In this week Responds In our survey, we covered a lot of ground, asking readers to peer into their crystal balls to predict how Washington’s rookie QB would fare in his quest for his first professional passing touchdown, and to predict the winner of the ground battle between the Commanders defense and this week’s offensive opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals. We also asked the usual weekly question about confidence in the team’s direction.

Jayden Daniels

It’s pretty astonishing that the NFL’s three starting quarterbacks — Williams, Daniels and Nix — have thrown a combined 196 passes without a TD so far this season. According to Opta Stats, this is the most consecutive pass attempts by rookies without a TD pass to start a season in NFL history.

It’s not that the rookies haven’t scored at all. For example, Jayden Daniels scored two rushing touchdowns in his first regular-season game with Tampa Bay to open the 2024 regular season, and Bo Nix also scored one for the Broncos in his first regular-season game. But the lack of passing scores has made headlines.

For Jayden Daniels, this pattern has certainly held true for every NFL game he’s played in thus far, including the preseason. Playing in New Jersey and Miami Gardens, he led three preseason drives in two games. He scored a rushing touchdown against the Jets but didn’t complete a touchdown pass to a receiver in either game.

However, this does not mean that Daniels has not produced good attacking play in his first two games.

Through two weeks, Jayden Daniels ranks 10th among QBs (min. 20 passes) in yards per attempt with 7.7, and he’s completing 75% of his passes. While his intended air yards are low (he leads the league in passes behind the line of scrimmage), the players who catch his passes collectively rank 4th in the NFL in yards-after-catch-per-reception, and the Commanders are tied for 6th in receptions of 20+ yards, with 6 through two games.

Notably, Jayden has yet to throw a single interception, which sets him apart from Caleb Williams (2) and Bo Nix (4).

In the midst of all NFL quarterbacks (min 20 passes), Jayden is 7th in Passer Rating (96), and the Commanders offense is enjoying a lot of success. Washington is 6th in the NFL with 44 first downs, and the Commanders are one of three teams to have punted just 3 times this season (tied for #1). In fact, the Commanders have run the 9th most offensive plays in the league thus far.

Thanks in part to Jayden’s scramble, Washington has the second-most rushing 1st downs in the NFL, and that has led to sustained drives. In fact, Washington has had 15 offensive drives and scored on 10 of them.

But to have a truly functional offense that consistently helps the team win games, the Commanders need to be able to score touchdowns when they get into the red zone. And sooner or later, Daniels needs to start throwing passes that result in touchdowns.

In this week’s poll, we asked readers how many touchdown passes the rookie would throw in his first-ever primetime appearance on Monday Night Football this week.

Check the odds on FanDuel

Only 5% of respondents expect Daniels’ shutout in passing TDs to continue. Confidence in Daniels appears to be high among Hogs Haven readers, as 91% of respondents to this question expect the rookie to throw 1 or 2 touchdown passes this week.

Commanders conduct the defense

While Washington’s offense performed quite well in the two games, the same cannot be said of the defense, which struggled at times.

According to ESPN, the Commanders have the following defensive ranks after two weeks:

• Total Yards – 21st (348 yards per game)
• Passing Yards – 22nd (227.5 yards per game)
• Points per game – 29th (27.5 points per game)

The only traditional defensive stat that looks decent so far is the rushing defense. The Commanders are in the middle of the pack — 16th with 120.5 yards per game.

Monday night’s opponent, the Cincinnati Bengals, have produced the third-fewest rushing total of any NFL team through two weeks (72 yards per game) en route to an 0-2 record. The two defenses they faced were the NE Patriots (ranked 11th) and the KC Chiefs (ranked 29th), so it’s not like they’re up against powerhouse defenses.

The Bengals’ best rusher is Zack Mosswho has rushed for over 500 yards in a season just once since being drafted in the third round of the 2020 draft — he ran for 793 yards on 4.3 yards per carry last season in Indianapolis. So far in ’24, he’s averaging 3.7 yards per carry on 21 rushes.

Moss is supported by a second-year player, Pursuit Brownwho ran for 179 yards as a rookie and has added 42 yards on 7 carries (12 yards) through the first two weeks of this season.

The other back of the team, Trayveon Williamshas not touched the ball in the 2024 regular season and has accumulated just 307 rushing yards in his 5-year career.

In this week Responds As part of our survey, we asked respondents to give an over or underscore relative to 95 rushing yards for the Bengals offense.

A whopping 71% of respondents chose the “over,” despite the Bengals rushing for 70 and 74 yards in their first two games of the season.

