D8 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021
NFL WEEK 11BARRY SVRLUGA
Don’t look now — seriously, don’t look — but Washington is in the playoff hunt
It’s also irresistible. A loss to the
Panthers would have left the
WFT bereft, immediately giving
back any and all of the goodwill
seized in the upset of the
defending Super Bowl
champion Ta mpa Bay
Buccaneers the week before.
Lose to Carolina, and that game
is a fluke. Beat Carolina, and it’s
potentially a building block.
“You’re creating a winning
formula,” star wide receiver
Terry McLaurin said.
With the most modest of
winning “streaks” — two in a
row? Well, yeah.
Here’s what happened
Sunday: Washington ran the
ball for 190 yards. It held the
ball for nearly 36 minutes. It
stopped Carolina on seven of
nine third downs. It got savvy,
turnover-free football from
quarterback Taylor Heinicke.
That’s this team’s formula.
On its best days, that’s its
identity. Doesn’t mean it’ll be
attainable with the snap of the
fingers. Doesn’t mean it shows
up every week. But at least now
we know that it exists and that
this group is capable of putting
it on display for the public to
view.
“I think they’re starting to
play together,” Coach Ron
Rivera said. “They’ve become
resilient. They do the things
they need to. They rely on each
other.”
That can simultaneously be
trite football-speak and
absolutely true. What matters is
that a “Monday Night Football”
game following Thanksgiving
weekend against the Seattle
Seahawks at FedEx Field is now
relevant. When Sunday
dawned, that was far from
guaranteed.
So, the path to the
postseason, for a team that was
2-6 just eight days ago? It
certainly includes beating the
Seahawks at home, and that
task looks decidedly different
in late November than it did in,
say, late August. Seattle has lost
five of its past six games and is
in last place in the NFC West.
Might Washington be — get this
— favored over Russell Wilson?
Following that is a trip to Las
Vegas to play the Raiders. Lock
the doors to the hotel rooms
SVRLUGA FROM D1
and make it all about business,
and beating a franchise that is
in a form of off-field disarray
usually reserved for
Washington seems absolutely
plausible.
That gets the WFT to .500,
with the five-game NFC East
run to finish the season. Go 3-2
in that stretch — say, beat the
New York Giants and split with
both the Philadelphia Eagles
and Dallas Cowboys — and
there’s the route to 9-8. Given
the bushel of NFC teams
currently in that netherworld
between 4-6ish and 6-4ish —
including Carolina (5-6), over
which Washington now holds a
tiebreaker — it sure feels as if a
9-8 team from the NFC is
making the playoffs.
Playoffs?
“I think you’re just seeinggrowth,” defensive tackle
Jonathan Allen said.
That’s absolutely the
important part, because a
month ago there seemed to be
regression where there should
have been steps forward. Now,
the team at least knows how to
stride in the right direction. It’s
apparent in the defense — even
without edge rushers Chase
Young, who’s out for the year
with a knee injury, and Montez
Sweat, who’s out at least a
month with a broken jaw. It’s
apparent in Heinicke, who is
seeing the field and taking care
of the ball while keeping that
swagger that makes his story so
appealing.
Look no further than his I’m-
about-to-be-sacked-oh-there’s-
an-open-guy fourth-down
conversion to rookie tight endJohn Bates.
“That scared the hell out of
me,” Rivera said.
“Those plays are kind of like
backyard football,” Heinicke
said, “kind of just trying to
make something happen.”
But not overdoing it.
Heinicke’s numbers in these
two wins — 42 for 54 for 462
yards with four touchdowns
and no interceptions — aren’t
going to get him fitted for a
gold blazer, but they are good
for a 127 passer rating. If there’s
a formula here, a developing
identity, it starts with the
quarterback on offense. His
accuracy on short throws and
into tight windows, particularly
in the red zone, was impressive
Sunday. When he does that, it
allows the offense to stay on the
field.Against Ta mpa Bay and
Carolina combined,
Washington held the ball for 30
more minutes than its
opponent. That’s a lifetime in
football. It keeps the defense
fresh. It keeps, in these cases,
Tom Brady and a revived Cam
Newton and Christian
McCaffrey off the field. It’s a
blueprint to win.
What was the blueprint a few
weeks ago? Hope the G iants
jump offside to give you
another chance to kick the
game-winning field goal? Now
there’s something to fall back
on, and it can make
Washington fans think about
playoff runs from the past.
They all have this shape, right?
Rivera’s first season in
Washington opened 1-5 and 2-7
— and ended up with a divisiontitle, albeit with a losing record.
In 2015, with Jay Gruden as
coach and Kirk Cousins as
quarterback, the team needed
to close the season with four
straight wins to sneak to 9-7
and snare another unexpected
NFC East crowd. Robert Griffin
III’s comet of a rookie season,
2012, famously opened 3-6 to
head into the bye — and
finished by ripping off seven in
a row.
Go back further. In 2007, the
final year of Joe Gibbs 2.0,
Washington was 5-7 and lost
starting quarterback Jason
Campbell — and didn’t lose the
rest of the way. Gibbs’s first
playoff run in his second stint
here, going all the way back to
2005, came because the team
strung together five victories to
close the season.
None of the players or
coaches who gathered Sunday
afternoon in the visitors’ locker
room — where Allen presented
Rivera with the game ball, a
nod to the 81 / 2 seasons Rivera
spent coaching in this very
building — were anywhere near
any of those Gibbs teams, nor
are they likely to know any of
the particulars. That’s fine,
because they didn’t lead
anywhere particularly special
anyway.
What’s important is that in
just two weeks, there has been
a pivot on what’s possible for
Washington.
“I feel like it’s coming
together,” safety Kam Curl said.
That’s true because on fourth
down in the fourth quarter,
Curl wrapped up McCaffrey
short of the sticks, and
Washington added another
field goal. That’s true because
on fourth down on the next
possession, defensive linemen
Daron Payne and James Smith-
Williams wrestled Newton to
the ground, closing out the
game.
“It’s a great feeling,” Smith-
Williams said. “It couldn’t feel
any better.”
Play like Washington played
the past two weeks, and it can
feel better. Checking the
standings? Admit it. It’s
impossible not to.
[email protected]For more by Barry Svrluga, visit
washingtonpost.com/svrluga.In this winning streak, Heinicke is seeing the field and taking care of the ball while keeping the swagger that makes his story so appealing.PHOTOS BY JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST“You’re creating a winning formula,” star wide receiver Terry McLaurin said after Washington ran for 190 yards, held the ball for nearly 36 minutes and got savvy, turnover-free football from Taylor Heinicke.