Carson Wentz’s return to the Commanders’ starting lineup was a catastrophe

The Washington Commanders woke up on New Year’s Day with a chance to clinch a playoff spot.

Now they might be eliminated by dinner time.

The Commanders made the decision earlier in the week to return Carson Wentz to the starting lineup. Wentz, who suffered a finger injury back in Week 6, replaced Taylor Heinicke in the second half of Washington’s loss last week to the San Francisco 49ers.

With the benefit of hindsight, the decision to start Wentz looks like a mistake. He threw three interceptions, and the Washington offense struggled to generate any consistency against the Cleveland Browns. And instead of being in position to clinch a playoff spot depending on results around the rest of the NFC, the COmmanders will be glued to their televisions on this night, hoping to avoid elimination.

Wentz’s first interception came on Washington’s opening drive of the game. With the Commanders facing a 3rd and 6, Wentz looked to connect with Terry McLaurin on an out route. But as you can see from this view of the play, he locks onto McLaurin early in the route, an the ball comes out a step late. That gives Denzel Ward a chance to jump the route for the Browns:

Wentz’s second interception came early in the second quarter. With the Commanders facing another third down, Wentz tries to test the Browns secondary deep.

Cleveland’s defense passes the test:

As with the previous play, you can see Wentz lock onto Curtis Samuel early in the down. Compounding the problems for Washington is the fact that the ball is underthrown, giving Grant Delpit a chance to cut under the route and make the interception.

Wentz and the Commanders offense would respond, however, with a long touchdown drive capped off by a Wentz quarterback sneak on fourth down to give Washington the lead. Wentz made a number of good throws on the drive, such as this deep out route to rookie Jahan Dotson to move the chains on third and long:

When the Commanders needed a big play on offense, that is when Wentz threw his third pick of the day. Cleveland took a 24-10 with over five minutes remaining on a touchdown pass from Deshaun Watson to Amari Cooper. Needing to get back into the game, Washington shifted into hurry-up mode, and drove into Cleveland territory.

But that’s when Wentz made another mistake:

As you can see from this angle, it looks like Wentz has the deep corner route along the left side of the field. Instead, he tests the defense over the top to Dotson, and the throw into double coverage is intercepted.

Wentz finished the day having completed 16 of 28 passes for 143 yards and no touchdowns, along with the 3 interceptions. Washington’s 24-10 loss means that the Commanders could be eliminated from the playoffs with a Green Bay Packers win over the Minnesota Vikings.

Should Green Bay win that game, the Commanders would stay alive for one more week.

Regardless of how that unfolds, it seems that Washington has still more questions surrounding the quarterback position heading into Week 18.

And 2023.