The Washington Commanders fell to the Giants 31-19 this past Sunday. It marks a two game slide for the Commanders who are 1-2 since they traded away their star defensive ends Sweat and Young. In a move reminiscent of the Daniel Snyder era, ownership interfered with football operations and traded away the star defenders. The local media and fanbase seem to be giving the Harris group quite the pass on this move, whether it’s because they’re jubilant to have anyone but Snyder or afraid to call a spade a spade isn’t clear, but it hasn’t worked out well. Despite being a top 10 team in pressures and sacks with Young and Sweat, the team had one sack in two games going into Sunday. You can read more about that here, SI did a pretty good job explaining it.
The Giants meanwhile were 1-5 and there were rumors they would offload their star running back, Saquon Barkley, however they didn’t do that and it paid off handsomely this past week. Saquon was brilliant with 140 total yards, 14 rushes for 83 yards, 4 receptions for 57 yards and two touchdown receptions. Despite having their third string quarterback starting, the Giants were able to take advantage of wild blitz schemes designed to create pressure and generate enough points to win.
The Commanders played awful, they had 6 turnovers on the day and simply looked defeated. One has to wonder how much of that can be attributed to the psyche of the team. While the media and fanbase haven’t talked about it much, when you trade away great players, you’re basically giving up on the season and apparently that message from the top has come down to the players. Losing is a disease and it’s contagious, that’s another storyline that we’ll write about soon.
