Hogs Haven
In Week 4, the injury-riddled Commanders squad suffered a 27-34 road loss to the Atlanta Falcons, in a game that many fans thought they should win. The main headline was that the defense gave up 128 rushing yards, 313 passing yards and 34 points to a Falcons team which had not scored more than 22 points through three games. That created a hole that Kliff Kingsbury’s offense could not climb out of without its two biggest playmakers.
Despite the lackluster performance on defense, the Commanders managed to keep the score to within 7 points. A few Commanders had strong performances, which might have been overlooked. And some of the young players flashed potential. While that wasn’t enough to beat the Falcons there is still plenty to build on as injured starters start returning to the lineup.
Let’s have a look at who got playing time, who stood out and who took a step back in the disappointing loss to the Falcons.
Marcus Mariota earned a total QBR of 72.4 for his performance on Sunday, which made him the 12th ranked QB in Week 4. It was by far the highest rated performance by a Commanders’ QB this season. Unfortunately, his opponent Michael Penix ranked 3rd in the league with a 90.5 QBR.
Mariota completed 16/27 passes (59.3%) at an ADOT of 12.0 yds for 156 yds, 9 first downs, 2 TDs and 1 INT. Mariotta was pressured on 10/31 dropbacks (32.3%), including 6 hits and 2 sacks for 9 yards, resulting a Pressure to Sack Rate of 20%.
He had 2 rushing attempts for 20 yards, with a long of 22, to claim third place on the team in rushing yards.
He committed an intentional grounding penalty from the Atlanta 29 yd line in the second quarter. It was his second intentional grounding penalty in two weeks, but only the fifth in his 11 year career.
A week after dominating the Raiders with a 60/40 run-pass balance, Kliff Kingsbury opted to return to the pass first approach which was less successful the previous week against the Packers. Against the Falcons, the Commanders ran the ball on 45% of offensive plays.
The most curious part of the decision to lean on the pass was that they had good success running the ball. The Commanders averaged 6.7 Y/A on the ground. The running backs did slightly better than the team average at 6.8 yds per carry, despite not getting much help from the run blocking.
Chris Rodriguez was the Commanders’ rushing leader with 59 yds on 7 attempts (8.4 Y/A) thanks largely to a 48 yd run for his lone first down (Success Rate 28.6%). He forced 2 missed tackles. Rodriguez averaged -0.14 Yards Before Contact/Attempt, indicating that he was getting hit behind the line of scrimmage much of the time. This has been a consistent theme in the running game this season. He was not targeted as a receiver.
Jacory Croskey-Merritt continued to impress, averaging 6.7 Y/A on 7...
