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Commanders victorious over Giants in Week 1, 21-6
Welcome aboard for another season of day-after looks at what went right and wrong for the Washington Commanders. Four Downs will look at their game, peek around the league, dissect third downs and penalties, plus check out who’s doing the game and other media notes.
See you here each week … and no we won’t be doing “if the playoffs began next week” snapshots of the standings, yet.
**First Down:** The D earned an A in the 21-6 victory over the New York Giants, holding the visitors to 4-16 on third down while keeping them out of the end zone. The biggest play? Actually, seven of them as they denied the Giants seven times inside the 10-yard line and New York had to settle for a field goal instead of scoring a game-tying touchdown.
The day also saw dynamic debuts from two off-season acquisitions, as Deebo Samuel caught seven passes for 77 yards while running for the game-sealing touchdown, and Jacory Croskey-Merritt (you can call him Bill) rushed for 82 yards and a score.
**Second Down:** Washington leads the NFC East thanks to tiebreaker No. 10, which is “best net points in all games” (they lead Philadelphia +15 to +4 in that category). And the Eagles’ Thursday night win gave fans a little bit of everything: from Jalen Carter spitting on Dak Prescott to a lightning delay.
There was a weather delay Sunday at Carolina-Jacksonville, and if any game shouldn’t last longer than three hours, it’s Panthers-Jaguars. Sunday Night Football saw Highmark Stadium remain a house of horrors for the Ravens, who blew a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost at Buffalo 41-40. Scorigami alert, as that was the first time in league history a regular season game ended with a 41-40 final score.
**Third Down:** Washington converted 4-11 third downs. Jayden Daniels completed 3-8 passes for two conversions while also moving the chains on a scramble and a planned run (he took a knee on the final play of the day). His top target? Deebo Samuel, who caught all three passes thrown his way while posting a pair of first downs.
Just one run on third down (a planned carry by Daniels) to nine called passes plus the kneel down.
Yardage breakdown: 1-3 when needing fewer than four yards, 2-3 when needing 4-6 yards, and 1-3 plus the kneel down when facing 3rd and 7-plus.
**Flag on the Play:** Washington was penalized 12 times (second highest total in the league) for 89 yards (tied for fourth-most). And that’s not including the two flags declined (one offensive and one defensive hold). Six penalties were on the offense while five were on the defense and one was on special teams.
Most common accepted penalty? Two false starts and two offensive holds. Repeat offender? Marshon Lattimore was whistled for unnecessary roughness and a defensive hold (perhaps he should forfeit his single-digit number jersey until he merits the number two). Most costly flag? Lattimore’s unnecessary roughness call gave the Giants a first and goal and could have been disastrous.
**Fourth Down:** Week 1 saw the Commanders draw FOX’s number one team of Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady (as old habits die hard I initially gravitated toward the TV showing Chris Myers and Mark Schlereth).
This week Washington will be on Thursday Night Football, so we’ll get Amazon’s duo of Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit. On a newspaper note, I was disappointed with The Washington Post punting on their look around the league with nuggets on the day’s other games.
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