D2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23 , 2021
SOCCER
United to open 2022
vs. expansion Charlotte
D.C. United will open the 2022
MLS season Feb. 26 at Audi Field
against expansion Charlotte FC,
then visit FC Cincinnati a week
later, the league announced
Monday.
MLS unveiled the home
openers ahead of the full schedule
announcement next month.
Charlotte’s debut at Bank of
America Stadium — March 5
against the Los Angeles Galaxy —
had been announced last week.
The starting date is the earliest
in league history, beating the 2019
openers by three days. As
previously announced, each team
will again play 34 matches
through Oct. 9 — home and away
against all conference opponents
and eight (four home, four away)
against nonconference teams.
The playoffs will culminate Nov. 5
with the MLS Cup.
Charlotte has hired a coach,
Spaniard Miguel Ángel Ramírez,
and signed eight players but will
accelerate its roster-building in
the coming weeks through the
expansion draft Dec. 14 and other
MLS acquisition platforms, plus
international signings.
United’s second match, at
Cincinnati’s TQL Stadium, is
against the worst team in the
league the past three seasons.
— Steven Goff
Ali Curtis is out as general
manager of Toronto FC after three
seasons....
E ngland’s most successful
manager for more than half a
century, Gareth Southgate, 5 1,
agreed to stay in the job until- He led England to the
semifinals of t he 2018 World Cup
and the final of this year’s
European Championship.
BASEBALL
San Francisco Giants catcher
Buster Posey and Baltimore
Orioles slugger Trey Mancini
were named baseball’s Comeback
Player of the Year Award winners.
Posey, the National League
winner, sat out the 2020 season
after twin girls adopted by him
and his wife were born
prematurely. The 34-year-old,
who announced this month he
was retiring after 12 seasons, hit
.304 with 18 home runs for the NL
West champion Giants.
M ancini, 29, who took the
American League prize, missed
the entire 2020 season while
being treated for Stage 3 colon
cancer. He b atted .255 with 21manager for taking them to the
AL Championship Series in his
first year back after serving his
one-year sign-stealing suspension
from his time coaching with the
Houston Astros....
D avid Ortiz, Ryan Howard,
Tim Lincecum and Alex
Rodriguez are among 13 first-
time candidates on the Hall of
Fame ballot of the Baseball
Writers’ Association of America.
Steroids-tainted stars Barry
Bonds and Roger Clemens make
their 10th and final appearance
on the BBWAA ballot along with
Curt Schilling, who fell 16 votes
shy of the necessary 75 percent in
last year’s balloting....
Doug Jones, a five-time all-star
reliever who had his best success
closing for the Cleveland Indians,died. He was 64. A cause was not
immediately known.
Jones spent seven seasons with
the Indians and ranks third on
the club’s career saves list with- He pitched in the majors for
16 seasons with seven teams.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Massachusetts i s bringing back
Don Brown as head coach.
Brown, 66, led the Minutemen
to a 43-19 record in the Football
Championship Subdivision from
2004 to 2008. M assachusetts is
20-91 since moving up to the
Football Bowl Subdivision in- Brown has spent the last 13
years as a defensive coordinator,
most recently at Arizona.
— From news services
and staff reports
DIGESTBY SAM FORTIERcharlotte — The Washington
Football Team finally looks like
the squad it said it could be
before the season. It has been
ascending since its second-half
collapse against Kansas City,
showing flashes but not enough
consistency in losses at Green
Bay and Denver before putting it
together to upset Tampa Bay in
Week 10.
On Sunday, Washington
played a second consecutive com-
plete game to beat the Carolina
Panthers, 27-21. Coach Ron Rive-
ra and a few players said this
surge feels similar to the one they
rode to the NFC East crown last
season, and the resilience at the
heart of this turnaround certain-
ly echoes that late push. Washing-
ton, at 4-6, at least has given itself
a chance.
“Two wins in a row is huge,” the
usually understated defensive
tackle Jonathan Allen said. “You
could go as far as to say it saved
our season.”
Here’s what has changed:Building an offensive identity
As with most things in foot-
ball, Washington’s resurgence
started with the quarterback.
Taylor Heinicke has been hyper-
efficient in the past two weeks,
completing 42 of 54 passes (77.8
percent) for 462 yards and four
touchdowns with no intercep-
tions.
He said he’s no longer over-
thinking, as he did earlier in the
year, and that has helped high-
light a scrambling ability that
makes him special while avoiding
the bad interceptions he once
threw because of it.
