2022 Week 18: Commanders 26, Cowboys 6 (Dynasty/Fantasy Game Report)

This game began as a lucky start for Washington…a Dallas muffed punt snap setting up a quick score right away. Not too soon after a muffed Dallas punt return/turnover giving the ball right back to Washington again. Nothing was going right for Dallas in the 1st-quarter, but then the rest of the game -- Washington wasn’t lucky…they just flat-out beat-up Dallas. The Cowboys could not answer. It was shocking to behold. It may have just been ‘one of those games’ for Dallas…as they scoreboard watched Philly and San Fran start to build big leads, thus the Dallas divisional and #1 seed hopes started to dissipate, and the Cowboys players may have just thrown in the towel.

Or…maybe it’s time to worry about Dallas?

Dallas has been scuffling for five games in a row. Week 14 they should’ve lost to Houston. Week 15 they got out to a big lead and then blew it and lost in OT to Jacksonville. Week 16 luckily beat Philly with Minshew Mania starting. Week 17 they scuffled with a Tennessee team that was giving up for that week. Week 18…beaten like a drum here.

I so wanted to take/bet on the team that was going to play awful Tampa Bay in the 1st-round…but Dallas is becoming just as concerning/awful.

Washington played flat Week 17 and it cost them their chance at the playoffs…they played much better here…especially on defense (the best defensive showing of their 2022 season). Washington still goes into next season as arguably the worst team in the NFC East…which means it’s likely Ron Rivera’s final season unless he finds a QB (Howell or other) that can get him to the 2023 season playoffs.

*Note any fractional numbers in parentheses (4/2) or (2/3), etc., are a ‘split’ stat on our definition of a ‘quality start’ (or not) marker on a player -- using 14 PPR points in a game for RB-WR-TE and 21 for a QB…point levels that are good/productive/well above average starts for a Fantasy week. Trying to identify trends, consistency (or not) in players we might not normally realize.

A (3/2), for example, means: 3 times the player hit at/above the mark, and 2 times they did not.

Fantasy Player Notes…

 -- My main thrust for studying this game tape was to watch Sam Howell (11-19 for 169 yards, 1 TD/1 INT, 5-35-1) in his debut.

My summation: It was ‘meh’. I expected a little more…or was hoping for a little more juice/aggression but I didn’t see it.

Howell wasn’t bad here, but it was not a Brock Purdy debut-like (the measuring stick for rookie QBs in 2022). It was more Kenny Pickett-like. A lot of drop back in the pocket and then fire off quick/short passes. He took a few shots deep, but his deeper passes felt like Howell made his mind up where he was throwing and he threw it up/out there and prayed it would land…and 1-2 of them did.

It wasn’t a bad/damning debut, as a passer, but it wasn’t a ‘wow’ like Purdy gave us in an instant. Honestly, David Blough has been technically better (in my eyes) in 2022 than Howell here…for a measuring stick. But it’s just Howell’s first game in a mismatch of sorts, so we cannot judge his entire future off of this one event -- but he got the win…so that’s a positive. He game-managed the win in an underdog spot.

Howell is known as a tricky/slithery runner (code for not that fast, but shifty). And Howell had a nice TD run in this game, but you could see Howell couldn’t run past the athletes of the NFL like he could in the ACC. He is good at finding open space to go get 5-8 yards here and there and he is slithery, but definitely not a weaponized runner.

I’m unimpressed with the first card dealt by Howell. I don’t see a huge difference between Heinicke-Wentz-Howell. I’m not sure Ron Rivera can go into 2023, in a fairly strong NFC East, and go to battle with Howell as his QB. Rivera doesn’t have much more rope with this organization after the Wentz disaster.

 -- The real reason Dallas lost here…Dak Prescott (14-37 for 128 yards, 1 TD/1 INT) played the worst game of his career. If you watched the GB-DET Week 18 season ending showdown game, you saw Jared Goff throwing wobbly, half-speed passes out of the gates and the commentators harping on his struggles in cold weather. But then Goff started settling in and looked good…and Detroit pulled the upset…and the commentators were silent. They don’t like Goff, so no grace for him.

