B&F: Nate Tice explains why Jayden Daniels could, and maybe should, be Commanders' top rusher vs. Bucs

Yahoo! Sports’ Nate Tice joined BMitch and Finlay on Thursday to discuss all six Wild Card matchups, but of course, the focus was on Commanders-Bucs – and Tice had a way for Washington to overcome their issues in the rushing game come Sunday.

“I think (Jayden Daniels) will be the leading rusher, and I think that is the best answer for Washington in this game, is his legs. I think that's how they're gonna find the explosive plays, because if a team's blitzing you, you don't want to live with four-yard gains; that’s what the defense wants,” Tice said. “You wanna scare them out of it with 20-yard gains and touchdowns.
You saw the whole Bengals team get defeated when Daniels hits that one shot against the blitz against them.”

As many others have said, Tice also believes that you can realistically throw out the Week 1 game between the Bucs and Commanders for any meaning coming into this one, as “that might as well be two years ago in NFL terms,” but we do know one thing hasn’t changed: the Bucs LOVE to blitz.

“Everything is so week-to-week in the NFL and so month-to-month, and you had a rookie quarterback making his first professional start against a blitz-happy defense, not the easiest defense to go against,” Tice said. “That’s first and foremost where my eyes go, because anytime you play against the Bucs, there is going to be Todd Bowles’ defense and how blitz-happy he is. The Bucs blitz more than any team on record in NextGen Stats’ database, which goes back to 2016, and on third and fourth down, they blitzed more than any team that we've ever seen in the NFL.”

What you can hope for, though, is that Daniels, who was 5-for-9 for 45 yards against the blitz but was pressured on nine of 11 dropbacks and sacked twice, continues the progression that has seen him rank improve by leaps and bounds against blitzes.

“He’s eighth in dropback success rate since Week 1 and third in EPA for dropbacks, which is a stat I like to look at, but he'll scramble a good amount too, and the Bucs can be susceptible to scrambles,” Tice said. “When blitzing, you might lose your contained lanes and you might lose yourself trying to get after the quarterback, so to me, that's kind of a fun strength vs.
strength kind of thing where it's a gash or be gashed world. Is it Jayden scrambling against the blitz, or do the Bucs get home and kind of corral him and kind of make him stay in the pocket? I just think that's fun because I don't think either team's gonna shy away from what they do, so I’m excited to watch it.”

Tice thinks Washington had ‘a surprising good run game’ this year, but that’s struggling right now, so it’s not as diverse as it has been – but, have Jayden, will run.

“The Commanders are Top 3 in early down rushing success rate, but the Bucs have the best run defense in the NFL on early downs led by Vita Vea, so it might be tough sledding for the commanders,” Tice said. “That’s to the point where Daniels will be the leading runner because of the scrambles, and they might have some tough sledding on early downs trying to run the ball. He adds in that element, and can be the equalizer.”

So what’s Tice’s thought on the game overall?

“I think this will be a tight, tight game, and may really come down to some of those big plays,” Tice said. “I think this comes down to the wire, and the Bucs are favored by 3.5, and I think the Commanders cover that at the least.”