Efficiency affords offensive co-
ordinator Scott Turner flexibility.
Against Tampa Bay, Turner could
stick with the run despite averag-
ing 2.8 yards per carry because
Heinicke made up for it. OnSunday, against a Panthers de-
fense that is elite against the
pass, Washington picked its mo-
ments to throw but leaned on the
run, using all three running
backs to total 40 carries and 190
yards. That combination has led
to an improved finishing rate in
the red zone.
Effectiveness bolsters Rivera’s
confidence. He twice went for it
on fourth down, once before half-
time and once midway through
the fourth quarter, and both paid
off — though Rivera admitted
Heinicke’s scrambling on the sec-
ond one, a fourth-and-three con-
version to tight end John Bates,
“scared the hell out of me.”
“We definitely know who we
are as an offense now,” said De-
Andre Carter, who has estab-
lished himself as the No. 2 wide
receiver. “We’re physical, tough,
physical. We’re going to run the
ball. We’re going to make plays
when the ball’s up in the air —
receivers or tight ends — and we
trust Taylor.”Overcoming adversity
After the loss to Kansas City in
Week 6, Rivera was most discour-
aged by how his team let mis-
takes snowball. Minor adversity
derailed Washington after that —
red-zone interceptions, blown
defensive coverages — but
against Tampa Bay, the team had
few self-inflicted wounds. In
Carolina, when the mistakes re-
appeared, Rivera was pleased by
how his team responded.
There were several glaring
miscues — the defense commit-
ted a 15-yard penalty on all three
of Carolina’s scoring drives — but
perhaps the biggest was by run-
ning back Antonio Gibson. When
Washington had the ball at Caro-
lina’s 13-yard line late in the first
quarter, the 23-year-old fumbled
for the fifth time this year, and his
team lost possession for the third
time on those miscues.Rivera benched Gibson for the
rest of the half as the offense
relied on J.D. McKissic and Jaret
Patterson, who were effective.
Gibson bounced back. In the
second half, he surged to finish
with 19 carries for 95 yards. Even
at the end of the game, when
Gibson seemingly blundered by
running out of bounds when
Carolina had no timeouts left,
wasting a chance to drain 40
more seconds off the clock, Rive-
ra excused him by insisting he
“got freaking horse-collared
around the neck and thrown out
of bounds.”
Even in situations Washington
can’t control — such as losing
backup center Tyler Larsen
(knee) and right tackle Sam Cos-
mi (hip) — Rivera liked his team’s
response. Wes Schweitzer and
Cornelius Lucas stepped in even
though Schweitzer, a guard,
hadn’t played center since 2019.
Rivera praised the offensive and
defensive lines, both playing
without key pieces, for setting a
physical tone.
The coach pointed to both
lines as examples of the resilience
he sees when he compares this
year’s team to 2020’s.
“They are starting to play to-
gether,” he said. “They are becom-
ing resilient. They do the things
that they need to. They rely on
each other. The thing I am really
pleased with is it is all starting up
front on both sides of the ball....
Those guys are playing some very
solid and sound football. They
are just doing the things they
need to do to give us a chance.”The little things
During his postgame news
conference, Rivera said he was
thrilled by his defensive line’s
rush-lane discipline. Small de-
tails such as this have bothered
the coach all season, and he has
pointed out when they’ve caused
big problems, such as when thePackers scored a touchdown be-
cause of poor rush-lane disci-
pline.
On Sunday, even without
standout edge rushers Chase
Young (torn ACL) and Montez
Sweat (fractured jaw), Rivera saw
improvement. He pointed out
that the linemen, who “some-
times get a little carried away
with themselves,” stayed in their
lanes and played as a unit. The
defense is undeniably better with
Young and Sweat, but it’s also
easier for defensive tackles Allen
and Daron Payne to dictate the
rush plan to less-heralded edge
rushers.
“I always defer to them,” said
2020 seventh-round pick James
Smith-Williams, who started in
place of Young. “They’re older,
they’ve been in the league for a
long time, so whatever they say
they want, that’s what I try and
do.”
Rivera pointed to the benefits
of rush-lane discipline on Caro-
lina’s last play. The coverage
forced Panthers quarterback
Cam Newton to hold the ball and
step up, allowing Payne and
Smith-Williams to record the
game-sealing sack.
