Tag: Montez Sweat

Montez Sweat turned in his best career game on Thanksgiving vs. Cowboys

Montez Sweat had the highlight of the day with a game-sealing pick-six in the 4th quarter, but don’t let that overshadow his dominant day from start to finish.

If you are giving out game balls for Washington’s dominant victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday evening, you may want to get comfortable. A number of them go to the offensive side of the ball, obviously — when you put up 40+ points for just the second time in franchise history, that deserves to be recognized.

However, don’t let that overshadow what the defense did in the second half, and particularly what second-year DE Montez Sweat was able to accomplish late in the game. His highlight play came late in the fourth quarter when he made a leaping interception of Andy Dalton and returned it for a touchdown, which was the icing on the cake of an incredible game for Washington. However, he also turned in his highest-graded single-game performance yet.

A lot of the focus has been on Chase Young this season, hoping that he would break out and become the best player on Washington’s defense. Meanwhile, Sweat is having a standout season, and it’s becoming clear that he may soon become one of the great defenders that Washington can build around for years to come.

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5 takeaways from Washington’s big-time blowout over Dallas on Thanksgiving

Washington easily put together its best performance of the year, and it leaves us with a number of takeaways that have us feeling a semblance of hope for the future.

The dust has settled, and we’ve now had some time to sleep on this latest win from the Washington Football Team — possibly the biggest win they’ve had in years. By beating the Dallas Cowboys, 41-16, on Thanksgiving, on the road, Washington is now the proud owner of its first winning streak of the 2020 season, and they also hold onto the No. 1 spot in the NFC East for the time being.

A lot of things went right on Thursday, and things seemed to finally click into gear for the young team down the stretch. As Ron Rivera would say after the game, they seemed to finally understand how to win a football game; not just hang on until the end, but put it away and drive the point home. With 21 unanswered points in the fourth quarter, it’s clear that they were trying to send a message.

Received, loud and clear. Here are our biggest takeaways from the game.

Ranking the top 10 plays from Washingtons 41-16 win over Cowboys

Washington’s 41 points are the most ever scored by a team in the Washington vs. Dallas rivalry, giving us a number of highlight plays.

Man, waking up is just so much more fun when you’re coming off of a season sweep of the Dallas Cowboys, isn’t it?

Not only did Washington complete the sweep on Thursday afternoon, but they did so in dominating fashion, absolutely stomping the Cowboys, 41-16, on Thanksgiving Day, in Jerry World. It doesn’t get much better than that.

We saw the world’s introduction to rookie RB Antonio Gibson, as well as a dominant second half from the defense that was capped off by a Montez Sweat pick-six. Through it all, though, what we really saw was a team win that covered all facets of the game. The offense was sound, the defense was stout, and the special teams were perfect.

It left us with a lot of things to be thankful for, and a number of highlights to run back. Here are the 10 best from Thursday’s game:

Washington pick-6 against Dallas is no, um, Sweat

Montez Sweat took the ball out of Andy Dalton’s hands and had himself a pick-6

[jwplayer Vq5dAbak]Montez Sweat was in Andy Dalton’s face in the fourth quarter and the first-round pick in 2019 from Mississippi State picked off the Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback and sealed the Washington Football Team’s Thanksgiving romp.

Check out this play. The return went 15 yards and after the PAT it was 41-16, which is the way the NFC East game concluded.

Montez Sweat was PFF’s highest-graded edge rusher in Week 10

Though he had just one tackle on the day, Montez Sweat earned PFF’s top edge-rushing grade for his Week 10 performance against the Lions.

There is unfortunately a lot of focus on the edge-rushing position in Washington right now, but not for reasons that you’d hope for.

After an impressive comeback from down 24-3, Washington had a chance to stop the Detroit Lions and send the game into overtime, yet a roughing-the-passer call on rookie DE Chase Young knocked the Lions into field-goal range, where they promptly ended the game off the leg of Matt Prater.

Young later owned his mistake and vowed to be better, so we should all be able to move on. Can we proceed to talk about the good things that happened at that position now?

Montez Sweat had a solid performance on Sunday, and though it doesn’t show up in the stat sheet at all — Sweat had just one total tackle — the second-year player earned Pro Football Focus’s top edge-rushing grade of the week.

Though his stats were unimpressive, Sweat continually made his presence felt in the backfield, and he kept Matthew Stafford uneasy when necessary. It’s been made clear over the past several weeks that this former first-round pick is one of the young and budding players on the Washington roster that has a chance to be really good in the future, and we’re starting to see that this year.

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Injury Report: LT Geron Christian DNP, Montez Sweat back after concussion

Cornelius Lucas will likely start at LT this weekend with Christian remaining out, while Steven Sims continues to come back from toe injury.

We are continuing to get some good news out of Washington’s practice following the second injury report of the week, with players like Montez Sweat and Steven Sims Jr. remaining on the field during the portion that was open to media members. Sweat has been dealing with a concussion, and while he hasn’t yet been cleared from the protocol, his presence is encouraging.

As for Sims, it is also good to see him back on the field for the second day in a row after dealing with a toe injury that landed him on the IR for a few weeks. Sims is now eligible to return to the active roster, and his presence on Thursday hints at the possibility of seeing that this weekend.

On the offensive line, we didn’t see Geron Christian yet again, with Cornelius Lucas taking the snaps at the starting LT spot.

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WATCH: Montez Sweat didn’t get enough credit for this chase-down tackle vs. Rams

It was an ugly outcome to the game, but Sweat’s chase-down block on this play deserves a lot of credit.

It’s understandable that nobody was too willing to hand out praise after Washington’s ugly 30-10 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, but a new video of one of the more impressive highlights we’ve seen in Washington this year is now coming out.

