Preseason Week 1 Preview vs WAS

BLUF:

Washington and Cleveland kick off each team's respective preseason slate on Thursday night. Both teams will hope to continue building on a foundation laid in camp that results in a playoff appearance for two teams that have been on the outside looking in for a while now. While not a ton can be taken away from any preseason game, let alone the first, Washington will need to prove that their offense - and the coaching staff that leads it - has improved their ability to compete in today's NFL more so than was evidenced in 2018. Cleveland's task will be twofold; show progress in integrating a number of new players on both sides of the ball and - for the love of all that is holy - manage playing time to avoid any injuries that could impact the regular season.

Overview:

Washington enters the 2019 season looking for reason to believe that they're not headed further down the path of continued NFL mediocrity. The team missed the playoffs in 2018 after finishing 7-9; good for third in the NFC East. Head Coach Jay Gruden returns for his 6th season at the helm in what figures to be a year on the hot seat, as his teams have not made the playoffs since 2015 and carry a win percentage of only .444 during his tenure. In need of a change, Washington drafted their QB of the future in Ohio State’s Dwayne Haskins this past April and brought along one of his favorite college targets in WR Terry McLaurin. Adding to this team’s strength on Defense, veteran Safety Landon Collins signed from the NY Giants and Washington jumped at drafting a promising rookie Edge Defender in Montez Sweat when he fell to the 2nd round this past Spring.

So what does Washington do well and what do they do poorly? It's tough to extrapolate how a team will look from their previous season's output, but, at this point of the season, it's all we have to go on. Below, we take a look at how Washington ranked against the rest of the league in several statistical categories:

Offensive Ranks:

Washington's offense was weak in 2018, ranking top half in the league in only 3 of the 17 statistics presented above. Given that 2/3 of those are similar in origin (turnovers-based), we can assume that Washington's offense is the key issue for this team. Washington was decent at rushing the ball, in holding on to possession and at limiting sacks, but that last stat isn't as likely to carry over into 2019 given all-world LT Trent Williams's current contractual uncertainty. In all other areas, notably in passing and in point generation stats, Washington was bottom quarter of the league in 2018. Not encouraging given Jay Gruden's "specialty" being expertise on the offensive side of the ball.

Defensive Ranks:

Without a doubt, the strength of Washington's football team is the defense. For one thing, Washington can get after the opposing quarterback with Ryan Kerrigan applying pressure from the edge of their defensive formation. By both Sack Rate and Sacks per Game, Washington made themselves competitive in 2018 by living in their opposition's backfield. Turnovers and 4th down stops are high variance business, but it bears mentioning that this defense was able to capitalize on big moments in both regards last season. Washington ranked top half in the league at limiting points and pass yards, both significant factors in winning from week to week, but their ability to stop teams on critical 3rd downs and force opposing QB's into incompletions were their major weaknesses. Looking at the numbers alone, it almost seems like - if Washington didn't sack the QB - the play was going for some type of gain, most likely for a deflating first down.

Playcalling Tendencies:

In game neutral situations (defined here as when win probability is between 25% and 75%), we see evidence of Washington being the kind of Run-Pass-Pass team that the today's NFL just isn't about. Yes, you have the ageless wonder Adrian Peterson in your backfield and, yes, Alex Smith and Colt McCoy are game managing QB's, but Washington's predictability here is something that defensive play callers can game plan against with confidence and something that puts their QBs in a bind when 3rd and obvious passing situations continually rear their ugly heads.

In the red zone, Washington is even more conservative on first down.

This kind of play calling sets up fairly predictable 2nd and 3rd down passing situations and, combined with a shortened field, helped the opposing defenses to stymie Washington's best scoring opportunities. But hey, they ranked 9th in the league in Field Goal conversion rate, so that's cool..

Now that we know Washington loves to run the ball, how good were they at doing that in 2018?

By Expected Points Added (EPA), they were above average for the most part, although they didn't fare well running off of Left Tackle in 2018. In fact, Washington was more dangerous overall running the ball to the right, away from the side of the line where, traditionally speaking, a defense's premier play maker in the trenches tends to line up.

So what about when Washington decided to pass the ball in 2018?

We already knew that Washington's passing attack wasn't great in 2018, and that bears true when broken out into the areas of the field where they threw the ball most as well. Your typical Washington pass play would target a receiver about 8 yards downfield with a fairly even directional spread. The team did find most of its success with passes down the middle of the field, where they created expected points at an above average rate. Washington's success down the middle of the field makes a ton of sense when the following chart of their most efficient receiving options in 2018 is taken into account.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Vernon Davis down the seam is where a bunch of Washington's passing success was realized in 2018 and it wouldn't be surprising to see that play get dialed up if Davis ends up playing in this week's game. Paul Richardson also returns and shouldn't be overlooked as a very productive option for Washington's offense while the team will need to replace Jamison Crowder's productivity after he signed with the Jets during the off season. Jordan Reed has drawn positive reviews out of Washington's training camp to date, and he'll likely be a key target once again for an offense that is projected to start their rookie QB Dwayne Haskins from early on in the season.

Defensive Effectiveness:

We know already that Washington's defense allowed a high completion percentage and a high rate of 3rd down conversions in 2018. By target location, this seems intuitive as the majority of passes thrown at Washington's defense were short of 10 yards deep (ADoT = 6.7 yards). Coverage wise, it seems that Washington's biggest liability was to the deep middle and on the right side of the formation in 2018 which, coincidentally, is exactly where Baker Mayfield was most consistently strong in Cleveland's passing attack last season. There's obviously not a lot on the line in the first preseason game, but, if Freddie Kitchens wants to spark the starting offensive unit early prior to rushing them off the field, he may be wise to chuck it deep down the right hash a couple of times on Thursday night.

Against the rush, Washington's defense was strongest on the right side of their formation and average to above average overall. Running power right would have been the best way to beat this team on the ground in 2018 and, given the vanilla play calling that typically comes with a preseason week one matchup, we're likely to see plenty of that on Thursday.

Sources:

1. Horowitz, Maksim, Ventura, Sam & Yurko, Ron (2016). NFLScrapr; Rstats package for accessing NFL play-by-play data, providing expected points and win probability estimate. Retrieved 8/4/2019.

2. Pro Football Reference. Retrieved from https://www.pro-football-reference.com; 8/4/2019

3. Ourlads NFL Scouting Services. Retrieved from https://www.ourlads.com/nfldepthcharts/depthchart/WAS; 8/4/2019