At Stake in Washington's Final Game? Individual Milestones
After the Washington Football Team and New York Giants walk off the field Sunday, nobody outside of the NFL Draft community is going to look too closely at what happened. Who won, how the game was won, and all of those things will not be hot topics on your favorite national talk show.
This fact doesn't mean there aren't things worth playing for on both sides of the field.
For Washington, there are several players on the cusp of individual milestones. Even if reaching those doesn't improve the overall outlook of 2021 for the franchise as a whole, it can spark excitement and confidence in what's to come.
Perhaps the most popular name with a milestone within reach is wide receiver Terry McLaurin.
With 40 yards or more receiving in Week 18, McLaurin will become the first Washington receiver in almost 30 years - since Henry Ellard in 1994-96 - to produce back-to-back 1,000-yard receiving seasons.
If McLaurin tops 65 yards, he'll move into the NFL's Top 5 since 2015 among receivers in their first three seasons. As he stands in franchise history, if McLaurin gets even one-yard receiving he moves into 15th place in yards, and is just three away from 3,000 in his career.
On the defensive side, Jonathan Allen is 4.5 sacks from 30 in his career. Not likely to happen, and certainly not as likely as the 1.5 he needs to reach 10 sacks for the first time. Allen already has a career-high 8.5 sacks, and it's his second year with eight or more since arriving in 2017.
Fans, media, and the team already know how important players like McLaurin and Allen are to the team's future.
With this coming off-season being the first chance Washington has at locking in their star receiver like they did with their defensive tackle, reaching these milestones would only further prove to the national audience, what the locals already know.
And it gives their teammates one more reason to play hard on Sunday, and a reason to watch the game. For the last time, as the Washington Football Team.
