Destruction In The Capital: Why Green Bay Packers lost to Washington
By Kenn Korb
No pressure
Earlier in this season when the defense was doing a much better job at stopping their opponents, the pass rush was a staple.
Even with Clay Matthews missing time, Nick Perry had stepped up to become a consistent pressure-forcing monster; behind him, there were a litany of players who would get in on the action as well. This helped the team survive a depleted secondary to still be a terror, with eight different players contributing sacks to make this a top-10 unit in that regard.
They’ve more than levelled off at this point, however.
Perry and Julius Peppers did each get a sack in this contest, but beyond those two plays there wasn’t a single quarterback hit registered by the Packers. This is a team that came in four games of 5+ quarterback hits on the year — including 12 in one of them — but they couldn’t find their way to Kirk Cousins all night.
Cousins was able to have one of his best showings of his career due to the lack of pressure: 21/30, 375 yards, 3 TDs, 145.8 passer rating, and a 95.7 QBR. This was even with Matthews returning to action, as well as a rookie (Ty Nsekhe) starting in place of All-Pro caliber left tackle (Trent Williams) across from him.
The failings in this area allowed the dead-on-arrival secondary to be continuously victimized, and it was inseparable from the eventual blowout margin which came.