Evaluating Taylor Heinicke's performance against the Raiders
Taking a closer look at how Washington's quarterback played against the Raiders
Taylor Heinicke’s performance against the Raiders on Sunday wasn’t spectacular. Statistically, he was relatively efficient, completing 23 of 30 passes but only for 196 yards. That came with two touchdown passes and an interception. There weren’t many wow throws down the field and he could quite easily have thrown more interceptions than he did. But in the end he did just enough to get Washington back home with another victory. Let’s take a closer look.
Risky throws
We’ll start with the negatives to try and get them out of the way. There were a number of poor decisions from Heinicke throughout the game that led to some very risky throws. He could easily have been intercepted two or three times, though ironically, the play he was actually intercepted on was somewhat unlucky.
On third and four, Washington works out of an empty formation. The three receivers bunch to the right of the formation while running back Antonio Gibson motions to the left to join tight end John Bates. Washington runs a dagger concept from the bunch set with a shallow cross as a checkdown option. Heinicke drops back and likes the look of the deep dig to McLaurin. Heinicke explained after the game he thought he had it, but from this view it looks like it might have been tight with the underneath defender sinking back under it and the deep safety driving down on it. But it’s tough to say for certain as Heinicke’s arm gets hit as he throws. That causes the ball to loop up and go straight to the outside cornerback.
Could Heinicke have taken the easier option and hit the shallow cross that was wide open underneath? Perhaps, but if he felt the deeper throw was there, I don’t mind him being aggressive. I’d question if it really was there but we’ll never know for sure. He was certainly unlucky to have his arm hit as he threw and couldn’t really do anything about what happened afterwards.
While that was unlucky, Heinicke certainly got the lucky back later in the game. He attempted some very risky throws that could easily have ended up intercepted.
This is another dagger concept from Washington, with Curtis Samuel running the deep clear out route from the slot and Terry McLaurin running the deep dig into the vacated space. Heinicke initially does pretty well here, with left tackle Charles Leno surrendering quick pressure from a nice inside move by defensive end Yannick Ngakoue. Heinicke simply slides to his left to avoid the pressure and allow Leno to recover by running Ngakoue by him inside. However, after doing that, Heinicke is out of sync with the timing of the play. He feels rushed to try and hit the window to throw the dig to McLaurin, so doesn’t take time to reset his feet and ensure an accurate delivery.
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