The subject of the video is DE Montez Sweat, who has had an impressive sophomore year in the NFL thus far, though much of the shine on the Washington defensive line has gone to rookie DE Chase Young. On this play, we see Sweat getting a solid pass-rush, and then reversing course, chasing down the Rams running back, bringing him down about 40 yards downfield.

Of course, the result of the play is unfortunate for Washington, as it resulted in a massive gain for the Rams. But still, you love to see the motor on Sweat, and his propensity to never give up on the play, despite it being well away from his responsibility.

While we continue to herald the rookie, don’t forget to tune your eyes onto No. 90 every now and then. He continues to do things this year that paint a wildly high ceiling in the NFL.

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Jedrick Wills: How the Browns rookie LT fared against Washington in Week 3

Wills faced off against a very good WAS front featuring Montez Sweat

First-round pick Jedrick Wills has received plenty of praise over the first two weeks of his NFL career. The Browns rookie left tackle faced a big challenge in a talented Washington Football Team defensive front in Week 3.

Using the All-22 coach’s film, I rewatched the Browns victory and focused on Wills. I use a system that awards a plus for a clear win and a minus for a clear loss. Not every snap results in one or the other.

Here’s what I saw from Wills in Week 3:

The Browns threw Wills to the wolves right away. The very first play from scrimmage was a screen to his side that required him to down block at first and then peel out and pick off the LB as the primary blocker for TE Austin Hooper. Pressure on Baker Mayfield rushed the timing, but Wills still effectively created a crease for Hooper to gain positive yardage on a generally messy play.

Wills had a false start on each of the first two drives, facing Montez Sweat on the first and Ryan Anderson on the second. What impressed was that on the ensuing plays, he didn’t try to overcompensate for his mistakes as some rookies, or even veteran tackles, are prone to doing. Wills did his job, earning a plus in my grading book on each. He locked up Anderson for 4.7 seconds in pass protection after the second penalty (the Mayfield scramble to the right to find Beckham up the sideline) and did so without holding.

The matchups with Sweat were entertaining. Sweat has a signature move, a one-handed bull rush that’s very unusual and effective. Sweat got him with it once from a Wide-9 alignment on Cleveland’s second drive, a play that resulted in a Johnathan Allen sack thanks in part to Sweat’s pressure. Wills only lost three other reps to Sweat the rest of the game, adjusting his approach so that Sweat wasn’t striking with his incredible jab punch at full force. That’s veteran savvy from the rookie that I have to think was aided by coach Bill Callahan on the sidelines.

One of those losses came on a Sweat sack in the third quarter and it stands out because it was an example of Wills losing with technique. He quick-set to the outside and Sweat caught him with his weight on his inside foot, allowing Sweat to crash that inside shoulder and easily get past the rookie. It’s a cunning move by Sweat, a really good player, but Wills made it easier than it needed to be.

For the game, Wills wound up with 15 plusses and six minuses in my grading. Isolating the passing game, Wills was a net plus-6 (9 to 3). Considering the degree of difficulty in facing off primarily with an emerging star in Sweat, that’s a good game from Wills. Other than the one bad loss, Wills showed consistently strong technique and positional awareness. The power and the footwork are both in place for Wills to thrive as the Browns left tackle.

Eagles T Lane Johnson listed as ‘Inactive’ for Week 1 vs. Washington

Eagles tackle Lane Johnson is being listed as inactive for Sunday’s game against Washington, leading to a mismatch in the trenches.

A bit of surprising news came out on Sunday morning as the inactive lists were released in Washington, where the Philadelphia Eagles announced that T Lane Johnson would not suit up for the game.

This was a known possibility going into the weekend, but a report on Saturday night showed that Johnson was going to try and play through his injury.

Now, with Johnson inactive, this gives a major boost to the Washington defensive line, where a formidable group of former first-round picks will likely be able to have their way with a banged up and pieced together offensive line. It will be interesting to watch how both rookie Chase Young and second-year DE Montez Sweat capitalize on the situation.

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Ryan Kerrigan is perfect veteran for Chase Young, Montez Sweat to learn under

Both Young and Sweat have the potential to be great, and they come into Washington with one of the best, Ryan Kerrigan, to learn under.

In the NFL, a solid pass rusher and edge defender is one of the most important positions you can have in today’s game, and for fans of the Washington Football Team, they should feel pretty lucky that over the last several years, that position has been occupied by veteran Ryan Kerrigan, who is among the best players in franchise history.

Now, with Kerrigan entering the back nine of his career, Washington fans got lucky once again with the team decided to draft DE’s Montez Sweat and Chase Young in back to back drafts, who seems to have every chance of going down as one of the better duos to play that position. They has the talent to be great, and now they get the chance to learn under Kerrigan in their early years and see how to play in the NFL the right way.

Kerrigan has spent a lot of time near Young so far during training camp, and he remarked on Tuesday that he’s been extremely impressed so far.

“Chase Young is as advertised for a reason,” Kerrigan said, via NBC Sports Washington. “That guy put up incredible numbers at Ohio State.”

Getting a nod of approval from a potential future Hall-of-Famer like Kerrigan is nothing to gloss over. Last year, Kerrigan had his Iron-Man streak of 139 straight games finally broken due to an injury, and he is second all-time on Washington’s all-time sack list. It’s safe to say that he knows what he’s talking about.

“That’s one of the things I really liked about him coming out, was that Chase wasn’t just potential. He had numbers to back it up,” Kerrigan said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh this guy is big and fast, he’s probably going to be a pass rusher.’ It was ‘this guy is big and fast and he has the production to back it up.'”

The duo that everyone is talking about in Washington is Chase Young and Montez Sweat, but don’t forget about Kerrigan, who can act as a perfect mentor to both of them as they continue on in their careers.

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