For New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, there are no easy weeks during the NFL regular season even when his team faces off against an opponent that should be easily beatable.
Case in point: New England’s Week 5 matchup against the Washington Redskins.
“Their record is what it is but when you watch them on film, you see a good team with good players,” Belichick told reporters Wednesday.
Belichick is not taking Washington lightly. The reality, though, is that the Redskins are reeling and are still looking for their first win of the season, sitting at 0-4.
Here are six things that Patriots fans should know about Washington before an undefeated New England squad visits the nation’s capital Sunday.
1. Who is going to be the Redskins’ starting quarterback?
Case Keenum, who was Washington’s starting quarterback for the first four weeks of the season, got benched late in last Sunday’s Week 4 loss to the New York Giants. Rookie Dwayne Haskins, the Redskins’ first-round draft pick in 2019, took over and threw three interceptions in relief.
So, what is Washington head coach Jay Gruden’s quarterback plan for this Sunday?
“We don’t have one right now,” Gruden told Patriots reporters during a Wednesday conference call.
Even with the Redskins quarterback plan up in the air, Belichick complimented all three of Washington’s rostered quarterbacks: Keenum, Haskins, and Colt McCoy.
“They all are pretty good,” Belichick said. “Obviously, McCoy is an outstanding player with a great deal of experience and so is Case and those guys have played a lot of good football and they have a very talented group of skill players with them. Haskins is a young, talented player with good size and can move, a big strong guy in the pocket, and great arm.”
2. Even with the Redskins reeling, there is a lot of unfamiliarity for the Patriots.
With Washington playing in the NFC East, it’s rare for the two teams to face off against each other on a regular basis.
In fact, New England has only traveled to Washington once in the 2010 decade, and that was all the way back in 2011. Eight years since a Week 14 victory in the nation’s capital, a lot has changed for both teams. Quarterback Tom Brady, wide receiver Julian Edelman, safety Devin McCourty, and kicker Stephen Gostkowski are the only remaining Patriots who made that trip.
In the last battle between both teams, New England defeated Washington at Gillette Stadium in Week 9 of the 2015. There is a very little amount of players who remain on either team that appeared in that matchup.
3. Adrian Peterson has more name recognition, but expect Chris Thompson to be the busier running back.
Adrian Peterson has had an impressive, lengthy hall-of-fame worthy career. It doesn’t seem too long ago when the 34-year-old running back was the most dynamite and explosive back in the entire league, especially when he topped 2,000 rushing yards in 2012. However, age seems to have caught up with Peterson, as he has struggled in the early going this season, posting just 3.1 yards per carry.
With no real plan as of yet for the Redskins quarterback plan this week, expect whichever quarterback does draw the start to be throwing a lot of checkdown passes. The beneficiary of those passes will most likely be targeted to Chris Thompson.
It would be fair to compare Thompson to New England’s James White – a running back who produces more in the receiving game than in the running game. So far this season, Thompson has just carried the ball 16 times for 46 yards, but receiving-wise, he has 20 receptions for 251 yards. Expect the trend to continue this Sunday.
4. Terry McLaurin has had a nice start to his career
One of the lone bright spots through the first four weeks of the regular season for Washington has been the play from rookie wide receiver Terry McLaurin.
McLaurin didn’t receive a lot of spotlight in the 2019 NFL Draft as opposed to fellow rookie wide receivers in Baltimore’s Marquise Brown and New England’s N’Keal Harry, both of whom were drafted in the first round.
However, McLaurin, who was drafted in the third round, has shown that the Redskins might have gotten a steal with the selection of the wide receiver from Ohio State. In the first four games of his career, McLaurin has proven to be reliable offensive weapon with 16 receptions for 257 yards and a touchdown. Not bad considering the messy Washington quarterback situation.
5. The Redskins defense is one of the league’s worst
New England had its worst offensive showing to date this season in last week’s Week 4 16-10 victory over the Buffalo Bills. The offense struggled because of how well the Bills played. The Buffalo defense is one of the league’s best.
This week, however, Tom Brady and the rest of the Patriots offense is going up against one of the league’s worst defenses in Washington. So, don’t expect New England’s struggles to continue.
The Redskins have given up the second-most points in the league with 118, leading to a negative-50 point differential. It certainly doesn’t help that they faced two of the league’s best offenses in the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Currently, the Patriots are favored as 15.5-point favorites.
6. Could this be Jay Gruden’s last game as Washington’s head coach?
Not knowing what the quarterback plan is on a Wednesday heading into a Sunday game against arguably the best team in the league is certainly not the best look for Washington head coach Jay Gruden.
Should the Redskins have started Dwayne Haskins all along to begin the season? Did Gruden mess up by going with Keenum as the starter for the first-quarter of the season? There’s a lot of turmoil in the Washington locker room, and it would not be a total surprise that this may be Gruden’s last game as head coach, if the Redskins don’t pull off a miraculous upset.
