What makes you nervous down the stretch for Commanders?

Danny highlights the Commanders struggles when they can't keep ahead of the chains on first down as an area of concern down the stretch.

Transcript

00:00it sounds very dismissive. I don't mean it to be. They are a one-trick pony.

00:04What I mean is, if they're not awesome on first down, the offense isn't any good. And that's

00:09really about running the ball, right? This is who they are. When they are, you know, second and four,

00:13they're excellent. They're better than almost anybody. When that offense is right, see Tennessee,

00:18see Carolina, see, you know, when they beat up some of these bad teams and they're ahead of the

00:22chains at all times, defenses are on their heels. They can be really, really good.

00:27When that goes away, just for whatever reason, whether, again, look at the Dallas game,

00:31look this past weekend against New Orleans, Pittsburgh at times, Philadelphia certainly

00:35made it a struggle. They don't have weaponry. They don't have the answers. Now, especially

00:40without Austin Eckler for some time still, if he does come back. Without Zach Ertz, probably for

00:46a time. Without Noah Brown, who wasn't great to begin with. They don't have enough counters.

00:51Now, nobody's good on third and nine. That's the NFL, right? That's football.

00:55There are teams that are also though, even given that watered down a situation who are worse,

01:01even than that. And I think Washington is one of them. Just given the fact that if you stop them

01:04on first down, you stop them. Early downs success makes this offense good. The games where they've

01:10struggled. You've seen it. Teams that are really, really good, that are total prolific offenses

01:15can deal with a setback. Buffalo can deal with a first down stuff of a run. Baltimore can,

01:21you pick out some of the, some of the great offenses in this sport. Detroit certainly can,

01:24although maybe it's going to be harder for them as they continue to lose weaponry,

01:27but Washington is a good offense. Certainly when it's working, right? When it's not,

01:31you see the struggle and opponent has been irrelevant. When it comes to it, we thought,

01:36Hey, okay. They're playing Philadelphia. That's a great defense. They struggled against Philadelphia.

01:39A lot of teams are, well, explain Dallas to me, explain New Orleans to me, Atlanta's defense on

01:44paper stinks. It hadn't mattered because if you could stop Washington on first down, AKA

01:49you shove it on Brian Robinson and company, you all of a sudden can make Washington pretty

01:53pedestrian.