Hail or Fail: Commanders trample the Titans to snap losing streak

The Commanders entered Sunday having put up first-quarter points in 11 straight games, the longest active streak in the NFL. It took them all of three plays for running back Brian Robinson Jr. to make it 12, which tied the franchise record set in 1983. Robinson’s 40-yard touchdown run — one in which he was not touched by any Titans defender and one in which he showed no signs of the ankle injury he reportedly had been battling — made it 7-0 just more than three minutes into the game. It was a sign of things to come.

On the extra point that followed the Commanders’ third touchdown of the first quarter, Washington guard Sam Cosmi and Titans defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons got into a bit of a scrap that didn’t quite devolve into the melee we saw in Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game, but it still got pretty heated. Cosmi was flagged but not Simmons, and the 15 yards were assessed on the ensuing kickoff.

The Commanders were averaging 5.6 first-quarter points entering Sunday’s game, seventh most in the NFL. They seem poised to rise up those rankings after dropping 21 points in the opening 15 minutes against the Titans, tying the franchise record for first-quarter points set five times previously, most recently in a 34-23 win at Dallas on Jan. 3, 2016.

And the quarter nearly ended with more Commanders points after the Titans’ Jha’Quan Jackson fumbled the kickoff that followed Washington’s third touchdown. Fans would have to wait a few minutes into the second quarter for Terry McLaurin’s second touchdown catch of the game, which made it 28-0.

The Titans entered Sunday with something resembling momentum after their Week 12 upset of the Houston Texans. That positive energy dissipated in a hurry after the Commanders jumped out to a 28-7 halftime lead over a Tennessee team that did little right. In the first half alone, the Titans had a ghastly 11 penalties and two lost fumbles in their own territory, and their first four drives gained all of 37 yards before they strung together a late touchdown march that ended with a nice 27-yard pass from Will Levis to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who now has a touchdown catch in seven of his past eight games. (He added another score in the fourth quarter.)

After going up 28-0, the Commanders let the Titans nibble away at their deficit until it was 28-13 after Nick Folk’s 44-yard field goal with 3:40 left in the third quarter. But the Commanders drive that followed resembled their unstoppable first-quarter marches, and Zach Ertz capped things off with a four-yard touchdown catch, his second grab of the drive. The Northwest Stadium crowd that had gotten somewhat quiet sprung back to life with the 35-13 lead, and the Commanders closed things out from there.

It was Ertz’s third straight game with a touchdown catch, the first time he has had that long of a streak since catching a touchdown pass in four straight in 2017. Ertz also became just the sixth NFL tight end with at least 750 career catches and 50 touchdown grabs (he joined Tony Gonzalez, Jason Witten, Travis Kelce, Antonio Gates and Shannon Sharpe), and he’s now No. 10 all-time in career receiving yards by a tight end.

Place kicking continued to be a worrying aspect of the Commanders’ special teams — Zane Gonzalez missed field goals of 46 and 52 yards, both of them wide right. Washington placed usual starter Austin Seibert on injured reserve after the Week 12 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, one in which he missed an extra point that would have tied the score late in the game. With Seibert unable to return until at least the regular season finale, the Commanders signed Gonzalez to the active roster Monday.

The Commanders entered with some worries at running back with Robinson nursing an ankle injury and Austin Ekeler on injured reserve. Those worries proved unfounded: Washington ran for a season-high 267 yards — its most since a 2012 game against the Cowboys — and both Robinson (103 yards, one touchdown) and Chris Rodriguez (94 yards, one touchdown) were hard to stop. Rodriguez’s performance was especially nice to see, considering that he was cut last weekend and only re-signed to the active roster Tuesday.

At least for one game, the notion that Commanders offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury tends to fall apart in the second half of a season was put on the back burner. The Washington offense hummed along nicely, with Jayden Daniels completing 25 of 30 passes, three of them for touchdowns, and McLaurin catching the ball all eight times he was targeted. The Commanders matched a season high with 42 points and finally get a break with their Week 14 bye.