ClutchPoints
Depending on your point of view, the Washington Commanders are falling out of the elite teams, or the fraud-watch narrative is overblown. But what matters in the NFL is the next game. And here are the bold predictions for the Commanders’ contest against the Raiders in Week 3 of the 2025 NFL season.
The Commanders are 1-1, coming off a beat-down loss to the Packers. And they may be without the services of quarterback Jayden Daniels. He suffered a knee injury in the fourth quarter against Green Bay.
It’s difficult to make bold predictions without knowing whether Daniels will play. But since he hasn’t practiced this week, we’ll make predictions with the idea that he won’t be in the lineup.
This may seem overly bold, but follow the logic. The Commanders have also lost starting running back Austin Ekeler. That puts rookie Billy Croskey-Merritt as the lead dog. Croskey-Merritt has indeed looked good so far. But there’s no way of knowing whether he’s a touchdown guy.
Head coach Dan Quinn saw good things from Croskey-Merritt in the summer, according to commanders wire.com.
“What you can evaluate is the explosion on the cut, the assignment, was the read correct,” Quinn said. “Having Anthony (Lynn, running backs coach) here is a really big deal, from a running back standpoint. He’s got so much experience and can give the insight to the players to absolutely get them right. But I think it’s the violence of the cuts. That he can get his shoulders square and get downhill fast. He’s off to a really good start.”
How Croskey-Merritt performs in the red zone will impact Mariota. Look for the Raiders to focus on shutting down Croskey-Merritt first in running situations. This leaves the door open for Mariota to get a zone-read rushing score.
It also opens the door for play-action passing, even inside the 10-yard line. So Mariota’s three scores would be a short run, short pass, and a play-action intermediate score.
Mariota said he’s preparing to play on Sunday, according to ESPN.
“My routine stays the same,” said Mariota, who re-signed with Washington in the offseason. “It just kind of creates that normal procedure for me, and it allows me just to go out there and play and not have to worry about, OK, I got to do this extra, I got to do that. I just kind [of] stick to my process and allow that process to work.”
It hasn’t gone so well for the promising rookie. In two games, he has 30 carries for 81 yards. That’s an excruciatingly low 2.7 yards per carry, which means at least one of two things. The Raiders’ offensive line is terrible, or Jeanty was overrated coming out of college.
We’ll go with the former and suggest that Jeanty will find a rare crease this Sunday against the Commanders. He should be able to pop off...
