Somebody has to blink: the Annihilators' 118.82 meets the Dragons' 115.36, and one stop decides it

Everyone around this team is going to say the number this week. 118.82. It came with Lamar Jackson, Saquon Barkley and T.J. Edwards all on the bench, it was about 40 points better than what the Annihilators had been averaging, and it gave a club that has been the league's punchline on offense a Monday where nobody laughed. Say the number as often as you like. Just say the next part, too: on the same Sunday, the Dragons put up 115.36.

That is who walks in here this weekend. Two 2-4 teams, both coming off a win, both coming off the kind of offensive day that makes an owner think the hard part is over. It isn't over for either of them. Six weeks on this beat have taught me to distrust any story that rests on one Sunday, and this one rests on two.

Here is what ours looked like. Kirk Cousins, starting with Jackson out, threw for 313 yards and two touchdowns. D'Andre Swift ran for two scores and caught four more passes. Demario Douglas caught a touchdown. Chris Boswell kicked four field goals, two of them from past 50 yards. The Inexperienced Blitz lost by nearly 20. For the first time this season, the Annihilators looked like a team that could score without its stars instead of a team sitting around waiting for them.

And then there is Nick Herbig.

When I sat down Monday to go through the game, I caught myself calling Herbig a defender I hadn't written a word about. That was true, and it was my mistake, not his. He had six tackles, three for a loss and two sacks in Pittsburgh's win at Tampa Bay, the best line on the Annihilators' defense by a distance. When I went back through his season, he wasn't a surprise at all. He had been doing steady work all along while I was busy writing about who was missing. I haven't talked to him yet. When I do, I want to ask what it is like to be the guy the beat noticed only after he made us.

Herbig matters this week for a reason that has nothing to do with my conscience. Lena Ortiz, who covers the Dragons, walked me through their side, and it runs through two players. Tyler Shough has been the first-team quarterback since he came up from the practice squad Oct. 4. Lena saw him with the first group Friday evening, and with Jalen Hurts on injured reserve, Tanner McKee, who was added Oct. 17, looks to her like cover rather than a challenger. Against Dandy, Shough threw three touchdown passes and ran for another, and James Cook III had a big afternoon behind him. In her view, "the Dragons' offense now runs through Shough's arm and legs plus Cook."

Lena's sharper point was about the other side of the ball. The Dragons have allowed 758.3 points, the most in the league, and she told me that is the number she would worry about if she were coaching against them. She is right, and it cuts both ways, because the Annihilators have given up 604.8 of their own. Neither defense has given anybody a reason to slow down.

Trevor Banks, who covers the Tri-Valley, told me before the win that the Dragons are the most winnable game on this schedule on paper, and that the Annihilators' problem is scoring more than the schedule. I think the second half of that still holds, 118.82 and all. This team has scored 512.9 points through six weeks, the fewest in the league. One big day doesn't erase five small ones. It just makes the small ones easier to forget.

Nobody has said yet whether Jackson, Barkley or Edwards will be back for this one, and I'm not going to guess.

So here is my take, and it is only mine. Sunday is not a referendum on whether the Annihilators have turned a corner. It is a shootout between two offenses that just found something and two defenses that haven't, and whichever defense makes one stop decides it. One sack that kills a drive. One trip that ends in a field goal instead of a touchdown. If Shough has the afternoon Lena thinks he can, the Annihilators need Herbig to be the player he was in Tampa, not the player I overlooked. If Cousins has to carry it again, we find out whether 313 yards was a Sunday or a standard.

I won't say this team has turned until it does it twice. A home game against a team with the same record is as good a place as any to make me say it.