Despite the loss to Baltimore, maintaining optimism for Commanders fans isn’t difficult at all — it’s barely an inconvenience

Confidence

With 32 fan bases filling out weekly Reacts confidence surveys for several years now, it’s clear that those fan bases react — and often over-react — to wins and losses, with confidence rising after wins and falling after losses.

I was prepared, with the Commanders breaking their 4-game winning streak with a loss to the Ravens last Sunday, to see the confidence number this week fall precipitously. Instead, it held very steady, dropping only a single percentage point from 99% in Week 6 to 98% this week, returning to the level of Week 5 and staying above 90% for the 5th consecutive week (and 6th out of the full 7 weeks of the survey).

There are several other fan bases that match Washington’s 98% confidence level, but none that exceed it this week.

Sunday’s game

With wins & losses being so critical to fan confidence, one might wonder what fans expect will happen in the game against the Panthers this Sunday. While we didn’t ask Hog Haven readers for a prediction in our version of the Reacts survey, an email survey was sent to registered participants representing all 32 fan bases this week (as it is every week during the season) asking which team would cover the spread.

Check the odds at FanDuel

With the Commanders favored by more than a touchdown at home, it’s clear that at least 90% of poll respondents nationwide expect Washington to win easily.

Checking the entries in our Week 7 Hogs Haven Pick’em contest, I see that all 54 of the contest entrants picked Washington to beat the Panthers this week.

NFC East

If the Commanders are successful in getting the win, it would help solidify Washington’s lead in the NFC East. With Dallas on a bye week, a Commanders win would add a half-game cushion over the 3-3 Cowboys. The other two division teams — the Eagles and Giants — play each other, so, in the event of a Washington win, one of those teams would keep pace while the other would fall a game back. Of course, a Washington loss combined with an Eagles win would drop the Commanders into second place, a half-game behind Philly.

With the Commanders defense returning to ‘struggle’ mode against the Ravens last week, it appears that Washington will need to rely on its offense to move the ball and score, which was the most constant theme during the team’s 4-game winning streak from Weeks 2-5. But for Washington to enjoy any real success this season (i.e., make the playoffs and notch postseason wins), the defense will need to lift its game and pull its weight consistently. With this in mind, the two remaining questions in this week’s Reacts survey focused on each side of the ball.

Offense

Of course, offensive scoring relies on production by playmakers, so that’s where we focused our second question of the week. Specifically, we asked which wide receiver not named Terry McLaurin would have the most receiving yards in Sunday’s game.

In total, 78% of respondents said that the leading receiver among the four listed would be either veteran Noah Brown or rookie Luke McCaffrey, with Brown being the more popular by a ratio of 2:1.

The argument for Brown is easy to fathom; as shown in the table reprinted from this week’s Reacts survey article, Noah Brown leads the other three receivers in receiving yards gained, and he’s managed that while playing two less games. Noah Brown has played just 4 games this season, while the other receivers have played 6 games each.

The argument for McCaffrey is a little less obvious, but relies on at least two factors. The first is his 100% catch rate. Having proven reliable, it seems reasonable that the rookie receiver should be gaining the trust of his rookie classmate, quarterback Jayden Daniels. But much more importantly, when looking at all-22 film of the Commanders games, Luke McCaffrey is to be seen regularly running wide-open across or down the field without the ball being thrown to him. The feeling of many fans is that Jayden, seeing this on film week after week, will start looking for McCaffrey more consistently. In other words, if he’s open so often, he’s bound to see more balls thrown his way.

Defense

In our final question of the week, we asked Hogs Haven readers to predict the number of sacks the defense would achieve against the Panthers on Sunday.

Check the odds at FanDuel

More than half of all respondents predict 3 or 4 sacks this week, with another 39% predicting 1 or 2 takedowns of the quarterback. This seems optimistic to me.

The Panthers’ starting quarterback this week, Andy Dalton, has attempted 143 passes in 4 games as a starter so far this season, and has been sacked just 5 times. Only one team — the Bears in Week 5 — have sacked him more than 2 times in a game, and in half his starts he hasn’t been sacked at all. In other words, Dalton is getting sacked at a rate of just 1.25 per game; no team has sacked him 4 times (or more), and he’s been sacked 3 times just once in 4 outings.

Meanwhile, the Commanders’ pass rush could be affected by injuries.

Survey respondents knew at the time of the survey that Jonathan Allen, who, per FOX Sports, is one of 6 Commanders with multiple sacks this season, was lost for the season due to a pectoral injury suffered in the loss to the Ravens. They also knew that the Commander with the second-most sacks, Dorance Armstrong, was injured in the same game and that he was not practicing. Armstrong has now been ruled ‘out’ for Sunday’s game.

Washington ranks 9th in the NFL in sacks per game (2.8) and 2nd in the NFL over the past three games (13), but, in both cases, that is mostly due to a 7-sack performance against a hapless Browns offense led by a struggling Deshaun Watson.

In four of Washington’s six games of 2024, the defense produced just one or two sacks — and that was with the defensive line at relatively full strength (DE Clelin Ferrell missed multiple games and rookie DE Johnny Newton has been worked into the defensive rotation slowly). With the loss of Allen for the season and Armstrong for the week, players like Newton, Ferrell, Dante Fowler Jr., and Washington’s starting linebackers — Wagner and Luvu — are going to have to step up to make up for lost production.

To be fair, the Panthers are much more banged up than the Commanders, with 6 players “out” and another 3 listed as “doubtful”.

See you Sunday

NFL games are rarely easy, and none can be taken for granted. The Carolina Panthers have an unimpressive 1-5 record and have been out-scored by an incredible 100 points (the next worst margin is the Jaguars at -65) and they haven’t held any of their last three opponents to less than 34 points, but Washington can’t afford to look past any team. Good teams win the games they are supposed to win, and the Commanders are still in the process of proving that they are a good team.

Let’s hope that the Commanders can give the Panthers the same treatment they gave the visiting Browns two weeks ago, but to do that, the players and coaches will have to remain sharp and be at the tops of their games. Show up or tune in Sunday at 4:05 p.m. for what is likely to be another fun day of watching winning 2024 Washington football.

Join our partner FanDuel for all your betting needs.