ASHBURN, Va. — The Ravens and Commanders, two of the hottest teams in football, will meet this weekend in Baltimore. Washington's defense that's shown new life the past couple of weeks will be up against its biggest challenge of the early season this Sunday.
The Ravens are the NFL's top rushing offense with 1,056 yards on the ground. In second, the Washington Commanders, who have gained 892 yards rushing. Like Baltimore's Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson, the Commanders have a similar formula for their success with a mobile quarterback in Jayden Daniels and a powerful running back in Brian Robinson.
"We have weapons in the backfield with B-Rob, Ekeler and our boy J-Mac. All these guys, just give them the ball, let’s see what they can do and typically they do something special," said offensive lineman Sam Cosmi. "We, as a unit, the O-line have been really working our tails off to give opportunities to the guys that make the plays. We take pride in that for sure."
Washington leads the league in rushing touchdowns with 13. The next best has nine. Seven of those rushing touchdowns for the Commanders have come the past two games.
Offensive Coordinator Kliff Kingsbury told us Thursday, he doesn’t pay too much attention to the stats, but he’ll do whatever it takes to win.
"If we’ve got to run in every play, we will. If we’ve got to throw it, we’ll throw it. Our guys have done a nice job," said Kingsbury. "It helps when Jayden is adding those type of yards of his own, but that Baltimore rushing attack is vaunted right now. When I watch their offense every week and what they’re doing. We’d have a long way to go to reach that level."
The second leading rusher on the Commanders, behind Robinson, is quarterback Jayden Daniels who has gained 300 yards and four touchdowns on the ground.
His head coach, Dan Quinn, loves the dual-threat capabilities Daniels has. This past game against Cleveland, Quinn was most pleased with the rookie's maturity using his legs to get out of the pocket to deliver a strike downfield for a big gain to his top receiver.
"I was pleased to see, with Terry (McLaurin) specifically, on the deep ball that we had to him and remaining a passer, staying alive and then absolutely throwing a dime on the run," said Quinn. "That is, to me, when the whole thing comes together because I think early in the season that may have been one where he got outside the pocket, made somebody miss and gained some yards, but not 55 of them."
A big piece of the Washington backfield, Brian Robinson, is on the injury report again this week with a knee injury. Robinson hasn’t practiced the past two days. Last week, ahead of the matchup with the Browns, Robinson also didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday but suited up Sunday and scored twice in the 34-13 win.
