Washington Football Team was Running on Empty

Nothing was good. Nothing came easy for the Washington Football Team on a rainy Sunday. From the start, they were running on empty.

They were behind early and for the most part had to play catch-up all day but on a rain soaked day here at FedExField, the Washington Football Team was running on empty almost from the start. 

Despite at one point taking a 7-6 lead on a 10-play, 73-yard touchdown drive engineered and finished by Kyle Allen, the WFT offense threw in the white towel early as the Los Angeles Rams pounded them into submission. 

With a crowd of about 200 family members and friends, the Washington offense somehow went from inefficient and sometimes bad to absolutely brutal in the span of one week. 

I wonder if this was the reaction from Dwayne Haskins privately?

© Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Haskins was not at FedExField on Sunday, reportedly sent home by team doctors after feeling ill the last few days and waking up at the team hotel still not right. 

He was going to be inactive anyway but it's just another complicated layer to a seemingly never ending soap opera. 

If you thought the Washington offense was a let down in every game since the season opener against Philadelphia, boy were you in for a treat on Sunday.

They had next to nothing. 

Allen led that one scoring drive that was aided by an Aaron Donald personal foul but that was it. 

Overall, Washington racked up 108 net yards on 52 offensive plays for an average of 2.1 per play. 

It was their lowest net yardage output since the final game of 2018 against the Philadelphia Eagles. 

The 108 total net yards of offense by the #WashingtonFootball team was putrid.

But...

Last year - 176 @ #NYG & 154 vs. #49ers in monsoon.

End of 2018 vs. #Eagles - 89 yards of net offense.

Fun times had by all.

— Chris Russell AKA the 🐓🐓! (@Russellmania621) October 11, 2020

One of the reasons is they couldn't and didn't run the ball. Then again, you have to try. 

Washington only did 14 times for 38 yards but a couple of those were quarterback scrambles. 

Yes the game got to 20-7 midway through the second quarter but still...

It was less than a two-touchdown deficit for most of the second half and yet Washington couldn't but didn't even try to run the ball. 

From the time Alex Smith entered the game at the two-minute warning of the first-half, they passed the ball (or tried to) on all seven offensive snaps, including one Aaron Donald sack. 

They had all three timeouts remaining until the 0:41 mark. 

In the third quarter, with the score 20-10 and the rain coming down harder, something Smith called a "quarterback's worst nightmare," Washington passed the ball on their first three offensive snaps leading to two negative yardage completions before another third-down sack by Donald. 

Count with me boys and girls. That's ten straight plays and ten straight passing attempts with two sacks. In a driving rain of a reasonably close game. 

Only after the Rams made it 23-10 midway through the third did Washington think it was a good idea to try and run the ball. 

Antonio Gibson ran for no gain before Smith scrambled under pressure on a called pass play for one yard  and then another incompletion. 

At that point it was 12-out-of-13 called plays that were passes in a steady rain. 

After that, three more passing attempts and two sacks in a row from deep inside their own territory, which brought us to 14-out-of-15 called pass plays since Smith entered and the end of the third quarter. 

Only at the start of the fourth quarter, did the Washington offense realize that the Rams yielded 4.99 yards per rushing attempt coming into the game and have been not good over several years stopping the run. They are pass rushers first. Run stoppers fifth. 

Antonio Gibson had back-to-back four-yard rushes and the offense was slowly starting to move and then boom, two failed passes on third down and one on fourth and it was turn out the lights time. 

The running total at this point? 16-of-19 called passing plays since Smith had entered. 

The rest of the fourth quarter, with the game out of reach featured seven more passing attempts and two rushing plays, with Smith getting sacked a couple of more times. 

If you're keeping score at home, that's 23 called passing plays and five called runs from the time Smith entered at the two-minute mark of the first half. 

A lot of that was NOT score and situational dictated. Sorry. Some of it was. It's not illegal to run the ball inside of two minutes when you have all three of your timeouts left. 

It's absurd to not run the ball in a 20-10 game with a steady rain shower dumping down. 

When you're offensive line can't block a soul and when you are allowing a very good pass rush to pin their ears back and tee off, that's on you. 

Overall, Washington quarterbacks were sacked eight different times. If that number sounds familiar, that's how many times the burgundy and gold got to Carson Wentz in week one. 

HOT READ: A Complete Debacle From Start to Finish for Washington

What did the Eagles offense look like that day? Anyone?

I understand the run game was not great. I totally get it. It's impossible to be great when you're not used. 

In an NFL game when your quarterbacks and offensive line stink, you must try and run the football. To do it 12 times by call and only five times in the second half as the rain came down harder and the passing game clearly wasn't working, was inexcusable. 

Lepore: Washington gets "mule-kicked" by the Rams

The Rams deserve to win but the Washington Football Team handed them this game on a silver platter and now they're eating all the way back to Los Angeles. 

Chris Russell is the Publisher of this site, a part of SI.com. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Washington Football Team" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621