The Consigliere

Nope. If we blow it with fields, we rock bottom the season preceeding a draft with the best collection of blue chip QB's in forever. I get that you see what we'd have lost if we'd done it, but what would we have gained? A couple of patches for a Titanic that was going down anyway, and are irrelevant long term w/o an answer at QB. You pull the trigger and if you blow it, you bottom out and try again. We're pretending that we're in a good place w/o Fields. We're not, we're in a ghastly place. We might have just enough pieces to yet again, rise above the dregs of the league just high enough to pick 4-8 and lose out on the cream of the QB prospects instead of picking 1 or 2, or having Fields actually develop w/our organization. I'm confounded as to why you prefer this? This is what 1993-2021 has been, and will continue to be in future seasons. Nowhere and no direction going forward. It's not a place you want to be. Absolute rock bottom in a great draft class year is infinitely better than really bad and directionless but not rock bottom in a great draft class year.

Hadn't thought of that, but good point. What a way to punish a set of fans instead of the ------ owner. If you don't have the balls to take the team away, don't punish a fan base that's been swimming in a septic tank for 29 --- damned years, but that's just the sort of thing a spineless weasel like Goodell and the rest of these ---- bag owners would do instead. Who cares? Dotson aint turning anything around. You have a QB or you don't. At least Fields would've been trying and he might have actually been good (this team actually has some weapons and a potential OL), and if not, if Fields submarined it, big deal, you lose the '22 first, implode this fall (as we are already doing) and take a mega stud in the '23 1st. Win, freaking win.

I never understand this argument. If you miss badly on a franchise QB, you really really suck, and get to reboot in a few years. What is the tangible difference between missing on Fields in '21 (and I'm not sold we would have missed, Fields would have had actual weapons and a competent OL on this team, in Chicago he has nothing, nothing at all, beyond day 3 pick Mooney) and sucking for two years, and then drafting at the top of '24 and trying again, versus taking a bust hybrid LB, and being sucky, but not sucky enough to land a franchise QB to reboot with? Chicago and us are neck and neck. Last night underlined it. We're both 2-4, we're both god awful, we're both going nowhere, but they have a legit prospect at QB (whose been awful, no doubt) and more room to fall off than us, and reboot again. The worst part of it? Despite having a better defense, and better weapons and offense in general, Chicago still was a muffed punt away from winning that game. So yeah, I'd have rather traded up for Fields, EASILY, over what we did. Same with RGIII in '12 (the only thing that flushed that idea was that we backed into a near but not quite franchise QB in the same draft w/our day 3 pick, and so we didn't bottom out, as we would have, if we just had RGIII alone). Drafting and blowing it with a franchise QB and/or trading up for them just allows you to reboot faster if you blow it. What we are doing instead, which btw we've been doing nonstop since 1993, is going w/stop gaps, and building out the rest of the roster, and that has made us a consistent 3 years out of 4 dumpster fire that's never quite bad enough to land the top of the draft obvious QB stud prospects, and never good enough to literally EVER matter. We haven't mattered in the NFL since bad special teams kept us out of a deeper playoff run in '99, and bad luck against the Seahawks scuttled us in '05 and '07 and back then we didn't really matter either beyond being a potential spoiler. Why are you and others so afraid of blowing it with a franchise QB selection or trade up. It's been 29 <expletive> years. It's the only quick way to potentially fix this other than Snyder dropping dead or selling. Who cares if we blow a trade up. Why not be excited about the possibly of hitting on it? This draft could do this. Same with '21, same with '20, which had echoes of '04 and '05 when franchise QB's were available and we passed. Let's push the button. The worse that can go wrong is what's already happening 3 out of every 4 years anyway (and sometimes 4 out of 5). Who cares?

That 3-0 game against the Jets back in '93 as well.

