One of the biggest headlines coming out of the Washington Commanders' 29-28 win over the Ravens is not the end of Baltimore's 24-game preseason winning streak, but it was (in addition to Sam Howell's play) the injury wide receiver Terry McLaurin sustained late in the second quarter. The reports indicate the injury is turf toe and while x-rays were negative at the FedEx Field on Monday and an MRI on Tuesday showed "no major injury" with Ian Rapoport saying there is "optimism for Week 1" and the injury is "more day-to-day than anything."
Ben Standig joined Kevin Sheehan to talk about the game and the conversation began on McLaurin's injury with Standig offering this question: If last year, this is the same scenario with playing time, but it is Ron Rivera and Scott Turner making the call, is McLaurin in the game with two minutes to go in the first half?
Sheehan said probably not, but that he didn't exactly have an answer before adding, "I hate that Terry got hurt, but I loved the reps and the amount of time that Sam Howell was allowed to work with the starting offense last night."
For Standig these "are two different things." That he "doesn't have any issue with giving Sam Howell all the work and... giving [Eric] Bieniemy the work as well. This is the deal he's inexperienced, he's gotta get it in there, and you're gonna have to take the risks including of injury... but do you really need Terry McLaurin, the seventh highest-paid receiver in the league, one of the top five or ten receivers in the league whatever it is, out there against the Ravens fifth and sixth string defensive backs?"
And to Standig's point, McLaurin appeared to be injured when he was tackled by Baltimore's Kristian Welch, a third-year linebacker who has played a grand total of 44 snaps on defense in his career while playing 891 on special teams. Welch is currently on the Ravens' third-string linebacker pairing.
After debating McLaurin's playing time, the two turned their attention to the other big storyline the play of the second-year passer who went 19-for-25 passing for 188 yards and two touchdowns against Baltimore. Standig, who claims he isn't a Debbie Downer, pointed out Howell held onto the ball for too long on a bad sack and the fact that while the offense looked great... they were not playing against anybody close to the Ravens' top defenders.
Listen to the full conversation (for talk on the offensive line and Sheehan's biggest concern on that front, too!) on the audio player above.
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