5 Questions with the Enemy: Bengals vs. Commanders Week 3

We look to our neighbors over at SB Nation’s Hogs Haven for some insight on the big, upcoming Monday night clash between the Bengals and Commanders.

It’s always a bit tricky when an unfamiliar team appears on a schedule. Such is the case this week when the Washington Commanders travel to Paycor Stadium to face the Cincinnati Bengals.

To get some insight on the Monday night matchup, we tapped the knowledge of Andrew York of SB Nation’s Hogs Haven. Here’s what he had to say about the clash.

1.) AC: What is your sense on where the Commanders are as a team right now? 1-1 has to feel pretty good and Jayden Daniels has excited at times, but there are still noticeable weaknesses, no?

AY: This is the first year of a multi-year rebuild under new ownership, a new GM, and a new head coach. Our GM Adam Peters helped oversee the rebuild of the 49ers, which was a rebuild designed to peak around the 3rd year. This article shows 3 years is a pretty common timeline for a rebuild to go from start to playoffs.

I think something similar will happen here. The goal this year seems to have been to gut the old roster, bring in mostly replacement-level FAs and a few capable, but reasonably-priced vets (Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu, Tyler Biadasz, Austin Ekeler), and build through the draft. Peters has said he intends to build the team through the middle, similar to the 49ers, so the priority has been the DT and LB groups on defense and the IOL, RBs, and QB on offense.

The roster is weak at basically every other position group, particularly WR and CB. We have basically one WR (Terry McLaurin) who would start on other NFL teams and one CB (Benjamin St Juste) who might start on another team, though hopes are high that rookie slot WR Luke McCaffrey (brother of Christian McCaffrey) and rookie slot CB Mike Sainristil will eventually develop into high-level starters.

2.) AC: What has Kliff Kingsbury dialed up, in terms of the passing game asks, for Daniels and how has he lived up to the expectations thus far?

AY: Although Kingsbury is known by many for running an Air Raid offense in college, his offense in the NFL has looked very different and used conventional NFL pass game concepts. In addition, he’s gone very run-heavy with his play-calling in order to take pressure off of Jayden, as well as calling lots of screen passes to get the ball out quickly and avoid pressure.

Overall, Jayden has been doing an efficient job of going through his progressions, passing accurately, and moving the offense. His scrambling ability also gives him a way to escape pressure and make positive plays even with nothing open. This article details some of his stats, but here are some highlights:

• Jayden has a completion percentage of 75.5, 3rd highest in the NFL.
• Jayden is one of 8 QBs who has not thrown an interception in the first two weeks.
• Jayden has a passer rating of 97.2 through 2 weeks, 8th in the NFL.
• Unfortunately, Jayden has the 3rd highest sack percentage (11.76%) and has tied for the 3rd most sacks (7 sacks) in the NFL through the first 2 weeks, which isn’t too unexpected for a rookie QB.

3.) AC: Washington’s defense has a lot of talent in the front and middle levels of their defense, but a lot of folks think the Bengals’ wideouts (particularly if Tee Higgins returns this week), can exploit the back end of the Commanders’ defense. What is their best plan of attack to negate big plays from Joe Burrow and Co.?

AY: Yeah, I don’t trust our secondary one bit to stop explosive passing plays from the Bengals. Most of our CBs would not start on other NFL teams, and our secondary has been plagued by communication issues that have resulted in the safeties failing to help and allowing big plays. The best we can hope for is that our talented DTs (Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne) are able to get pressure up the middle and force Burrow to throw the ball away quickly, but I don’t expect that to be enough to truly shut down the passing game. The other thing we can do is simply retain time of possession by running the ball a lot and keeping our defense fresh and off the field, which does play to our offensive strength.

4.) AC: Give us the name(s) of an emerging player on the Commanders’ roster, who could have an impact(s) this week?

AY: Well, Jayden was our first round pick, and he’s the only rookie I expect to make a big impact this Sunday. It’s actually a bit difficult to answer this, because rookies taken outside of the 1st round usually take a while to develop and so many of the draft picks taken by Ron Rivera in previous years were duds and are already off the team (only 2 out of 7 players from last year’s draft class are still on the 53-man roster).

If anything, the player emerging the most is a 3rd round pick from our 2022 draft class: RB Brian Robinson Jr. Production in his rookie year was suppressed due to being shot twice while resisting armed robbery before the start of the season. His second year suffered due to the overall team implosion and a lack of commitment to the run game by OC Eric Bieniemy, who tried to import the Chiefs’ pass-happy attack using Sam Howell instead of Patrick Mahomes.

Now, in his 3rd year, Robinson is healthy and getting an opportunity to shine in an offense committed to the run. Robinson runs with power, vision, and elusiveness, and is an under-rated pass catcher as well. I expect our offense to depend heavily on the run in this matchup, so Robinson should be featured as our lead back.

5.) AC: How do you see this one playing out?

AY: I would be surprised if Washington wins this matchup. Let’s be honest, many people are using Bengals over Commanders as their Survivor league pick this week (but only if they weren’t already eliminated using Bengals over Patriots in week 1, like me). Each team aligns their strength to the opponent’s weakness pretty well.

Washington’s run game lines up well to the Bengals weakness against the run and weakness/injuries at DT. Cincinnati’s explosive passing game lines up well to Washington’s weakness at CB. At the end of the day, though, it’s tough for me to imagine our team in year 1 of a multi-year rebuild beating a Bengals team that should have playoff expectations. I’d expect the Bengals to win something like 27-20.

Our thanks to Hogs Haven and Andrew York for the chat. Go to their site for the other side of our chat!