“I will tell the guys, ‘The play
doesn’t care who makes it,’ ” Rive-
ra said. “The plays are there to be
made. And that is what they did.”
This is, for two games, how a
team comes together. Allen said
offensive consistency has been a
huge help for a defense that, at
the least, has stopped hurting
itself. He believes this can be the
start of another run.
“As a younger team — and I
know we keep saying that — I
think it takes a little bit to get on
the same page and for everybody
to find their role,” Allen said.
“The better teams can do it quick-
er, but better late than never.
“Good two wins in a row. We
got to keep it going.”
[email protected]Resurgent WFT gives itself a chanceTwo straight wins ‘saved our season,’ and particular areas of growth have fueled the riseJOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
D efensive linemen Jonathan Allen, left, and Tim Settle have helped Washington thrive without injured Chase Young and Montez Sweat.on Humphries and spun toward
the line of scrimmage just as the
ball came his way.
But against the Panthers, Hein-
icke threw a dart from the 12-yard
line to hit Terry McLaurin just
high enough on his outside shoul-
der to allow him to leap for the
catch with two defenders on his
back. And earlier in the second
quarter, Heinicke threaded the
needle on a pass from Carolina’s
6-yard line to Cam Sims, who was
sandwiched by defenders in the
end zone.
“That, I think, is big because
he’s starting to understand: ‘Hey,
this is the coverage I get. These are
the windows I know I have, and
I’ve got to get it there on time,’ ”
Rivera said. “I mean, if you look at
what he did, when he threw that
one to Cam, [Panthers safety Jer-
emy Chinn] has got it read. It was
[a run pass option].... [Chinn]
starts to drift... to Taylor’s left.
Taylor waited and threw it behind
him, and Jeremy had no chance to
knock it down.”
But while Rivera is quick to
point out Heinicke’s progress, he’s
also quick to remind that the quar-
terback has minimal experience
and has room for growth. Because
of the Week 1 hip injury to Ryan
Fitzpatrick, Heinicke has started
every game since, affording him —
and his receivers and running
backs — more reps and more time
to find a rhythm.
Continuity has been absent for
years, especially from the quarter-
backs. Heinicke’s potential to keep
improving could keep his name in
the mix for the future.
“I’m not saying this guy is going
to be a Hall of Famer, but again, if
this guy continues to manage and
direct and then make plays when
we need them, that’s what I’ve
always said we’re hoping to get out
of this — a guy that can do that,”
Rivera said. “... We were fortu-
nate where we got a lot of that last
year, and we’re hoping to build off
of what we got right now, and we’ll
see what happens.”
Note: Center Tyler Larsen, who
was injured in the second quarter
Sunday, is believed to have suf-
fered a medial collateral ligament
sprain, according to a person with
knowledge of the situation. Lars-
en had been starting in place of
Chase Roullier, who suffered a
fractured fibula in Week 8 and is
on injured reserve.
Washington turned to Wes
S chweitzer when Larsen went out
of the game, making Keith Ismael
the backup. The team also has Jon
Toth on the practice squad.
[email protected]“... So we’ll have an opportunity if
we continue to play well and give
ourselves that opportunity to get
to the second week of December.
... At the end of the day, it doesn’t
matter how you get in.”
But unlike last season, Wash-
ington’s chances hinge not on a
16-year veteran quarterback, Alex
Smith, but on a player with only 11
career starts. Taylor Heinicke, the
unlikely hero again for Washing-
ton, is coming off two of his finest
performances and has his team
thinking big.
Rivera even sees a bit of Smith
in him, despite a different play
style and personality.
“Alex was a consummate leader,
and you see those things starting
to develop as far as Taylor is con-
cerned,” Rivera said. “What is in-
teresting for Taylor after what he
did last year, for the most part guys
have gravitated toward him be-
cause they felt with this guy that
we have a chance. I think now you
not only see him giving these guys
hope and believe that we have a
chance, but he is leading them.
Very similar in style to the way that
I thought Alex did.”
Rivera has preached growth
and development for his young
team. It would take time, he
stressed, before the puzzle began
to come together.
In Heinicke, Rivera has seen
clear progress. In his first eight
games this season, he completed
51.9 percent of his passes in the red
zone and threw interceptions on
7.4 percent of his attempts, the
second-highest rate among quar-
terbacks in that span. He also aver-
aged only 4.3 yards per attempt in
the red zone and had a passer
rating of 71.9.
