Chris Russell had a big question on his mind about the Washington Commanders' 30-23 defeat to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday: If you had to say there was one thing you had to point a finger to and say, that is why they lost. What would it be?
"That big son of a gun that plays for Baltimore. Derrick Henry. That guy, yeah," Former Washington head coach Jay Gruden said on Team 980.
"And the inability to really to get him down a couple times. He's really just a monster," Gruden continued. "And now Washington looks like they're a little undermanned on the front, a little bit, they got pushed a round just a hair. Obviously, time of possession was in Baltimore's favor and Washington just couldn't quite keep up."
Gruden added he was "happy the way [the Commanders] played, I think they were very competitive throughout the game, obviously the running game wasn't what it used to be without Brian Robinson Jr., that hurt a little bit. They only had 18 attempts, six of them were from [quarterback] Jayden [Daniels."
And for the most part, Washington was down by one possession for virtually the entire game and had a chance to get a stop in the fourth quarter for a potential game-tying (or winning with a two-point conversion) drive, but "unfortunately Derrick Henry sealed the deal."
Russell, of course, disagreed with Gruden arguing that the Commanders lost because they were overloaded to stop the run and the pass defense cost them. But the former head coach says that he is right, but that's just a result of Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson proving they are too much of a threat to Washington's run defense and the Commanders needed to commit bodies to stop runs.
"That's the result of having Derrick," Gruden said. "But you've got no choice, the defensive line's not playing good enough to play light boxes at this time... maybe they could do that in the future, but not against Baltimore."
While Gruden only has experience as a head coach and offensive coordinator, he said the game plan from Joe Whitt Jr. and Dan Quinn for the Commanders was "probably" about the only one you could do against the Ravens' offense.
"Especially with the limited players upfront the defensive ends, the tackles are a little bit light right now," he said. "I mean you could roll the dice a couple times, maybe a couple times on first down, second down play a little cover-2 just to keep them honest. They were, majority of the time, in single-high or man-to-man, or cover-3 or three-deep fire zone. So, maybe I would have thrown in a little bit more cover-2, but I have no problem with what they did.
"I think they ultimately felt that their corners could hold up with [wide receivers Zay] Flowers and [Rashod] Bateman, [tight end Mark] Andrews had a couple hits on them, obviously one down the middle and one on the corner route, but I don't think Zay Flowers and Bateman scare anybody, so I think Baltimore in the future is gonna see a lot of single high safety with people loading up in the box and saying, 'Hey, if we're gonna lose it's gonna be Bateman or Flowers, it's not gonna be Henry or Lamar.'"
"I was excited to see him still stand in the pocket and deliver some key throws and keep 'em in it," he said. "[In the second half,] Baltimore scored to go up 14 and everyone said this game's over, and what did Jayden do? He took them right down the field to cut the score to seven. And then Baltimore went down and kicked a field goal to make it 10 and then Jayden went back down and drove for a field goal to cut it to seven. So he was keeping them in pace and still had a chance to win the game.
"He missed a couple of throws, sure, but for the most part I thought he did a pretty good job against a tough defensive front for the Ravens."
Catch the complete conversation including some more talk about Daniels and Gruden saying, "so far I can't really find a flaw," on the audio player above!