Wentz didn’t look up. His expression didn’t change. But it was impossible for him not to have heard the crowd’s frustration in the 24-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. On the Commanders’ first drive of the day, Wentz threw an interception on his second throw, and fans broke into a chant for backup Taylor Heinicke. They did it at least four more times on the afternoon.
“It’s part of football,” Wentz said. “I’ve seen a lot in my seven years and experienced a lot. I get it. I didn’t have my best day today. I wish it would have [gone] differently. I feel like I let some of my teammates down there early in the game and put us in a hole a little bit. But that’s part of football.”
Did the chants affect him?
“[I] try not to [let them],” he said.
By many measures, this was Washington’s worst offensive performance of the season besides the 24-8 drubbing at Dallas in Week 4. It was a disastrous end to the bet Coach Ron Rivera made after a brief, promising showing by Wentz in last week’s loss at San Francisco. Against the Browns, the quarterback finished 16-for-28 passing (57.1 percent) for 143 yards, no touchdowns and three interceptions. He also took three sacks, all of which took 2.4 seconds or longer, according to the website TruMedia.
“I thought he had his moments,” Rivera said, pointing out the team put together a 21-play, 96-yard drive before halftime to score its only touchdown. He noted that Wentz needed to throw the ball earlier on his first interception and he needed more zip on the second.
“He held the ball a couple times when he probably could have gotten it out and probably should have gotten it out,” Rivera added. “We’ve just got to continue to work on that.”
In the opposing locker room, the Browns seemed unsurprised by Wentz’s struggles. Several defenders, including end Jadeveon Clowney and linebacker Reggie Ragland, said they preached all week that stopping the run on first and second down would force Wentz to throw on third and long, a situation in which he struggles.
Cleveland, which has one of the NFL’s worst run defenses, mostly executed the plan. Washington struggled to be better than average running the ball on early downs, and even though it faced plenty of manageable third downs — the average distance to convert was 6.1 yards, its fifth shortest of the year — the Browns’ pass rush battered Wentz and seemed to affect his decision-making.
“Once we get him rattled in the pocket, it’s over,” Clowney said. “Coming in, we said, ‘If we can get him rattled, we can get some turnovers out of him.’ We knew that.”
“If you know football, you know [Wentz] has a slow release, and you know Heinicke gets the ball out fast,” Ragland said. “Some of the guys I know on the team” — Ragland played college football at Alabama with Commanders wide receiver Cam Sims and defensive tackle Jonathan Allen — “they would’ve preferred Heinicke because they know he gets the ball out. You can see it on film, too, though. They play different with each quarterback.”
Browns defensive end Myles Garrett said that Wentz, who normally holds on to the ball too long, seemed to be doing so more Sunday because it was a part of the game plan. He pointed out the Commanders were in formations meant to take deep shots and sometimes used two players to chip defenders, which slowed them getting out into their routes and limited Wentz’s check-down options.
“They wanted to get some plays down the field and some long-developing plays,” Garrett said. “I don’t think it was really [Wentz] holding it as much as he’s waiting for everything to develop in front of him.”
In the Commanders’ locker room, teammates defended Wentz. Wide receiver Terry McLaurin acknowledged it was “probably tough” for Wentz to hear chants for Heinicke, and tight end Logan Thomas said he didn’t feel as if he needed to say anything to Wentz because, as a former quarterback, he knew Wentz was plenty hard on himself.
“We can’t really blame [Wentz] for the performance,” running back Brian Robinson Jr. said. “We just didn’t have the energy we needed. … Overall, it was kind of dull. I don’t know where the energy came from, but it was definitely in the air, and you could feel it. I feel like that kind of affected his performance.”
The final drive — with an overthrow, a drop and two false start penalties — encapsulated the sloppiness of the Commanders’ offense. When the clock expired, Wentz walked through the Browns’ defense, shaking hands. He congratulated Garrett and Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson before taking a knee at midfield. Wentz, defensive end Chase Young, linebacker David Mayo and two Browns staffers knelt and held hands in a prayer circle.
No one talked about anything related to the game. They prayed for players’ health and for their families, “the truly important stuff in life,” Mayo said. The moment could’ve been Wentz’s last on the field as the Commanders’ starter.
All afternoon, it was difficult to ignore the echoes of Wentz’s past. Last season, needing a win to get into the playoffs, Wentz and the Indianapolis Colts collapsed in a 26-11 loss to the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars. This year, against another eliminated team, Wentz again delivered one of his worst performances.
“I wish the result was different. I wish we came out of here with a win,” he said. “But I don’t think about [last year]. It’s a completely new situation, new place, new everything — and I just wish it would have went different.”
After about a minute, Wentz rose from the prayer circle, scratched his beard and ran toward the tunnel — toward boos and an uncertain future.