A lot has been made this past week of the history of underdogs in the first round of the playoffs, especially when they enter the postseason with a losing record. We’ve talked about it a lot on this site, making note that one of the more memorable upsets from a below-.500 team in the wild-card round came the last time Ron Rivera and Bruce Arians met in the playoffs.
One of the main reasons that these upsets happen is because the better team is often caught looking into the future, undervaluing their opponent, and not giving the round 1 game the attention it deserves. According to Arians, that won’t happen this week, simply because of who is playing QB in Washington, and more specifically, who is not playing QB.
Bruce undersold it: WFT is actually 5-1 under Smith 😳 pic.twitter.com/Rvv7j7pyhv
— B/R Gridiron (@brgridiron) January 6, 2021
Washington may be 7-9 on the season, but considering the fact that they went 5-2 over their last seven games with only one loss coming with Alex Smith under center causes that overall record to be thrown out the window. With Dwayne Haskins at the helm, Washington started the season with a 1-3 record, and then things didn’t get much better with Kyle Allen taking snaps either. However, the dust started to settle once Smith took the reigns, and the average offensive performances, mixed with a dominant defense, made Washington a viable threat.
Who knows if they will be good enough to stop the red-hot Bucs on Saturday, but we know at least that Tom Brady and his team won’t be looking to the divisional round quite yet.
