnormally brutal in timing and severity. Of the 23 players listed as offensive or defensive starters on the team’s unofficial Week 1 depth chart, seven have missed multiple games to injury or have been knocked out for the entire season. An eighth regular starter, right guard Sam Cosmi, missed six games after opening the season on injured reserve.
A Washington Post analysis found that Washington players missed a combined 92 games because of injuries during the 2024 regular season. With the long-term injuries suffered in the first seven games this year taken into account, injured Commanders are already set to miss at least 93 games. (That calculation includes estimated recovery timelines for several players, such as safety Will Harris and defensive end Javontae Jean-Baptiste.)
Here’s a look at how the Commanders have managed that injury puzzle, accounting for every player who has missed three or more of the first eight games.
Podcasts & videos
Commanders vs Chiefs Week 8 | Gruden’s Preview
NFC East links
Big Blue View
Cam Skattebo injury: Giants’ RB set for surgery on dislocated ankle
It’s very bad news for the Giants.
New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo went down with a dislocated ankle with 8:11 left in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The team announced after the game that Skattebo will undergo surgery Sunday night in a Philadelphia-area hospital
A fourth-round pick, Skattebo entered the game leading the Giants with 398 rushing yards on 98 carries (4.1 yards per carry). He also had 23 catches for 189 more yards.
Blogging the Boys
Back to square one as Cowboys fall apart in Denver
There should be a law that the Cowboys can’t play the Broncos anymore. The Cowboys haven’t beaten this organization, in Denver or Dallas, since 1995. And they’ll have to wait even longer to break that streak, as they fell apart at the seams this week on the road. All the good will that was built up from last week’s win was blown out of the water.
Things started off great, though. The Broncos started with the ball and Trikweze Bridges, making his second start, picked off Bo Nix on the third play of the game. Dak Prescott hit CeeDee Lamb on a huge 29-yard gain to set up first and goal, too. But some broken plays and a false start penalty resulted in settling for a field goal.
And things pretty much went downhill from there.
Bleeding Green Nation
Eagles gain cushion in the NFC East with the Cowboys losing
Following the Eagles’ comfortable victory over the New York Giants in the 1:00 PM window, the Cowboys got blown out by the Broncos during the late games slot.
That Dallas defense continued to struggle (44 points allowed) and Dak Prescott threw two interceptions, which is twice as many as Jalen Hurts has accounted for this entire season.
This result means that the Eagles now have a bigger cushion atop their division. Here’s a look at the current NFC East standings:
1) Eagles: 6-2
2) Cowboys: 3-4-1
3) Commanders: 3-4
4) Giants: 2-6
The only team that’s left to play in Week 8 is the Washington Commanders, who are 11.5-point road underdogs to the Kansas City Chiefs. If Marcus Mariota can’t pull off a big upset, Washington will drop to 3-5. And then they have to host the Seattle Seahawks and Detroit Lions. Hardly impossible they drop to 3-7.
Bringing it back to the Cowboys, they have two winnable games coming up (with their bye sandwiched in-between): vs. Arizona Cardinals and at Las Vegas Raiders. But then they have a three-game stretch that involves hosting the Eagles (could be a kill shot opportunity for the Birds) and the Chiefs before playing the Lions in Detroit.
There’s obviously still plenty of season left to play … but the Eagles are entering their Week 9 bye in a good spot.
Upcoming opponent
Arrowhead Pride
Even without Jayden Daniels, Chiefs see Commanders as a dangerous foe
during this week’s preparations for the game, Chiefs’ head coach Andy Reid showed no sign of lowering his guard against the Commanders. He has respect for their head coach Dan Quinn — and clearly remembers the role backup quarterback Marcus Mariota played in Kansas City’s 2017 playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans.
“[They’re] a veteran group of players that are good football players,” remarked Reid on Thursday. “They’ve got a head coach that I consider right at the top of his profession at this time. He’s as good as anybody — and then he’s got good coordinators there. So, offensively, defensively [and on] special teams, they’ve got explosive players. They’ve got good guys up front on both sides of the ball. Mariota, we know, has come in here and won a game, so we get it that he’s a good football player — and we don’t slight that at all.”
When the 2025 schedule was announced, the contest between Kansas City and Washington was hyped as the initial meeting between Daniels and the Chiefs’ star quarterback Patrick Mahomes — who will regret missing out on this showcase matchup between exciting passers. Mahomes is well aware that the Commanders’ offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury — who was Mahomes’ coach at Texas Tech —holds Daniels in high regard.
“You want to go up against the best of the best,” said Mahomes, “and Jayden, with the way that he played last year, he’s in that category. He’s a talented football player [that] I’ve watched play since he was at Arizona State, to LSU and to now in the NFL. Kliff speaks very highly of him as a person.”
Two of Kansas City’s defensive leaders are focused on the dangers Washington’s running game presents. Rookie running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt and rotational backs Jeremy McNichols and Chris Rodriguez all present the potential for big plays. They’re behind an offensive line that is playing well — and the Commanders will also have wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Terry McLaurin back from injury.
“The offensive tackles have obviously been playing great for them,” noted linebacker Nick Bolton. “They do a great job, [and] they get their pass catchers back. It’s going to be an added boost to those guys, and the running backs are doing great this year. One’s averaging 5.3 [yards], I think, per carry and another one is averaging 4.2 or something like that. It’s going to be a challenge for us up front. [We] need to stop the run early and get them in favorable downs for us and take out the quarterback.”
College coaching news
Front Office Sports
LSU Ends Brian Kelly Era, $53M Buyout Negotiations Underway
LSU fired Brian Kelly Sunday, ending the embattled football coach’s three and a half season run in Baton Rouge.
LSU fired Brian Kelly on Sunday, ending the embattled football coach’s three-and-a-half-season run in Baton Rouge.
Kelly, who signed a 10-year, $100 million contract in 2022, is owed a buyout of roughly $53 million. That’s the second most expensive buyout in college sports history, behind the $77 million Texas A&M paid to Jimbo Fisher in 2023.
Offset language—similar to that found in James Franklin’s buyout from Penn State—could make the total LSU ends up actually paying Kelly much less than the estimated $53 million.
The Tigers fell to 5–3 (including a 2–3 SEC record) after Saturday’s 49–25 home loss to No. 3 Texas A&M, which knocked LSU out of the AP Top 25 poll for the first time this season. Kelly leaves with a 34–14 record at LSU, including three bowl victories, but no College Football Playoff appearances.
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