Hogs Haven
Commanders defense forces 5 takeaways while the burgundy & gold offense puts up 182 yards on the ground
The Commanders were the biggest underdogs of the divisional round playoff games. It wasn’t hard to understand the respect being given to the 15-2 Detroit Lions, who had certainly played like champions for most of the season. It was, however, harder to fathom the disrespect for the 13-5 Commanders.
Of Washington’s five losses, one came in Week 1 when rookie QB Jayden Daniels had been playing his first-ever NFL game. That loss was avenged against the same team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in the same stadium just the week before in a game with much bigger stakes — the wildcard round of the NFC playoffs.
Two other losses came in back-to-back weeks mid-season against the Steelers and Eagles when Jayden Daniels was hobbled by a rib injury that was now fully healed. The Commanders had been a very different team since the Week 14 bye, after which it was clear that Daniels had returned to full health.
The Commanders entered this divisional round game riding a 6-game winning streak — the longest in the NFL, ahead of the Bengals, who were done for the year. The current winning streak included victories over two divisional champions (the Eagles and Buccaneers) and another that knocked the Falcons out of playoff contention in Week 17.
Washington boasted the #5 scoring offense in the league, meaning that it had the horsepower needed to challenge Detroit’s league-leading offense in point-scoring.
The winning strategy for the Lions would seemed to be to try to score early and often in an attempt to boat-race the Commanders or get into a shootout in which the Lions would be most likely to prevail. Instead, the Lions punted on their opening drive of the game and turned the ball over three times before the half, going to the locker room behind by 10 points in front of a stunned Detroit home crowd.
The winning strategy for the Commanders, on the other hand, seemed to be to use a similar strategy to the one employed on Sunday in Tampa; that is, to keep the clock running, limiting the number of possessions per team, eliminating explosive plays by the Lions, and protecting the ball when in possession of the Commanders.
The ‘clutch’ Commanders had proven adept at walk-off wins this season. They had won eight games in which they trailed at some point during the 4th quarter. In 7 of those games, Washington sealed the win on the final play from scrimmage of the game (Giants, Bears, Saints, Eagles, Falcons, Cowboys, Buccaneers).
That wasn’t necessary against Detroit.
Instead, Washington was able to kneel down to end each half, with a 10-point lead at the end of the second quarter and a 14-point differential at the end of the game. The Commanders punted once, missed one field goal and failed one of four 4th-down plays, but did not turn the ball over at all.
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