2022 Week 12 Game Recap: Commanders 19, Falcons 13 (By Ross Jacobs)

There's nothing new or surprising to say about this one. The game was 10-10 at the half, both teams were just running the ball over and over, playing safe, controlled football, and eventually the Commanders pulled away because they are the slightly superior team though not by much.

Washington is getting a lot of hype in the media because they've won 6 of their last 7 including a nice win over the Eagles, but that's the kind of lazy, uninformed opinion that the media is known for and as usual it's just plain wrong. The Commanders aren't a bad team, per se, but they aren't remotely as good as they are being made out to be. The defense is pretty good and they are getting by running the ball a ton and letting Heinicke play game manager, but other than Philly, all their wins are against some of the worst teams in football. It's just one of those fluky streaks that teams sometimes go on that's a combination of a fortuitous schedule and a little good luck.

Eventually Heinicke's average play is going to catch up to them and they'll lose a few, but as I've been saying for the past few weeks, the schedule is so nice there is potential for the hot streak to continue and they could ride it all the way to the playoffs where they'll get completely destroyed by a real team (although the NFC is so weak anything could happen).

The Falcons are living proof of what I'm talking about. They started off the season with several close wins over bad teams, but now the law of averages has caught up to them and they aren't pulling those games out because they just are not a talented team and Mariota has devolved into the single worst passer among all the starting QBs (worse than Darnold and Heinicke and Dalton among others). Desmond Ridder is no savior and Arthur Smith knows it. We might see Ridder at the very end of the season if/when Atlanta is eliminated from playoff contention but the NFC South is so awful that may not happen until the final week is over. Atlanta is still at least 2 years away from real contention although they might be relatively competitive in 2023 if they can find a capable veteran QB (my money would be on Carr).

Fantasy Player Notes:

 – You can't really draw any conclusions from this one because it was such a run fest between two average to below average teams. 66 combined runs between them, both trying to control the clock and shorten the game and really neither team could really stop it until Washington sold out to stop the run in the 4th quarter. Before that they were getting gashed for 7 ypc by every single one of the Atlanta RBs.

The Atlanta backfield is now a full on 50-50 split between Allgeier and Patterson. They rotate constantly to keep everyone fresh and not overuse Patterson (the staff is obviously trying to not overwork him to keep him healthy) and at this point there's not much difference between them. Both guys were highly effective as was Caleb Huntley who is actually their most explosive runner but also the least instinctive runner of the three. Hard to count on anyone for fantasy since they are going to get only about 10-12 carries per game each and need a random TD to score decently for the week. Of the two I'd rather have Patterson though because the coaches are starting to use him a little more in the passing game now that Allgeier is there to spell him at RB and they only have London as a viable receiver otherwise. Patterson is purely a flex play however and not a great one at that. This offense just sucks so bad with Mariota because the defense knows he can barely complete a forward pass and Arthur Smith would run the ball every single play if he could.

 – Because of Mariota's complete ineptitude and Smith's lack of trust in him (for good reason) Drake London has completely cratered since week 3. It's the concern I had for London and Pitts all year, not because they aren't talented and not because Smith is holding them back...it's because Mariota is not even close to a real QB at this point. Get a real QB in here and Pitts will be an elite TE and London could be a really solid WR2.

Olamide Zaccheaus had a nice game in the box score but I didn't think he got close to that watching the game. It was just a handful of plays where he got lost in coverage as the defense was chasing the RBs or London. Don't count on this happening consistently.

 – Brian Robinson has been on fire recently except the one week I was strongly behind him against Houston's sad excuse for a defense...they want him taking 18-20 carries every week if possible and he's as capable as anyone of carrying the load. 

Robinson is never going to be an elite back in this league. He just doesn't have a superpower, not overly fast or powerful...he's just every solid big back ever. The reason he isn't doing more for fantasy with such a big workload is because his offensive line is crap. He's basically early season Dameon Pierce, great volume, bad offense, not many TDs, but he also is ceding some carries to Antonio Gibson. He's a RB2 for the moment and not a great one, but there's always the fear here that the team can ride Gibson if he gets hot or the team has to abandon the run because they fall behind a better team.

 – The Washington passing game is headed the same way as Atlanta and Houston's...nowhere good. Heinicke is “winning” but it's in spite of him, not because of him. The passing is getting more and more strained. He's really only capable of short passes and an occasional medium depth crosser off play action. McLaurin is a WR2-3 at best. Everyone else is dead or dying.

IDP Notes:

 – 2nd year safety Darrick Forrest popped up with 11 tackles this week and I had to go study him because I did not recall much about him from our 2021 pre-draft studies. He's another one that fell through the cracks because his final season at Cincinnati was a bit of a letdown statistically after his monster 2019 year with 106 tackles. He was overlooked at times because there was so much talent in that secondary (Ahmad Gardner, Bryan Cook, Coby Bryant).

Forrest tested very strong athletically with a 39” vertical, an 11'0” broad, a 4.42 40-time, a 1.51 10-yard split, and a 6.91 3-cone. The 3-cone is a solid number but everything else is elite. He is a tiny bit undersized at 5'11”/205 but that's not egregious.

The strange thing about his tested athleticism is that the scouting knock on him is that he was supposedly a marginal athlete with poor recovery speed. Watching him on tape against the Falcons I see why scouts might think that, but it's mixing up cause and effect. He isn't slow with poor recovery, he's just really, really aggressive and constantly jumping routes trying to make a play. Forrest plays nearly out of control at times and is a ferocious hitter for a free safety (he really plays more like a strong safety in a free safety's body). That aggressiveness shows up in his stats too. He'll put up the occasional 10+ tackle game like he did here and he also has 3 INTs on the year despite only starting 6 games, but he can also have a real dud of a game when he guesses wrong. He overextends a lot and can get easily blocked out of plays for long stretches.

Forrest is the type of explosive athlete you want on your team, and if he can learn to control his gifts and play with better instincts and recognition he could potentially develop into an outstanding safety. Right now though he's a raw piece of clay trying to figure out how to play smarter football. I expect the highs and lows to continue but he's one to watch the next year or two to see how he develops.

Snap Counts of Interest:

51 = McLaurin

38 = Dotson

37 = Samuel

44 = Thomas

36 = Bates

30 = Robinson

26 = Gibson

49 = London

42 = Zaccheaus

33 = Patterson

22 = Allgeier

35 = Hesse

32 = Pruitt