Washington traded its two best pass rushers and has the league’s worst defense. Its quarterback — the 10th in four years there — leads the league in being sacked.
Its coach, Ron Rivera, who hasn’t had a winning record in six Washington seasons, explained firing a couple of assistants this week by saying, “If you don’t change things, can you expect things to change?”
Memo to Washington: Look for Rivera in your rear-view mirror coming up soon. Maybe Monday.
Now for more pressing Miami Dolphins concerns than Sunday’s game in Washington: Preparing for the three-game gauntlet to end the year that will decide the playoff bye, home-field advantage and who makes early reservations for Vegas in February.
What do you mean I’m getting ahead of things?
Sunday continues a month of low-hanging fruit for the Dolphins to set themselves up for January. Look at this stretch of tomato cans: New York Jets, Washington, Tennessee and the Jets again. All of them could be picking in the Top 5 of the NFL draft.
That’s why, if the Dolphins want to be the team they talk about, they need to understand there remains some issues for them to work on in this cushy-soft stretch. Like:
1. Turnovers. They’re officially an issue, and not just because quarterback Tua Tagovailoa walked around the locker room after a fumble and two interceptions against the Jets and told his teammates, “I’ve got to play better.”
This offense has six turnovers in the past two games. It is tied for 23rd in the league with 19 turnovers this year. That it’s the league’s highest-scoring offense and is tied for turnovers with similarly 8-3 Kansas City says you can over-do the hand-wringing here. But, as Tagovailoa says, “It’s not what you want to see.”
2. Short-yardage situations. We’ve seen this offense’s spectacular gush of glitz. How about a gear of grit? On third or fourth down, the Dolphins have converted 10 of 26 plays needing a tough 2 yards or less, via ProFootballReference.com.
That’s 26th in the league and doesn’t tell the full story. They’ve passed on 17 of those plays, converting six into first downs. That’s 35 percent. They’ve run on nine of those, converting four into first downs. That’s 44.4 percent.
Offensive coordinator Frank Smith ascribed that high number of passes to Tagovailoa’s accuracy. Maybe so. Mike McDaniel hit a different idea looking back to last year
“We couldn’t run the ball before,’’ he said. “Now we can. We have to work on stuff. It starts with me … I need to give guys opportunities on the ground more.”
All this doesn’t tell the full story, either. The Dolphins have run just four short-yardage plays against defenses ranked in the top of the league for scoring. All four were against Buffalo (Kansas City and Philadelphia were the only other scoring defenses in the top half they’ve played).
The results of those four plays: Incompletion, run for a 2-yard loss, sack for an 8-yard loss and … a Tagovailoa scramble for 6 yards and a first down. That scramble isn’t a preferred option for health reasons. Or do they allow it come the playoffs?
For now, other teams have a short-yardage outlets involving their quarterback, McDaniel has to find actual plays that work. That’s something to work on now.
3. Health. Look, this is a stretch to make sure you’re ready for a closing run against Dallas, Baltimore and Buffalo. If that means the Dolphins need to take a dreaded page from the NBA’s maintenance plan with a player like left tackle Terron Armstead, so be it.
This Washington game won’t come down to if Armstead plays. Nor should Tennessee or the Jets in the coming two weeks. The Dallas or Baltimore game might. Any playoff game could.
It’s commendable Armstead wants to play. But Washington has a total of one sack in three of its last four games. It rushes the quarterback at an anemic 23.4 percent since trading defensive linemen Chase Young and Montez Sweat.
This is the kind of game in the kind of four-game run you didn’t see coming when the schedule came out. The Dolphins are favored by a league-high 9 1/2- points on Sunday for a reason.
They’re thinking of Vegas.
Washington’s thinking who to fire next.
