Most weeks of this season, I have tried to post some kind of game preview article, usually based on statistical reviews of offensive & defensive rankings, turnover margins, common opponents and the like.
After three consecutive beatdowns at the hands of the Cowboys, Chiefs and Seahawks in games broadcast to all or most of the country, it seems futile to compare the metrics of the 3-6 Commanders with those of the 5-3 Lions. It’s not that the Lions are some sort of unstoppable juggernaut; it’s just
that Washington has done very little right since Jayden Daniels dropped a slippery ball in the 4th quarter of the Monday Night Football game vs the Bears a month ago.
The only way that this game against the visiting Lions remains competitive is for the Commanders to play completely different football then they have for the past three weeks, and, with the injured reserve list growing, that possibility appears to grow increasingly unlikely every week.
Instead of a statistical look at the two teams, I thought I’d simply share some thoughts ahead of what could be another brutal 3 hours for Washington fans.
Eyes on the NFC playoffs
Before the curb-stomping suffered by the Commanders on Sunday night at home against the Seahawks, with the Commanders hovering around .500, I was keeping a close eye on the potential competition for NFC wild card spots.
In Week 8, these teams lost:
- 3-4 Vikings
- 3-4 Falcons
- 4-3 Bears
- 4-4 Panthers
- 5-3 49ers
- 2-6 Giants
- 3-4-1 Cowboys
The only Week 8 game that truly went the wrong way for the Commanders playoff hopes was the win by the Packers in Pittsburgh.
While a Week 8 win on Monday Night Football in Kansas City seemed unlikely, I was encouraged by the idea that the Commanders at least wouldn’t fall behind the competition, because Week 8 was a bad week for the NFC in inter-conference matchups.
Heading into Week 9, I had high hopes that the return of Jayden Daniels would provide the spark needed to change Washington’s recent bad fortune and get the team a badly needed win to move the overall record to 4-5.
So I spent all day last Sunday watching the results of games involving potential NFC wildcard teams. These teams lost:
- 5-3 Lions
- 5-2-1 Packers
- 3-5 Falcons
The wins by the 49ers and Rams were not favorable, but expecting the Giants and Saints to get those wins was unreasonable.
The point is, I felt pretty good about Washington’s situation ahead of the kickoff last Sunday night. The team was back at home after being on the road for 5 of the first 8 games; Jayden was back; the Art Monk jersey retirement was happening — it just felt like the Seahawks could end up being overwhelmed by a hungry football team on the rebound from a couple of weeks of bad play and bad injury luck.
In an alternate universe where Washington got the win against the Seahawks on Sunday night and escaped the game without new injuries, this weekend would have seen a rejuvenated Commanders squad aiming to get a second-consecutive win at home, this time against the Lions, hoping to get to 5-5 ahead of a game against the Dolphins next week, with a good possibility of heading into the Week 12 bye with a 6-5 record.
Again, that was in an alternate universe.
In this universe, the Commanders are 3-6, on a 4-game losing streak, and Jayden Daniels suffered a gruesome-looking injury when he was on the field for no apparent reason in the 4th quarter of last week’s blowout. It’s hard to imagine how the team could be any lower than it seems to be right now.
The Lions are hungry
One of the things I do every day when I prepare the Daily Slop article is to read the blogs of the upcoming opponent. I try to add an article or two to the links each day that offer some idea of what the opposing team is facing or what their fans are feeling.
Aware of the Lions 5-3 record, I was surprised this week when I looked at the Lions blog, Pride of Detroit, and saw a bunch of articles and comments from dispirited Lions fans. They didn’t sound terribly different from Commanders fans.
When I spent a minute reflecting on it, I realized that, of course, they have just taken a bad loss to the division rival Vikings following Detroit’s Week 8 bye. If you didn’t see the game, don’t let the 3-point margin of victory fool you — the Vikings never trailed in the game and held the lead from the middle of the 2nd quarter. Minnesota also held a 10-point lead from the middle of the 3rd quarter until inside the final two minutes of the game, which ended with 3 consecutive kneel-downs by Vikings QB JJ McCarthy. The Lions got skewered.
In the weeks before that game, while Detroit had a dominating win against Tampa Bay in Week 7, they got thumped by Kansas City in Week 6.
That means that the Lions have only 1 win in their past three games — 1 win in the past 4 weeks of the NFL season.
Also, their early-season 4-game win streak doesn’t look as impressive in retrospect as it probably felt when it was happening. While it started with a curb-stomping of the division-rival Bears, the other three wins came against the 3-5 Ravens, the 2-6 Browns, and the 3-6 Bengals. A win is a win, but when we look at Detroit’s wins & losses in this context, it’s easy to see that this is not the same Lions team that tore up the league in 2024.
The Lions are a good team, but not the unstoppable force that they appeared to be in 2024 (until they were stopped — one & done in the playoffs, soundly thumped in their home stadium by the Commanders).
Hunger and revenge
The Lions, then, enter this week with two ‘extra’ motivations; they want to make up for the bad loss last week against the Vikings, and they want some payback for the bitter loss they suffered in January at the hands of the Washington Commanders.
With the Bears hosting the Giants on Sunday, Detroit certainly doesn’t want to take a loss that would probably drop them to 3rd place in the NFC North, and, in truth, probably aren’t in any danger of leaving Washington without a win.
The Commanders approach
Washington, as you know, has lost 4 straight games while playing bad football. The 3 most recent losses have each been by margins of 21 points or more.
While not yet on IR, the team will be without Jayden Daniels and Terry McLaurin yet again. Players on injured reserve include: Noah Brown, Austin Ekeler, Will Harris, Marshon Lattimore, Deatrich Wise, Luke McCaffrey, and Javontae Jean-Baptiste. That’s a lot to lose from a roster that was always rather thin to begin with after 4 years of criminally bad drafting by Ron Rivera.
This is a team in crisis. I don’t think there are many answers available to the coaches right now.
The big change this week, aside from injury-driven personnel changes, is the move of defensive coordinator Joe Whitt from the booth to the sideline. He says the move was prompted by suggestions from players, and that he then asked Dan Quinn to be allowed to make the change. The idea is to improve communication between Whitt and his players.
Also, Dan Quinn is continuing the recent strategy of having the starting offense spend some practice time weekly against the starting defense in an effort to raise the performance with “good on good” competition.
With so many of Washington’s best players simply not available to play, I don’t know if any of it is enough to matter, but what is clear is that the Commanders need to play football at a completely different level if they hope to be competitive, much less to win the game.
Blocking, tackling, throwing, catching, communication — everything has to be better. If not, we are simply going to see a string of ugly football games from now until the welcome end of an ugly season.
In an alternate time line, the Commanders would have been fully healthy, playing good football, and in the midst of playoff competition at the start of November.
At this point, in this timeline, all that seems to be left is roster evaluation and pride. I remember a time when I heard a similar sentiment from Mike Shanahan when another Washington team was 3-6 and on an extended losing streak, but that was a team with a then-healthy quarterback about to face a string of beatable opponents. That Redskins team won 7 straight games to end the 2012 season as division champs. I can’t honestly say that I’m expecting that history to repeat itself.
In fact, I’m hunkering down for a difficult two months ahead. Winter is coming.
