Commanders’ blemishes are exposed in a 30-23 loss to the Ravens (original) (raw)

BALTIMORE — The Washington Commanders’ defense showed improvement in recent games, but when defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr. addressed reporters last week, he lamented its lack of interceptions. Not one in five games, which Whitt said at the time may have been the longest drought of his career as a defensive coach.

The good news: Washington ended its interception drought early Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens’ top-scoring offense.

The bad news: Poor communication and execution derailed the Commanders’ defense for much of the three quarters thereafter, and coupled with an unbalanced offense, Washington took its first loss in five weeks, 30-23, before heading home down Interstate 95.

Jayden Daniels, the Commanders’ record-shattering rookie quarterback, couldn’t do enough to clean up the defense’s mess and stay upright behind his offensive line. He finished 24 for 35 with 269 passing yards, two touchdowns (both to wide receiver Terry McLaurin) and a 110.3 passer rating. He added a team-high 22 rushing yards — the Commanders were without running back Brian Robinson Jr. because of a knee injury, costing them in the red zone in particular — and took three sacks.

Washington’s rushing attack, which ranked second behind Baltimore after five games, mustered only 52 yards and 2.9 yards per carry. And the Commanders’ league-best third-down offense converted only 4 of 12 attempts.

That the final score was this close was primarily a credit to Daniels, who, while hardly perfect, was able to create plays with his eyes and mask deficiencies with his accuracy and mobility.

“Certainly a tough game,” Coach Dan Quinn said. “As lopsided as it felt, still in the fight at the end. … There’s going to be a lot to learn from this game. I told the team that — you got to apply the lessons that will be given today.”

The battle of the top offensive teams began as a defensive duel as the units traded big plays to thwart drives. The Commanders got their first interception of the year when rookie cornerback Mike Sainristil picked off a pass by Lamar Jackson intended for tight end Mark Andrews on the Ravens’ opening drive. The ball tipped off Andrews’s hands at the Washington 13-yard line, and Sainristil was there to catch it and run it back 38 yards.

But Washington’s opening drive stalled in the red zone; defensive end Travis Jones moved inside against left guard Nick Allegretti and wrapped up Daniels for the sack and a loss of 11 yards — and the team settled for a 42-yard field goal.

“That’s four points off the board,” Allegretti said. “That’s something I can’t let happen. ... It’s the first drive of the game, but it ended up being a crucial drive.”

Washington’s defense held up for the rest of the first quarter, but the Ravens gained steam early in the second as Jackson began to air it out more and pick on Washington’s cornerbacks.

On consecutive plays, he found wide receiver Rashod Bateman for completions of 13 and 23 yards, handed it off to running back Derrick Henry for 15 and hit Zay Flowers for a 23-yard catch and run. Commanders cornerback Benjamin St-Juste was flagged for pass interference on a deep pass on third and 10; without the interference, Flowers probably would have caught Jackson’s pass for a touchdown. With the penalty, the Ravens’ first touchdown was delayed by a play as Henry ran it in from the 3-yard line.

That sequence didn’t expose the Commanders’ defense — their deficiencies in the secondary were well documented long before this game — but it allowed the Ravens to capitalize. And it raised the question (again) of why the Commanders didn’t do more in the offseason to find a proven outside cornerback.

Washington, which made 2023 first-round pick Emmanuel Forbes Jr. a healthy scratch, essentially had to pick its poison against Baltimore: either load the box to try to slow its league-leading rushing attack and pay the cost with a secondary ill-suited to play man coverage or play more zone and let Baltimore tear up the middle of the field on the ground.

Washington chose the first option and used more defenders underneath to try to contain Henry and Jackson. But that left Flowers, Andrews and Bateman with room to roam.

“Yeah, I think you have to,” Quinn said of that decision. “This is the team that was leading the NFL in running, so going in, you have to do that. I thought earlier in the game, we played the run better. As the game wore down, I thought we wore down some.”

Safety Jeremy Chinn played primarily in the box, St-Juste — one of the most targeted corners in the NFL — played outside opposite Sainristil, and Quan Martin and Percy Butler were often used as the deep safeties in single-high coverages.

The result: Baltimore had only 51 yards and one touchdown on the ground in the first half, but it amassed 208 yards and a touchdown in the air. It finished with 484 net yards (7.4 per play), including 176 yards on the ground.

Baltimore’s defense posed the toughest challenge Daniels has faced in his young career. Yet the Commanders’ offense mostly kept up.

“What they do, how they operate, how they try to punch you in your mouth,” Daniels said of the Ravens, “I think we responded well to that. … It’s the NFL, and these are the types of games that it’s going to come down to — one-score games, close games. We got to figure out a way to pull those out.”

Washington responded to the Ravens’ first touchdown with one of its own, spanning 70 yards on an eight-play drive that Daniels capped with a seven-yard touchdown pass to McLaurin in the back of the end zone.

The drive was a clinic in Daniels’s manipulation of the defense as he used his eyes to move defenders and create passing lanes that didn’t otherwise exist. On his touchdown to McLaurin, he fixated on the right sideline, prompting free safety Marcus Williams to bite slightly as McLaurin crossed the field behind him into the end zone.

One of Daniels’s finest drives of the day — in the final minute of the first half — ended without any points. Jackson found Andrews for a 13-yard touchdown with nary a defender around him with 57 seconds left in the second quarter. Daniels quickly orchestrated a six-play drive, hitting wide receivers Noah Brown and Olamide Zaccheaus with passes placed to their outside shoulders, forcing them to get out of bounds to stop the clock. The Commanders made it to the Baltimore 34-yard line, but Austin Seibert’s 52-yard field goal attempt was deflected, allowing Baltimore to keep a 17-10 lead at halftime.

Daniels continued to impress in the second half with his vision, decision-making and deep attempts. Seibert nailed a 55-yard field goal to cap the Commanders’ first drive of the third quarter, and Daniels found McLaurin in the end zone again on fourth down early in the fourth quarter.

But Washington’s defense couldn’t hold up long enough — or get off the field quickly enough — to let the offense make up ground. Although time of possession doesn’t always tell the full story, the skewed time painted a clear picture of the added challenge facing the Commanders’ offense. Baltimore had the ball for a little more than 36 minutes, while Washington possessed it for just under 24 minutes.

“I just wish we had more shots at-bat in this one because that’s where the time of possession just kind of got worn down as it goes,” Quinn said. “Then on every one you feel this urgency: ‘We got to go convert. We got to get this.’ So it was very hard to get in that battle rhythm. ... I was just kind of encouraging the defense, ‘The next stop, that’s all you have to worry about.’”

The Ravens picked up chunk plays on the ground, which opened up even more explosive plays in the passing game. Jackson picked apart the Commanders’ secondary. St-Juste helped by committing his second pass-interference penalty on third and five late in the third quarter. Jackson found Andrews for a 38-yard completion on the subsequent play, and seconds later Henry was in the end zone. Again.

“We learned that when you play a good team like that, you can’t hurt yourself, whether it’s penalties, whether it’s miscommunication or things of that nature,” linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “I think it’s all things that are fixable, which is really good.”

After McLaurin’s second touchdown early in the fourth, the teams traded field goals before the Ravens sealed it in the final three minutes. Henry and Jackson ran the ball up the field before the quarterback killed the final seconds in victory formation.

The Ravens scored on five straight possessions ahead of their clock-killing final drive.

“It’s very promising that we were able to be in this type of game, but moving forward, it’s not going to get any easier,” Daniels said. “ … Losing sucks, but you’re moving on to the next.”