Lots of grace for Dak from the game commentators here as Dak looked like Goff’s cold weather poor beginning Week 18 for most of the 2nd-half of this game (and not in cold weather). Almost every pass Dak threw, as this game went on, was wobbly…and/or off target (not hyperbole). He threw a pick-six pass that was dropped by the defender in the 2nd-quarter, and then threw the same exact pass play on the very next play and it was pick-six’d by that same defender. After that pick-six, Dak went off the rails. Dallas couldn’t mount a comeback because Dak couldn’t get it together. It was jarring. I mean…13-of-37 passing says it all…against Washington in a Week 18 game?

I want to bet Dallas so badly against Tampa Bay, because I want to bet against the public’s love for awful Tampa Bay, but I am pulling up on my enthusiasm on the bet because something looks wrong with Dak.

 -- The best offensive player in this game: up from the practice squad RB Jaret Patterson (17-78-0, 0-0-0/1). Washington started and tried to get Jonathan Williams (14-32-0, 2-9-0/2) going but he looked terrible. Patterson came in and looked like a legit NFL RB, chopping away at the defense with 3-4-5-6-7 yard runs over and over, so Washington started going with it.

Patterson was starting to make a move on failing/fumbling Antonio Gibson late last (2021) season but then the Commanders drafted Brian Robinson in 2022 and Patterson wound up on the practice squad most all 2022 season. How no team in the NFL, with several teams dealing with mass RB injuries, claimed Patterson off the Washington practice squad is beyond me. It was right there for the easy taking for teams in need.

Patterson is stuck, again, in 2023. Robinson will be the desired lead. Gibson returns (unless traded). J.D. McKissic could be back in the mix. Patterson should be getting more respect from Washington’s staff but he’s likely to be buried again in 2023. Hopefully, when Washington tries to put him on the practice squad on 53-man cutdown day…some team snags him and gives him a role with room to grow.

Patterson is not a future star but he’s a great backup and if forced into action he’s going to produce like the Khalil Herbert’s and Chuba Hubbard’s, etc., do…because Patterson is better than them.

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 -- I was wrong about CeeDee Lamb (5-52-1) this preseason. I did not believe he’d have a WR1 season…and wouldn’t justify the hot preseason top 6-8 WR rank that the masses gave him. He delivered…an (11/6) split on quality starts and was the #8 PPG PPR WR in Fantasy this season (Wks 1-17, ignoring Wk18).

I still don’t see anything super-special in Lamb, on the field/tape. He’s fine but not like an elite WR that is uncoverable…he’s just ‘good’ and is the top target in a productive passing game as the other WRs around him are ignored, mostly, by the QB. But what I think doesn’t matter -- when you take a ‘good’ WR and put him in a ‘good’ situation and everyone is talking about him/loves him…it’s gonna work for FF.

 -- If this game is any indication of a possible future…if Sam Howell is the starter in 2023…note that Sam only/mostly had eyes for Terry McLaurin (3-74-1/6) in the passing game. Later in the game he shifted some to Jahan Dotson (3-72-0/4), but McLaurin he was trying to force/look to a lot early. FYI

 -- Chase Young (2 tackles) showed me his usual ‘nothing’ here on tape or in output. He played 70% of the snaps and was so easily blocked away in the plays I watched him rushing Dak.

Just three games played this season…when so many other players have had an ACL in 2021 season and are back Week 1 and fine for 2022. Young milked (my speculation) his recovery/rehab and only made it back for three games late 2022 season. Three games in which he did not record a sack and had just one QB hit in 115 snaps played this season.

Chase Young has 1.5 sacks total in his last 10 games played. He has 9.0 sacks in his 27-game career.

Detroit 6th-round rookie James Houston had 8.0 sacks in his 7 games played this season and was sparsely used in over half his 7 games.  

Snap Counts of Interest:

50 = McLaurin

49 = Dotson

35 = C Samuel

46 = Logan Thomas

39 = Bates

11 = A Rogers

11 = Cole Turner