Washington ends preseason with sloppy play as final cuts loom

Playing without most of its starters, the Washington Football Team showed it still might have a way to go before being considered a contender.

Baltimore Ravens star quarterback Lamar Jackson shredded Washington’s backup defensive unit in his only series of the night, an 11 play 65-yard drive. It ended with a missed field goal, but it foreshadowed a lousy night for the Burgundy and Gold.

Backup QB Tyler Huntley took over on Baltimore’s second possession and led the Ravens on a nine-play 89-yard drive that ended with him running 10 yards around the right end for a touchdown.

“Well, as a whole, it wasn’t very good,” head coach Ron Rivera said in the team’s postgame press conference. “Individually, there’s going to be some good things, some things I feel good about. I think some things came through that made things even more clear for us. We will get a chance to really break it down tomorrow. That’s going to be the most important thing to do. We had some pretty good battles going on. We had some guys we had to take a real good look at, so they got a lot of extended play. This was really more about the evaluation of them than it was about anything else.”

Dustin Hopkins shanked his first field goal attempt of the night. Replays showed it was either blocked or kicked so low it bounced off a Ravens helmet.

Hopkins did make a 48 yarder just before halftime, but by then, the game was out of hand as Washington trailed 23-3. After the game, Hopkins, who has been inconsistent in the teams’ three preseason games, said the missed field goal was because he rushed his pre-snap routine.

“Going into that kick, I’m looking at the play clock, and all I’m thinking about is trying to hurry up,” he said. “I didn’t have any of the keys that I have going into a kick that makes me typically successful. I hate that a huge mental error led to poor physical execution.”

The second half was no better. Huntley opened the third quarter with a 20-yard touchdown pass to James Porche II. He capped the Ravens’ next drive with a 10-yard pass to Tylan Wallace to make the score 37-3. He finished with an impressive stat line; 24 for 33, 285 yards passing with four touchdowns.

A knee injury overshadowed his performance to second-year running back J.K. Dobbins, who was hurt on a first-quarter run. Dobbins is expected to miss the entire season because of the injury.

In contrast, Washington escaped relatively injury-free. Cornerback Torry McTyer was taken off the field to be evaluated for a concussion, and several players who might have seen action were held out for precautionary reasons.

“We didn’t want to get anybody hurt,” Rivera said. “We had a big camp, it’s been successful, and a lot of guys worked. A lot of people we feel really
comfortable and confident in who they are for us. We just felt exposing is not the thing to do, so we didn’t expose them.”

Washington’s next big task will be finalizing the 53 man roster by August 31st.

“We’ll get together and talk about things as a coaching staff,” Rivera said. “We will talk about where we rank everybody. Then, we will get together with [General Manager] Martin [Mayhew] and [Executive Vice President of Football/Player Personnel] Marty [Hurney] and their staff. We’ll discuss that, we’ll discuss what our needs are going to be after we talk about what we think our potential 53 will be. We’ll talk about our depth and sit down and try to finalize it come Monday, and know exactly where we are headed and what direction we are going to put ourselves.”