Hail or Fail: Clock management costs Commanders as the rest of the NFC East stays hot

Buckner: As the Commanders fade, the losing feels familiar — and inevitable

Fail: Ron Rivera’s clock and timeout management

Robinson might’ve had an opportunity to cap his remarkable comeback with the game-winning touchdown run if Rivera had managed the Commanders’ final drive better. Trailing 21-17 with less than five minutes to play, Washington marched 87 yards on 15 plays to the Tennessee 2-yard line with 19 seconds remaining. Having used all three of their timeouts, the Commanders decided they couldn’t risk running the ball and called three consecutive pass plays. The first two resulted in incompletions; the third was intercepted to seal Washington’s fourth straight loss. Washington showed a lack of urgency throughout the drive. More than 10 seconds ran off the clock between the time Curtis Samuel made a catch for a short gain at the Titans’ 33 and when Washington called its final timeout with 28 seconds remaining. Rivera forfeited a timeout earlier in the possession when he challenged what was ruled an incomplete pass to Cam Sims. “We’ll go back and look at it, and we’ll talk about what we did,” Rivera said. “It’s great to be able to second-guess. It really is.”

Hail: Dyami Brown

A third-round pick in 2021, Brown was mostly a nonfactor as a rookie wide receiver, with 12 catches for 165 yards. Buried deeper on the depth chart after Washington used a first-round pick in this year’s draft on Penn State wideout Jahan Dotson, the speedster out of North Carolina had one measly catch for six yards through four games this season. Forced to play a larger role with Dotson sidelined with a hamstring injury, Brown had a breakout performance against the Titans, including a 75-yard touchdown reception from Carson Wentz early in the second quarter. It was Brown’s first career score and Washington’s first pass play of at least 50 yards in 18 games. Brown wasn’t done, making a ridiculous one-handed grab on a perfectly placed ball by Wentz in the third quarter for a 30-yard touchdown. “It’s just the beginning,” he said afterward.

Fail: Wentz’s turnover streak

Wentz played his best game since the season opener, completing 25 of 38 passes for a season-high 359 yards and two touchdowns. He overthrew a couple of open receivers and made a poor decision on a fourth-down pass that resulted in a turnover on downs, but all of that would’ve been forgotten had he managed to lead the Commanders to a win. Wentz was 10 for 12 for 76 yards on Washington’s potential go-ahead drive, including nine consecutive completions, before the pivotal final sequence. Facing pressure and not finding anyone open on first down, Wentz wisely decided to throw the ball away but was nearly intercepted because he didn’t put enough oomph on the toss. Two plays later, Titans linebacker David Long Jr. jumped a short route by J.D. McKissic and made a diving interception. Wentz has committed at least one turnover in each of Washington’s five games.

Hail: Montez Sweat

Sweat sacked Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill on Tennessee’s first play from scrimmage and was a (mostly positive) force the entire game. The edge rusher finished with two of Washington’s season-high five sacks — the team’s most in a game since Nov. 8, 2020 — and had three tackles for loss. Sweat also committed two offside penalties, the second of which was declined because teammate Efe Obada was flagged for a roughing-the-passer penalty on the same play, and caught a huge break when he wasn’t penalized for taking his helmet off on the field to celebrate his second sack.

Fail: Third-down conversions

For all of their struggles offensively, the Commanders came into the game with the league’s sixth-best conversion rate (44 percent) on third down. That success didn’t continue against the Titans, who limited Washington to one third-down conversion on 11 attempts. It’s the first time Washington converted one or fewer third downs since Week 17 of the 2019 season, when it lost by 31 points at Dallas.

Hail: Changes

After Rivera hinted last week that he would consider personnel changes if the team’s poor play continued, Washington appeared to bench underperforming cornerback William Jackson III late in the first quarter. The next move could be at left guard, where veteran Andrew Norwell struggled mightily against the Titans. During one ugly stretch in the second half, Norwell committed two penalties and allowed a pair of sacks.

Fail: Last place

It seems the Commanders missed the memo that the NFC East is back to being the NFC Beast. The Philadelphia Eagles improved to 5-0 with a win at Arizona, and the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants both improved to 4-1 with impressive wins over the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams and Green Bay Packers, respectively. Meanwhile, Washington is 1-4 for the second time in Rivera’s three years at the helm. In 2020, the team rallied from 1-4 to make the playoffs by winning one of the worst divisions in NFL history with a losing record. That doesn’t figure to be a potential path to the postseason this year.