Commanders’ playmakers come up clutch against Packers
Breaking down how Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel and Antonio Gibson all made big contributions to the Commanders win over the Packers.
With Taylor Heinicke at quarterback, the Washington Commanders have to change their style of offense. When Carson Wentz was under center, the offense was all about explosive plays, using the speed of the receivers to attack down the field and allow Wentz to air it out. But Heinicke doesn’t offer that same skill set, so with Wentz out, the offense has to change a bit. Heinicke will still take shots down the field, and we’ll see one of those in this piece, but he’ll be much more about distributing the ball around to different players and letting them make plays after the catch.
That style of play requires the skill position players to step up and make plays after the catch. Against the Packers, Washington’s top three threats all made some key plays in big moments. Terry McLaurin was the obvious stand out with five catches for 73 yards and a touchdown, but Curtis Samuel contributed with five catches for 53 yards along with five carries for an additional 26 yards. Antonio Gibson also made a significant contribution with 10 carries for 59 yards along with three catches for 18 yards and a touchdown. In total, the trio accounted for 229 of Washington’s 364 total yards, about 63%. So let’s take a closer look at how each of them made their contributions.
Terry McLaurin
McLaurin’s stats don’t necessarily tell the full story of his performance. He came up clutch in big moments throughout the game and was a security blanket for Heinicke whenever he needed a play. Because of that, Heinicke has huge trust in McLaurin’s ability to win every one-on-one matchup, which led to McLaurin’s touchdown pass.
Here we see McLaurin isolated wide to the right of the formation. The Packers show two deep safeties pre-snap, but actually rotate to a single high safety post-snap with man coverage underneath. McLaurin is matched up on Jaire Alexander, one of the better cornerbacks in the NFL. Off the snap, McLaurin is allowed a free release and works outside. He probably gets a little wider than he would like, which closes the throwing window for the quarterback a little bit, but he does manage to use his speed to get a step ahead of Alexander.
For his part, Heinicke does an excellent job looking left off the snap to hold the deep safety before quickly flipping to his right and delivering the throw. The throw is fantastic, in my breakdown on Heinicke yesterday I called it his best throw in a Washington jersey. McLaurin tracks it well and fades his path towards the sideline as he adjusts to the trajectory of the ball. The throw drops in over his shoulder, just out the reach of Alexander. McLaurin runs onto it perfectly and secures the pass for the touchdown with Alexander unable to do much about it.
It was a fantastic play and it really sparked the offense into life in the second half, but it was far from McLaurin’s only big play. On their final drive the Commanders knew they needed to run as much time off the clock as possible to prevent Aaron Rodgers from executing one of his signature two-minute drives. McLaurin made two huge plays on that drive.
This play came early in the drive but it was such a smart play from McLaurin and needs to be highlighted. McLaurin aligns with a tight split to the left with running back J.D. McKissic stacked behind him. Before the snap, McKissic is sent in motion, leaving McLaurin isolated to the left of the formation. McLaurin runs a quick pivot route, initially breaking inside before pivoting back outside towards the flat. The route is a good one because of how quickly McLaurin separates. It’s very much necessary with the Packers blitzing and getting a free rusher off the edge. Heinicke quickly lofts a pass out to the flat to avoid the free rusher, trusting McLaurin to chase it down.
Not only does McLaurin manage to chase down the throw and secure the pass, he then manages to turn up the field and pick up the first down. Then he makes an incredibly aware play. Instead of allowing the defender to force him out of bounds, thus stopping the clock, McLaurin fights to stay in bounds, buying himself a few extra yards as he falls forward but most importantly, keeping the clock running. By staying in bounds, McLaurin forces the Packers to use a timeout to stop the clock.
The Commanders manage to force the Packers to burn their last two timeouts with the next two plays, but only manage to pick up one yard, leaving them in a critical third and nine situation with 2:12 still remaining in the game. They know they have to convert and at least get past the two-minute warning to bleed as much of the clock as possible. Rodgers has made comebacks with less than a minute on the clock before, so two minutes would be an eternity for him. So on third and nine, there was only one player the Commanders were going to go to.
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