G&D: Jay Gruden on how the Commanders' mistakes hurt them against Pittsburgh
Jay Gruden addressed the two crucial fourth-down plays that cost the Commanders in his weekly segments on our DC airwaves with both Grant & Danny and Chris Russell, and you can see what he said to Rooster about those plays here.
But when it comes to the game as a whole, Jay, what did you think of the Commanders’ performance?
“Came down to the wire, and there were some good things. I was impressed with the physicality of the defense holding the running game for Pittsburgh to like three yards a carry, which was pretty impressive,” Gruden said. “Big plays obviously hurt in the end, the one to Mike Williams killed them, but overall, I think it was a good slugfest and it just came right down to an inch; just an inch and the game would have been different, but I thought it was a good hard-fought game.”
Outside of the two fourth-down plays, though, there were a lot of other mistakes that were uncharacteristic of the Commanders – including Olamide Zaccheaus muffing two punts and a lot of dropped passes – but they still had a chance in the final minutes to overcome it all.
“You drop a punt, jump offsides on fourth and one, those are things you can't do in competitive situations, especially coming down the stretch when you’ve got Philadelphia and Dallas twice and all the rest of the teams,” Gruden said. “You gotta hone that up a little bit, and that comes with experience. But overall, I think you have to be impressed with the way they played. It’s a big deal playing against Pittsburgh with a rookie tackle and Trent Scott playing the other tackle, and they battled and competed and took them down to the wire. I know there's no moral victories, but if there is one, that would be it.”
There’s one other issue the Commanders need to figure out, too, and it’s still one we’ve been wondering about since the summer: can someone step up and be an undisputed WR2?
“I think moving forward, if a team is gonna play really tight man-to-man, I think we need another guy to figure out ways to separate a little bit better,” Gruden said. “I thought the same before the season, but guys kept stepping up, and they did a great job of really being multi-dimensional as far as a running game and the zone read and the quarterback designed runs – but when it comes to crunch time and it's man to man and a five-man rush, somebody’s got to separate. They're gonna have to answer that, because people watch film and they're gonna see some loaded boxes again to try to stop Jayden from running and force him to throw it.”
Take a listen to Gruden’s entire segment above, as he discusses Jayden Daniels’ overall play against Pittsburgh and how Pittsburgh stifled his running, a quick turnaround to Thursday in Philly, and more!
