The gap between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys coming into tonight’s game is separated by four games and going into this 15th game of the season it is now impossible for Washington to catch Dallas in the standings. Washington (6-8) just needs to win out for a shot at a Wild Card. Three weeks ago, the WFT had the seventh best record in the NFC, but after dropping two straight games, they are on the outside looking in.
On the other hand, Dallas (10-4) is atop the NFC East and looking to win out to get a first round bye. While this isn’t a must win game for the Cowboys, it feels that way for the football team from Washington as they fight for their playoff lives.
Hopefully Washington has put the COVID nightmare behind them, and so far head coach Ron Rivera who is a cancer survivor has avoided COVID even though he has come in direct contact with coaches and players with the virus.
“There’s always concern, but nothing I can do about it. I continue to wash my hands, wear my mask. I’ve gotten both my shots, I’ve got the booster. We’ll just continue to keep going forward, but just continue to try and be careful, too.”
— head coach Ron Rivera
If there is any good news, the WFT got several players back from the COVID list including quarterback Taylor Heinicke. Unfortunately, Washington lost a few players to various injuries and running back Antonio Gibson hurt his toe again. A toe injury landed him out several games last year.
On if RB Antonio Gibson’s toe injury related to last year’s injury:
“It’s very similar to what he had last year and that was part of the problem is when it’s the big toe, you know, that turf toe, you got to stick that foot in the ground and drive off of it and go. And you know it hampers you a little bit and it’s unfortunate because he is a big part of what we try to do offensively.”
— head coach Ron Rivera
With J.D. McKissic already on injured reserve, it magnifies this Gibson injury, and if he cannot go, it will be rookie Jaret Patterson getting most of the handoffs you would expect. CB William Jackson (calf) and S Landon Collins (foot) are also injury issues. Top tackler, LB Cole Holcomb, was added to the COVID-19 list Wednesday.
On what specifically they can implement from playing Dallas two weeks ago:
Oh, very much so. Cause one of the things that we always do too is when we play a game and stuff happens, certain plays, we sit there ‘Hey, just to play it, we gotta make sure we walk through and get corrected.’ We’ll do that during the week for preparation for the next team. So that’s when we get into our walkthrough periods. Hey, these are correction plays. Now there may be four or five or six correction plays that we’ll get out and get those taken care of immediately after the game. Uh, whether it be a Wednesday walkthrough, you know, we it’ll be a Wednesday walkthrough. We’ll have already seen those things, had an opportunity to correct those things.”
— head coach Ron Rivera
All of those injuries and question marks put Washington into a situation similar to last week where they will count on second, third, and in the case of running back — on a third string player. The bottom-line is Washington has to win despite the injuries and other setbacks.
Gametime: AT&T Stadium, Dallas, Texas, Sunday, 8:20 p.m. ET, NBC
BETTING LINE: Cowboys by -9½, per FanDuel SportsBook
WASHINGTON OFFENSE: OVERALL (20), RUSH (14), PASS (21), SCORING (23)
WASHINGTON DEFENSE: OVERALL (10), RUSH (8), PASS (30), SCORING (25)