But in Washington’s past two
wins, his completion percentage
in the red zone has jumped to
85.7 percent and he has averaged
5.7 yards per attempt. He also
didn’t throw an interception, and
he had a passer rating of 130.1.
“ H e’s been really good with the
windows in terms of understand-
ing those,” Rivera said. “The thing
I like, too, has been when he has
been throwing outside, he’s been
throwing it to the spots and not
trying to lay it into the spots.”
During a loss to the Green Bay
Packers, for instance, Heinicke
was intercepted in the end zone
when he attempted to “loft” the
ball, as Rivera described it, to wide
receiver Adam Humphries. The
ball seemed to float right into the
hands of cornerback Chandon
Sullivan, who had inside leverage
WASHINGTON FROM D1
Rivera says playo≠ push
feasible for Washington
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POSTCoach Ron Rivera has praised the p lay o f quarterback Taylor
Heinicke, who has not had an interception in his past two games.
WOMEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
8 p.m. Troy at Missouri » SEC Network
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
7 p.m. Western Michigan at Northern Illinois » ESPNU
SOCCER
8 p.m. MLS Cup playoffs, first round: Orlando City at Nashville » Fox Sports 1
10 p.m. Concacaf League semifinal, first leg: Comunicaciones at Guastatoya »
Fox Sports 2
10:30 p.m. MLS Cup playoffs, first round: Real Salt Lake at Seattle » Fox Sports 1
TENNIS
6 p.m. World Team Tennis: Chicago vs. San Diego » Tennis Channel
9 p.m. World Team Tennis: Orange County vs. New York » Tennis Channel
WOMEN’S HOCKEY
7 p.m. United States at Canada » NHL Networkhomers and 71 RBI as a first
baseman and DH....
R ight-hander Anthony
DeSclafani reached agreement
on a t hree-year, $36 million
contract to remain with S an
Francisco. H e w ent 1 3-7 with a 3.17
ERA over 31 starts this past
season for the 107-win Giants....Left-handed reliever Aaron
Loup, 33, agreed to a two-year,
$17 million deal with the Los
Angeles Angels. He went 6-0 with
a 0.95 ERA in 65 games last
season for the New York Mets....
The Boston Red Sox p icked up
Alex Cora’s option for two more
seasons, rewarding theirTELEVISION AND RADIO
NBA
7:30 p.m. Los Angeles Lakers at New York » TNT
10 p.m. Denver at Portland » TNT
MEN’S COLLEGE BASKETBALL
2 p.m. HBCU Tip-Off, third-place game: West Virginia State vs. Morehouse »
ESPNU
2:30 p.m. Maui Invitational, consolation semifinal: Texas A&M vs. Butler » ESPN2
4:30 p.m. HBCU Tip-Off, championship: Virginia Union vs. Winston-Salem State »
ESPNU
5 p.m. Legends Classic, third-place game: Georgia vs. Northwestern » ESPN2
5 p.m. Maui Invitational, semifinal: Wisconsin vs. Houston » ESPN
5:30 p.m. Naples Invitational, semifinal: George Washington vs. Kent State »
FloHoops
6 p.m. Cancún Challenge, semifinal: Buffalo vs. Stephen F. Austin »
C BS Sports Network
7 p.m. UNC Asheville at North Carolina » MASN
7 p.m. American at Maryland Baltimore County » MASN2
7 p.m. Hall of Fame Classic, third-place game: Illinois vs. Kansas State » ESPNews
7 p.m. St. Francis (N.Y.) at Saint John’s » Fox Sports 2
7 p.m. Jackson State at Indiana » Big Te n Network
7:30 p.m. Legends Classic, championship: Virginia vs. Providence » ESPN2,
WSBN (630 AM)
8 p.m. Maui Invitational, semifinal: Oregon vs. TBD » ESPN
8 p.m. Kennesaw State at Wake Forest » ACC Network
8:30 p.m. Cancún Challenge, semifinal: Illinois State vs. Saint Louis »
CBS Sports Network
9 p.m. Tennessee State at Nebraska » Big Te n Network
9:30 p.m. Hall of Fame Classic, championship: Cincinnati vs. Arkansas » ESPN2
10 p.m. Empire Classic: Gonzaga vs. UCLA » ESPN
10 p.m. North Carolina A&T at Stanford » Pac-12 Network
10:30 p.m. Maui Invitational, consolation semifinal: Chaminade vs. TBD » ESPNU