With the four game win streak feeling like ages ago, we lost our final home game as the Washington Football Team. It was a tough fight down to the last second really, but it was refreshing and good to see a competitive game this week.
The offense started great with one of our most efficient drives of the season capped off by a gritty 11 yd run for Jaret Patterson’s second tub of his young career. The defense was stout stopping the run and holding Philly on a 4th and short. As we got the ball back we moved well, but coming to a stall we turned to Joey Slye’s sure foot to take us 10-0 to close out the first.
In quarter 2 the defense remained stubborn, but on another 4th down attempt Boston Scott powered one through our defense. Though not able to score a touchdown, we managed to tac on 2 more Slye field goals. This brought us up 16-7 headed into the half with things looking good so far.
The Eagles controlled the clock and the ball in the 3rd. Our defense held firm until 4th and goal when Scott again scored on a stretch run to the right. Still up 16-14 the defense (thin as it was) seemed pretty gassed at this point.
Clinging to the lead, the offense had seemed to sputter out in the 2nd half. The Eagles kept on controlling the ball and clock to record 3 more points. Now trailing 17-16 the offense continued to struggle to move the ball giving it back to the Eagles on what, I thought, was maybe a little early 4th down attempt. The defense remained steadfast giving up only 3 on short field position and allowing us to get the ball back with over 2 minutes remaining. Trailing 20-16 moving down the field well, on what may have been a miss PI call, Heinicke throws an INT in the red zone. WFT loses 20-16.
Much like the railing over the away team tunnel, we fell hard this season. Now eliminated from playoff contention I’m still proud of the fight we showed today playing down to the last second. Slye has gone on to be 9/9 as our kicker and deserves the job going forward. Rookies Bates and Patterson continue to show they belong and can play in this league. We weren’t playing very aggressive in the second half; playing more not to lose rather than playing to win, which was very frustrating after spending some of my week defending Turner against the Twitterverse. Jamin Davis was severely out snapped by David Mayo, I don’t know if it’s a performance issue or because he is still dealing with having witnessed the Everett crash. One of the biggest disappointments though is it may as well have been a road game; while the team/organization needs to do better, so do we as fans. I’m really looking forward to what I think may be a make or break offseason for this regime, but as excited as I am we are on to, hopefully, sweep a struggling Giants team. Beat NY!!!!
Follow me on twitter (@jtuckthegypsy)
JTonDCFootballblog 