These Washington fans are absolutely not impressed with what they’ve seen from the Commanders defense so far this season!

Monday Evening Football

At Cincy Jungle, readers were able to vote on the outcome of this week’s Commanders-Bengals game.

Check the odds on FanDuel

In total, 91% of respondents to the Responds A poll on the Bengals’ website predicted a win for the Bengals (0-2) against the visiting Washington team (1-1), while only 8% predicted a win for the Commanders.

At Hogs Haven, we didn’t ask our readers to make a prediction about the outcome of the game this week. Responds survey; however, we do have an indirect survey of win-loss predictions in the form of the weekly Pick’em contest. It’s certainly a smaller sample size, but when it comes to picking game winners, the median score in week 1 was 11 out of 16, while in week 2 — a week full of surprises — it was 8 out of 16. If we pick against the spread, the median scores were 6/15 in week 1 and 7/15 in week 2.

Below are this week’s predictions for the Monday Night Football game, based on contest entries.

Grab them

When we call the winner, 74% of Hogs Haven readers predict a win for Cincinnati out of 50 entries.

Point Spread

Surprisingly, among a smaller sample of 31 respondents, the split is nearly identical: 74% expect the Bengals to cover the spread, while 26% predict Cincy will miss the 8-point spread.

Fan trust

In our standard weekly poll, we asked Hogs Haven readers if they were confident in the direction the team was heading.

After dropping from 96% in Week 1 to 74% last week, confidence rose again this week to 92% among Hogs Haven readers.

Once again, confidence in the team’s direction seems to be rooted in the recent changes in ownership, GM, coaching staff, and strategic direction, as opposed to the expectation of great on-field success in the short term. Still, winning tends to boost confidence, while losing dents it.

The NFC East

The confidence voters expressed in the Hogs Haven poll stands in stark contrast to the confidence of other NFC East fans, all of whom saw their teams falter in Week 2.

That Philadelphia fan base is something, man — down from 92% to 13% in one week after a 1-point loss to the Falcons on Monday Night Football. That’s the lowest confidence level of any fan in this week’s survey. They’re really putting pressure on head coach Nick Sirianni.

Dallas fans are only one point more confident, but they’ve spent the offseason trying to reconcile Jerry Jones’ “all in” declaration with his relative inactivity in free agency, not to mention getting blown out of their own stadium in a 44-19 loss to the Saints — a game in which the ‘Boys were heavy favorites. Jerry Jones is safe, of course, but this could be a championship-or-bust season for head coach Mike McCarthy.

If there’s a surprise, it appears that 29% of Giants fans still believe in the direction the team is headed after months of watching their management get stripped down in the offseason draft Hard blowsand then 0-2 to open the season. With GM Joe Shoen and head coach Brian Daboll both in the third year of the latest rebuilding effort, expectations should be rising among the Giants faithful. If the team can’t turn things around quickly, things could get ugly there.

It’s not just in fan confidence that the Commanders are atop the NFC East. With three teams sporting identical 1-1 overall records, Washington is in first place in the division because it’s the only team in the NFCE to win a division.

The Commanders can be assured of staying there for at least a week if they beat the Bengals on Monday Night Football, as our NFC East rivals don’t play each other this week.

Even a loss might not knock Washington out of first place, as all teams in the division still have tough games coming up in Week 3:

• The Giants are 6.5 point underdogs visiting the 1-1 Browns
• Philadelphia is a 3-point underdog visiting the 2-0 Saints
• The visiting Ravens (0-2) are favorites with a 1-point lead over the Cowboys

We will know the results of all these games on Sunday afternoon, so Washington fans can enjoy an exciting game on Monday night.

Washington is obviously the biggest underdog in the division this week, as the Commanders travel to Cincinnati (0-2) as 7.5-point underdogs for the final game of Week 3.

For Adam Peters and Dan Quinn, the 2024 season will truly be about laying a foundation for the future, and few observers have high expectations for the burgundy and gold in 2024. However, an upset victory away from home against the currently winless Bengals — a team led by Joe Burrow that spent the offseason dreaming of an AFC Championship game appearance this postseason — could drastically change the perception of the Commanders’ season. That could be especially true if the Buccaneers — who defeated Washington to open the season — can beat the Broncos in Tampa Bay to move to 3-0, potentially changing the perception of Washington’s Week 1 loss away from home.

The Commanders-Bengals match is the last of two This week’s Monday Night Football games kick off at 8:15 p.m. EDT.

Join our partner FanDuel for all your betting needs