We’ve talked in depth this past week about the necessity for a win for the Burgundy & Gold this week, which is an extremely apt name when you consider the uniforms they are wearing for this matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. If Washington is going to continue forward in their race for the NFC East, it absolutely has to start with a victory on Sunday; they simply can not lose another winnable game and hope to compete for a playoff spot with the stretch of tough games coming up.
So will they be able to pull out a W against Joe Burrow and the Bengals? In all reality, I think that they will. We’ve laid out the keys to the game and offered up what Washington needs to do in order to be successful, and this is a motivated team that is coming into a week facing another bad squad capable of making mistakes. It also acts as the first of two games in a span of five days, with a matchup against the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving.
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For Washington, the biggest key to this game is going to be getting after Burrow and making him uncomfortable in the pocket. If a defensive line that is headlined by Chase Young — mainly because of his draft proximity to Burrow — is able to blow up Cincinnati’s porous offensive front and stop the former Heisman-winner from picking apart this secondary that is banged up back deep. The Bengals have allowed the second-most sacks of any team in the NFL this season, and we’ve all seen what Washington can do against bad fronts. Expect somewhere in the range of 5-7 sacks, and hopefully a couple of turnovers as well.
On the offensive side of the ball, the name of the game is giving Alex Smith time to go to work. The O-line in Washington is banged up a bit, with Morgan Moses switching over to LT and David Sharpe stepping in at RT. However, that duo did pretty well in those positions last weekend, so there is some hope that they will be able to hold their own once again. For Smith, who is coming off of his first-ever back-to-back games with more than 300 yards passing, he needs to continue to spread the ball around and find a growing list of young receivers. If Washington can evenly spread their offensive production between short and intermediate passes, as well as giving a healthy share of touches to RB Antonio Gibson, then we could see a methodical approach get the job done.
However, one of the biggest keys to the game is for Washington’s offense to finish drives early and often, and avoid leaving points on the board, as we’ve seen routinely this season. If they can do all of this, I see a pretty easy win for Washington, in all honestly. It’s one thing to say it and see it on paper, but now they need to go out and get the job done.