WFT closes season with ugly win
Gibson runs for career-high 146 yards in win over Giants
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The New York Giants were penalized for a false start at their own 3-yard line and proceeded to run two quarterback sneaks to gain only 3 yards and then punt. Those decisions got them booed off the field by a historically sparse crowd at MetLife Stadium, and Fox playby-play man Chris Myers chimed in with even more befuddlement.
“I mean, this is sad,” he said on the air.
“Sad” failed to fully capture the Washington Football Team’s season finale, a 22-7 victory over a Giants team in disarray. But as it ended its brief era with a placeholder name and flipped the page to next season, Washington held true to Coach Ron Rivera’s promise that he would play to win in Week 18, and it came away from the victory with a 7-10 record and more belief in its potential.
But it took an ugly path to get there.
In the first half, the teams combined to go 1 for 13 on third down and punt eight times. The inefficiency of both quarterbacks was punctuated by the fact that Jake Fromm, the Giants’ backup, threw the first and only touchdown pass of the game in the fourth quarter — a play that perhaps caught Washington by surprise because New York (4-13) finally threw a pass on third and long.
The game’s minimal implications were reflected by the barren parking lots and empty swaths of stands. Interest for most fans of both teams has turned to the next few months — which, for Washington, are expected to be busy.
In early February, the team will announce its name and logo. In the weeks after that, it will begin a roster revamp, armed with possibly a top-10 draft pick and plenty of salary cap space to make significant changes.
If anything crystallized for Washington on Sunday, it was affirmation of the obvious.