There had been so many substances to this 32-21 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles, and the quarterback wasn’t essentially excessive up the record. But the Commanders received a sport towards the class of the league. And Heinicke’s document since Wentz went down with a damaged finger in Chicago is 3-1. Wentz’s was 2-4. The quarterbacks’ passing numbers aren’t wildly completely different. Their vibe is. Logic has to prevail.
“I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow,” Coach Ron Rivera mentioned late Monday night time, standing at a lectern on the different aspect of a wall from the place his gamers boisterously celebrated.
Why wait? Here’s the proof.
“It’s really big when your quarterback, your leader, is a guy who’s galvanizing the team,” star receiver Terry McLaurin mentioned. “You can just see it in [Heinicke’s] eyes. No game is over, no drive is dead when he’s back there.”
Look, the Heinicke expertise isn’t clean, and even beating the Eagles doesn’t sand it all the way down to shiny veneer. It requires gnashed enamel and squinting between fingers that cowl your eyes. It calls for understanding and acknowledging limitations and understanding the seek for a long-term resolution at quarterback lies forward, because it does eternally with this franchise.
But given how Heinicke has performed in his 4 begins since changing Wentz — and the way the Commanders have responded to him — how can Rivera return to Wentz for Week 11 on Sunday in Houston? With Heinicke, there’s sufficient to love. List the qualities.
“His grit,” Rivera mentioned. “His — just the way he plays. He’s a guy that — it’s hard to beat the underdog mentality sometimes. Like I told you guys: That’s him.”
There are a few parts right here, and so they’re not all statistical. Indeed, bury Heinicke’s 17-for-29, 211-yard line Monday night time — and not using a landing go and with each a choose and a misplaced fumble — as a result of it’s ugly. The field rating isn’t the place he seems greatest, and it nearly by no means is. In truth, he’s not even the most important purpose the Commanders hung in there towards the Eagles. That can be a dedication to working the ball that led to dominating the clock, which went properly with Joey Slye’s 4 subject objectives — together with bombs from 58 and 55 yards — to not point out a pair of fourth-quarter Eagles fumbles.
But Heinicke should be the starter. He must be.
“The biggest thing with me: Let’s just go win,” Heinicke mentioned. “Let’s keep winning — whether it’s me playing or not.”
The proof would recommend the Commanders have a greater likelihood of successful when he performs reasonably than when he sits.
The performs from Monday night time that maybe greatest show why Rivera should stick with the backup as the starter go down as an incompletion and a sack. That’s proper.
The first got here in the second quarter, when Washington trailed 14-10. On first down close to midfield, heart Tyler Larsen snapped a excessive heater over Heinicke’s head. The quarterback sprinted again to verify he regained possession of the ball, which was Smart Move No. 1. But as a substitute of sliding to cowl it, he made the extra aggressive play to select it up. He made positive he was large of the pocket. And then he heaved a go out of bounds — which reached the line of scrimmage, eliminating intentional grounding.
Instead of second and, say, 30, the Commanders had an affordable second and 10. The drive ended with Brian Robinson Jr.’s I’m-tougher-than-you one-yard landing run that gave Washington the lead.
“That might have been one of the biggest plays that no one’s going to talk about,” Heinicke mentioned.
Talk about it. Could Wentz have gotten again to scoop up the errant snap — or had the wherewithal to grasp that throwing it away was completely the proper play underneath the circumstances?
The wager right here is not any, in both case. More disturbing, although, is the second half. In his profession earlier than he arrived in Washington — 5 years in Philadelphia, one in Indianapolis — Wentz earned a status as a participant who selected the hero ball over the check-down, the throw into visitors over the protected outlet. It’s a longtime undeniable fact that Heinicke doesn’t have the bodily expertise Wentz does, beginning with his arm. But it’s simple that there’s a savvy and consciousness about his sport that may not end in huge good points but can forestall devastating losses.
That’s essential, and it surfaced in the play that sealed the sport. With 1:45 left, the Commanders confronted third and 7 at midfield. They known as a slant to McLaurin.
“I was not going to throw it unless he was wide open,” Heinicke mentioned.
He wasn’t. So Heinicke took a knee — gifting a sack. But then Eagles defensive finish Brandon Graham gifted a late hit and a brand new set of downs. There’s luck concerned there. Maybe Heinicke helps create it?
Heinicke isn’t impervious to catastrophe, as his opening-possession fumble that led to the Eagles’ first rating exhibits. His fourth-quarter interception final week contributed on to the Minnesota Vikings’ comeback. At occasions, he appears to shut his eyes, throw it up — and hope. The play to McLaurin that beat Indianapolis counts. The toss to Curtis Samuel into triple protection towards Minnesota that turned a landing counts, too.
And the heave, on Monday night time, that offered the Eagles new life in the fourth quarter — third and three from the Philadelphia 43, hoping for McLaurin deep however as a substitute discovering security C.J. Gardner-Johnson — actually counts as nicely.
But suppose by all these qualities. Don’t they apply to Wentz, too?
There’s this little matter as nicely: Should Wentz play 70 p.c of the Commanders’ offensive snaps, the third-round choose Washington owes Indianapolis as a part of the bundle it despatched to the Colts turns into a second-rounder. Some math, then: Entering Monday night time, the Commanders had averaged 65.8 offensive performs per sport. Hold that common, and so they’ll have 1,119 snaps for the 12 months. Seventy p.c of that might be 783 snaps. So if Wentz performs roughly 11.9 video games, he would attain the threshold.
Wentz has already performed six full video games. After Monday, there are seven left. He can’t be allowed to play all of them. The distinction between a second- and third-rounder is important.
Yet there’s a path to that predicament being precisely what faces the individuals who make these choices. At 5-5, the Commanders are in the thick of the NFC playoff race — the place there’s Philadelphia and Minnesota after which everyone else. If Rivera believes Wentz offers the crew the greatest likelihood to stay there — or if Rivera nonetheless desires to show the commerce was value it — would possibly he play him, ramifications be damned?
One man prices $28.3 million this season. The different averages $2.375 million over two. But let’s not get right into a throw-good-money-after-bad train. Indeed, if Rivera is considering resurrecting Wentz’s season merely to justify the deal, he should hearken to himself earlier this month.
At the commerce deadline, the coach and his entrance workplace dealt ineffective (and injured) cornerback William Jackson III — whom the similar regime signed to a three-year, $40.5 million contract a season-and-a-half in the past — to Pittsburgh. The clarification: Jackson was a bust, and so they mentioned so.
“Hey, we made a mistake,” Rivera mentioned the day after that deal. “And so instead of prolonging the mistake, halfway through the year, we decided to go another direction.”
That solely is smart. Can he apply the similar logic at quarterback?
It has lengthy been established that Taylor Heinicke isn’t a franchise quarterback. But let’s acknowledge that neither is Carson Wentz. The former beat the Eagles on Monday night time. The Eagles gave up on the latter, with good purpose. Regardless of well being, it should be Heinicke in Week 11 — and past.