Kaytron Allen — Week 1: Four Carries, Three on the Last Drive
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Allen carried four times for sixteen yards, all after halftime and three of them on Washington's final drive, the last a three-yard run to the one with one fifty-seven left that set up Antonio Williams's touchdown. Jacory Croskey-Merritt carried sixteen times and Rachaad White seven, none of White's after halftime, in a 22–24 loss to the Eagles.
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Kaytron Allen's first carries came after halftime, and his biggest came with one 57 left. First and four at the Philadelphia four, Washington down 16 to 24: up the middle, three yards to the one. It was worth +0.1 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and three points of win probability, the chance of winning after the play against before it, the most any of his four carries moved that number. Two snaps later, after an incompletion on second and one, Jayden Daniels threw one yard to Antonio Williams for the touchdown, and the two-point try that followed failed.
The line: four carries, 16 yards, no touchdown, no first downs, three of the four successful, +0.2 expected points, longest five. No targets. None of the carries came before halftime; one came in the third quarter and three in the fourth. The first was first and 10 at the Washington 11 with five 10 left in the third, down nine to 14, up the middle for five, on a drive that ended in a punt. The other three all came on the final possession: first and 10 at the Philadelphia 18 with three 15 left, left guard for four; second and six at the 14 with two 36 left, up the middle for four to the 10; and the three-yarder to the one. 11 yards on three carries, inside the 20, on a drive that needed a touchdown. The drive had reached the 18 on the snap before his first carry, when Croskey-Merritt gained two on second and two and fumbled, and Washington's Conerly recovered.
The split: Croskey-Merritt 16, Rachaad White seven, Daniels five — three of them scrambles — and Allen four. White's seven all came before halftime; after it, the designed runs were Croskey-Merritt eight, Allen four, Daniels one. Washington ran 16 designed runs and 16 pass plays before the half, 13 19 after it, and finished with a hundred 32 rushing yards on 32 carries counting the scrambles. Allen's 16 were the fewest of the four, and 11 of them came in the quarter where the game was decided.
Back in June the preview called Allen a deep-league dart — a sixth-round pick, 180-seventh in April, going a hundred 90-fourth in July drafts, with a path that almost certainly started on special teams behind Croskey-Merritt, White and Jerome Ford — and it named goal-line work as the one door his size opened first. Sunday that door opened a crack in the fourth quarter: four carries, three on the drive that needed a score, the last of them to the one. Four carries in one game is not a role, and the preview said the results, if they came, would start in September; this is the first line of them. Washington is at the Cowboys on Sunday the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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