Hogs Haven
Survey resulst!!
This quote is from the Stats & Snaps article published on Hogs Haven this week:
The obvious explanation of Daniels’ slump in the last two losses is the rib injury he suffered in Week 7 against the Panthers. A few commentators have shown aggregate stats before and after the injury that seem to back that up. But it doesn’t really hold up at the individual game level.
Daniels had good games against the Giants (QBR 96.0) and the Bears (QBR 69.9) [after getting injured]. It has only been in the last two games that his play has dropped off dramatically (Steelers QBR 36.1; Eagles QBR 22.7 – season low).
Also, the issues with his play have been somewhat different in the two losses. Against the Steelers, his passing was poor under pressure. Against the Eagles, he resorted almost exclusively to short passes. The common element is that both opponents contained his running and it seems to have impacted his ability to evade pressure.
It could be the injury flaring up. Defenses could have figured him out. He might be hitting the “rookie wall”. Or he might just have had two bad games against tough defenses.
In this week’s Reacts survey of Hogs Haven readers (which was put out there before Matt published his Snaps & Stats article) we asked respondents to answer the question raised in his Stats & Snaps article quoted above: What caused Jayden Daniels’ recent struggles?
It turns out that Hogs Haven readers share the conclusion that Matt seemed to be leaning towards in his article — that the primary issue was that Jayden was playing against two very good defenses.
As Matt pointed out in the article, the Steeler and the Eagles are particularly adept at containing mobile quarterbacks; the Eagles because they practice against Jalen Hurts, and the Steelers because they play against Lamar Jackson twice each season. Both defensive lines are highly effective at rushing with good lane integrity, and with DEs not over-rushing and simply getting pushed behind the QB, so that Jayden had little or no room to escape the pocket in those two games.
Hopefully, the Commanders offense will have learned some things from those two games, and will be able to move the ball and score at a high rate against a struggling Dallas defense that ranks 31st in points per game surrendered and 27th in yards per game given up.
The Commanders, last time I checked, were 9.5-point favorites against the Cowboys this week. In the Reacts survey, we asked readers to predict the outcome of Sunday’s game.
96% of respondents predicted a Commanders win, with more than half of all respondents expecting Washington to cover the spread.
For a little more reference, let me show you a summary of the entries into this week’s Hogs Haven Pick’em contest:
