The Washington Commanders put out a very heartwarming video on their social media Tuesday, allowing Terry McLaurin’s girlfriend to reveal that he is the team’s nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award:
And, as you can imagine, soon after they saw the announcement, BMitch and Finlay were all about it.
“Terry does a lot of good, and he's quiet about it, so I'm glad somebody else is putting the spotlight on it,” Brian Mitchell said.
“This past summer, Terry did this event where he gave like 50 kids bikes, and I’ve been to enough of these events and I don’t knock anybody for giving up time, but I’ve seen a ton of charitable events where people do just enough while the cameras are on and then they get the hell out of there,” JP Finlay replied. “They check the box, hand a check or cut a ribbon, take a picture, and leave – but Terry’s event, this wasn’t really a public event, but Terry got there and personally handed out every bike to the kids. I was there for an hour and left before Terry did – he was there playing with the kids, helping one bigger kid who couldn’t get up the hill on the bike. The kids were going crazy, and he was having a blast. Later on, Terry stopped me at like minicamp or something, and told me that we made that day special for the kids by running a long package on it.”
But later in the show, they had a little bit different take on Terry…specifically, why is he so uninvolved on the Commanders’ offense this season?
“His production has been steady through the years with some bad quarterback play, so I challenge those that question if Terry’s doing his job,” JP said before playing a clip of Ron Rivera discussing McLaurin’s frustrating season so far. “I think Eric and Terry talking is two grown men doing their job, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
McLaurin was held catchless for just the second time in his career Sunday, and he has 60 catches for 694 yards and two touchdowns on 100 targets in 13 games – on pace for career lows in almost every category.
“I'll say this: I don't think that there's a game, or a play that’s designed to not throw th ball to Terry,” BMitch replied. “Other teams with more experienced guys will throw to their top guys whenever they’re in doubt – but right now, Sam is doing his best to learn this thing, and you have coaches telling him to go through the reads, so the last thing he wants to do is just look for one person, because every time he eyes down a person and throws a pick, he's been told about it and I'm sure he’s heard about it.”
McLaurin still does lead the team in targets, catches, and yards, but when his personal benhcmarks are so much higher, it’s easy to understand why there’s frustration, especially when you don’t even make one catch in a blowout loss.
“I don’t think Sunday was Terry; I think the offensive line plays a role in this. I think Howell plays a role in this,” JP said. “But the facts are Terry's numbers are way down. You can argue something different, but he has produced over such a range of conditions that to me, Terry has shown you he produces, so something is incorrect.”
“I don't know who's at fault or whose fault it is, but I know we see games time in and time out where at least eight people caught passes in a game,” BMitch said. “Sam spreads the ball around, and if we go back and watch last year, I guarantee you most of the balls went to Terry and Jahan.
I guarantee you that you have a young man who's trying to do what he's told.”
Maybe so, and as JP noted, a lot of the short screen-type stuff is going to the biggest playmaker (this year being Curtis Samuel), so that has to be accounted for – but it still doesn’t add up to him.
“If the question is, who do you think is doing everything right still, and it’s Terry, Sam, Eric, O-line…I’m taking Terry in that equation,” JP said.
“You can see lttle things build up, and we always talk about Sam holding onto the ball too long,” BMitch replied, “but what you can see is Curtis gets the ball quick on a lot of plays, so maybe he’s developed a rapport with Curtis to just get it out of his hands? Pat Mahomes is at the part of his career where he can say ‘the hell with looking through stuff, I’m throwing it to my guy,’ and I don’t know if Sam is there yet.”
