As Chase Young meandered back to the locker room, the star pass rusher summed up the Washington Football Team's wild 30-29 victory over the division rival New York Giants Thursday night.
"It wasn't pretty," Young said as he passed reporters in the hallway, via Kimberley Martin of ESPN. "It wasn't pretty, but we got that s--- done."
Indeed.
The Washington defense, in particular, didn't live up to its lofty expectations, unable to stop Daniel Jones and the Giants' passing offense for most of the night. Big Blue generated points on seven of their 10 possessions -- not counting the end-of-half kneel.
"There are too many good football players for us not to play better than what we did today," coach Ron Rivera said, via the team's official transcript. "That is the big disappointment because they are good football players, and we just have to correct some things."
Yes, Washington held New York to five field goals, but it wasn't the smothering performance we'd expected from a defensive front littered with first-rounders.
Washington compiled four sacks and six QB hits but allowed 391 total yards, an average of 6.1 yards per play. Watching Jones dice up Washington's D was surprising given the state of the offensive line, particularly after Nick Gates went down with an early injury.
"We came out, got the W, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters," Young said. "It feels good. A packed stadium. Then, you know, this long weekend. It's bad when you just took an L. I'm glad we came out with this dub."
Thursday night was a better performance than Week 1 when Washington barely sniffed Justin Herbert. Against the Giants, Washington pressured Jones on 17 of 36 dropbacks, 47.2 percent, after generating pressure on just 16.3 percent of dropbacks against the Chargers, per Next Gen Stats.
Defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, who had a massive two-sack, three-QB hit, three-TFL night, said Washington expects its defense to get better as the season rolls onward.
"We did enough to get the win, but moving forward, we just have to do better," he said. "It's not like the issues are we're just not good enough, we obviously have the talent, we just got to focus on the little things, and honestly, thank God our offense was there to save us time and time again."