Taylor Heinicke showing positive trends in win over Panthers
Breaking down QB Taylor Heinicke’s performance against the Panthers and how some key aspects of his play are trending in the right direction.
Taylor Heinicke had perhaps his best performance of the season on Sunday against the Panthers. Heinicke completed 16 of 22 passes for 206 yards and three touchdowns as he led Washington to a 27-21 victory in Carolina. His performance backed up a solid outing against the Bucs and continued some positive trends since the bye week.
Positive trends
Before the bye week, Heinicke was consistently throwing high and behind targets, often struggling to get his feet set correctly to deliver the throws. He still doesn’t consistently set his feet, but he’s been far better with delivering throws out in front of receivers to give them a chance to pick up extra yards after the catch.
Here’s a great example of that from early in the game. Washington motions receiver Adam Humphries from right to left and the Panthers’ cornerback follows him across the formation. This gives Heinicke a man coverage indicator pre-snap. He knows he has star receiver Terry McLaurin running a deep over and that he’ll likely run away from man coverage, so he just needs to make sure the safety doesn’t attach to McLaurin’s route. After the snap, Heinicke checks the deep safety and once he doesn’t attach to McLaurin, Heinicke pulls the trigger.
Heinicke has had trouble throwing behind receivers on these types of throws, but here he does a great job putting it out in front of McLaurin. He even leads him a little further up the field than his initial angle out of the break, taking him away from the trailing cornerback that was looking to try and undercut the throw. McLaurin makes the catch in stride and continues up the sideline for a big gain.
His ball placement and accuracy has improved since the bye week and it has helped the team become more productive in the red zone. Washington struggled to score points in the red zone going into the bye week, converting just two of 11 trips in the red zone during the four-game losing streak before the bye. In the two games since, Washington has scored touchdowns on five of 10 trips to the red zone, a significant improvement. Ball placement is even more important in the red zone because the throwing windows are even tighter, and Heinicke’s improvement in that regard has played a huge part in the uptick in red zone touchdowns.
This touchdown pass to Cam Sims is about as tight a window as a quarterback could throw into. Washington runs a play-action fake with both Sims and McLaurin running glance routes. Heinicke spots the deep safety cheating to McLaurin’s side pre-snap and confirms he’s working that way post-snap. After faking the hand off, Heinicke quickly flips his feet to Sims and pulls the trigger. The end zone angle will show just how tight the window was. I think Heinicke likely knew about the edge defender and beat him with the throw, but only he’ll know for sure if he saw the linebacker sinking back into the throwing lane. Still, Heinicke was on the money with the throw and found Sims for the touchdown.
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