Stats and Snaps: Week 15 Commanders @ Saints

The Commanders hang on for their ninth win against the Saints

This article is a 3,037 word dive into the statistics of the Washington Commanders’ ugly road win against the New Orleans Saints. But there is really only one stat that matters. When the final whistle blew, the Commanders had held on to a 20-19 lead, to bring their season record to 9-5. This is the first time that Washington has won 9 games in a season since 2015, and the first time they have won 9 of their first 14 games since 1992. With three games remaining, they have an opportunity to achieve the best regular season record since their 1991 Super Bowl Championship season. They can lose another game and still do that.

There has a been a lot of chatter about the game being closer than it should have. But ugly wins count the same as pretty ones. In fact, the Commanders played a dominant first half and led the Saints from their first possession to the final whistle. A combination of mistakes, failures to execute, penalties and bad calls by the officials allowed the Saints to mount an ultimately unsuccessful comeback in the second half.

A major factor contributing to the Commanders’ inability to put the Saints away was the failure to establish an effective inside running game.

Against the Saints, the Commanders rushed for 137 yards, their fifth-lowest total of the season. QB Jayden Daniels was the team’s leading rusher, accounting for 66 rushing yards, meaning that the other backs combined for just 71 rushing yards, also the fifth lowest total of the season.

While JD5 has rightly been credited for the team’s success on offense, the Commanders’ do much better when he gets help from his running backs. On Sunday, the team was missing starting center Tyler Biadasz, and that seemed to impact their ability to get the interior running game going. His absence is likely to have had a major impact on their ability to hang onto the lead in the second half.

The running game in general, and the running backs in particular, have been of crucial importance to the Commanders’ success this season:

• In games where the rushing success rate is over 45%, the Commanders are 6-1, with a point differential of +94 (+13.4 pts/game). In games with rushing success rate below 45%, they are 3-4, with point differential of -13 (-1.9 pts/game).
• In games in which non-QBs rushed for more than 100 yds, the Commanders are 7-0, with point differential of +116 (+16.6 pts/game). In games in which they rushed for fewer than 100 yards (actually 75 or fewer yds) they are 2-5, with point differential of -35 (-5 pts/game).
• In games in which non-QBs averaged more than 5 yds/carry, the Commanders are 6-0, with point differential of 111 (+18.5 pts/game). When non-QBs averaged fewer than 5 yds/carry (actually < 3.94 Y/A), they are 3-5, with point differential of -30 (-3.75 pts/game).

Tyler Biadasz has been the...