In the first six weeks of the season, you could see shades of the type of offense that Washington Commanders offensive coordinator Scott Turner wanted to run.
In Carson Wentz’s first five starts of the season, he attempted 38 passes or more in every start. Wentz had 41 attempts or more in his first five games. When Wentz went with an injury, Taylor Heinicke returned to the lineup.
In Heinicke’s nine starts, he only went over 40 attempts once, in the Week 13 tie with the New York Giants. In six of Heinicke’s nine starts, he was under 30 attempts.
Do you sense a theme here?
Now that Wentz is back in the lineup, will Turner go with a more pass-heavy approach or strike a balance between Heinicke and Wentz’s passing attempts?
One knock against Turner is some feel he lacks a feel for the flow of the game. While other teams adjust, Washington is often behind in adjustments. For instance, in the loss to the 49ers, it took Turner until the third quarter to realize he couldn’t run against San Francisco and Washington’s wide receivers were a mismatch for the Niners.
On Thursday, Turner met with the media and discussed Wentz’s return to the lineup.
“Carson’s excited to get back in, playing,” Turner said. “He’s been preparing the last couple weeks to play. He was excited to get back in the game. I think Coach [Rivera] talked about it, you know, Taylor [Heinicke] has been a little beat up. We’ve had some issues; some of them have been stuff Taylor’s done, and some of it hasn’t been his control. I think it gives a little bit of a spark of Carson coming in. Like we said, he’s healthy, energized, and ready to go. I think there’s not going to see much difference as far as what we want to do. We still want to be physical and be balanced in that way. But I think just his excitement and energy coming in will be good.”
There are multiple reasons why the Commanders turned back to Wentz. Quite simply, he offers a much higher ceiling than Heinicke regarding the passing offense. And when you have wide receiver talent like Washington does, your offense becomes much more dynamic because there is a threat of the deep passing game.
It will be interesting to see how Turner calls the game in Wentz’s return to the starting lineup.