Thats my brothers argument as well. I understand it, ---- that scumbag, and to read about how bound and determined he is to hold onto the team, "cold dead hands" style to the bitter end is infuriating. Can't he see what he's done. If he was a true fan, as he claims, he'd sell, but his ego trumps his fandom, so he can't handle the thought of the team succeeding once he leaves....But yeah, my brother wont quit out of spite. I can't quit, but I can ignore. I don't have the capacity to "become a fan of another team". I don't know how. I grew the roots as a single digit year old child circa the late seventies and early eighties, the roots are there. I can't drop a seed in say, the Cincy bucket, and water that till it grows, roots simply wouldn't grow, I'm not that child anymore. I'm jealous. The last times I really was able to transfer were USMNT in 1990, DC United in 1996, Washington Nats almost 20 years ago but that was easy because I was already an expos fan, so they were just moving to the city where the bulk of my fav teams are from. As a 47 year old I can't suddenly follow the Jags because I really like Lawrence long term and like their build and coach? I'm stuck, it's this loser organization or none. I may be able to do what my dad did, watch my kid pick up a team (Raiders or Niners) and follow them passively and w/o enthusiasm except for his joy? That's the best I could do. I am absolutely not inflicting the redskins on him particularly since his only local tie is that an uncle was born and raised there until he was 4 50+ years ago. That wouldn't make sense and of course, my wife would kill me lol.

Well, that sounds infinitely more enjoyable than my experience of it which has largely been painful moving to completely apathetic. I shouldn't neglect to manage that my kid was born in '16 and as a result, I don't have the time to watch even if I wanted to (which I don't anymore), so I'll keep it on NFL network for the fantasy relevance, and focus mostly on watching Serie A, EPL, and Bundesliga on weekend mornings. I just enjoy that a lot more, but I certainly don't begrude you the joy you may get, after the past 29 years, anyone who can still get any joy from it deserves it, it's been a very long sentence, so to speak.

Oh, let me say, I'm no different at this point. I probably mentioned it elsewhere, but i posted daily at CPND from '96-'12, I was never as active here, but I definitely posted, especially around the draft and around scouting it since like '03 or whatever, and then came over here more starting in '16 or '17, but even w/that, my posting over here and CPND combined since probably 2015 is about 5% of what it once was. The big difference all in all is probably this: I watched the Redskins consistently from childhood until 2013, then it sloughed off, and since McCloughan was canned, I've probably seen 3 complete games total. In terms of posting on message boards, I was a daily guy for decades until the last decade (2011-2020) when slowly but surely I went from semi-daily, to probably 100-300 posts around the draft, and that's a wrap. No inseason posting because I already know how the seasons will play out. 3 out of every 4 years the team will suck, typically somewhere between a 5-11 and a 7-9 caliber team in terms of the 16 game schedule. 1 out of every 4 years the team will surprise, and win enough to take the division or a wild card with a 10-6 caliber season, before getting blown out immediately in the playoffs. In none of those years will the team have a legit franchise QB. It may have a reasonable middle of the road vet, but that's the best they'll have (or whatever you called Cousins, a compiler w/big numbers who chokes in big games?). So basically I'm gone typically from July through January, then I come in for draft talk, then I'm gone again. My watching has evaporated, and my posting has shrunk by 90-95%. I've posted a lot lately just because the topics are interesting and its QB draft related beyond that since this redskins team obviously is gonna be bottom 10 again. I will add that I started replacing the Redskins with the USMNT circa 2002. That's been my favorite sporting event since the Super Bowl after the '91 season and I've gotten more consistent joy from the USMNT than any other sport or team though the dip due to the developmental disaster w/1990-1995 prospects which lead to missing the WC last cycle was the worst I've felt as a sports fan probably since the Super Bowl loss to the Raiders in '83. I don't anticipate reengaging as a redskins fan until Snyder dies or sells. A QB might do it, but honestly, I tend to think we'd just screw up a great QB prospect if we landed one.

Young and Stroud are projected ahead of where Burrow and Herbert were going into their draft years. The draft itself is also much deeper than usual at the position. Only drafts this deep this century were probably '11, '12, '18 and '21. Of course 2 of the 3 ended up being god awful in retrospect and '21 is very sketchy for now.

I think the most reasonable take on him is the simplest: He's playing like crap. His team, organization and coaches have been crap. It's a chicken or egg scenario. One you can never fully learn the truth about because at the end of the day, part of the ingredients of success is landing spot, and how much it matters is a known unknown. We can never know for sure what went wrong with a guy who landed w/a garbage org and sucked. We can learn when a guy who lands in a toilet, climbs out via trade or release and builds a career later on (Plunkett in the eighties, Young in the Eighties and Nineties, Gannon in the nineties, Kurt Warner later on) that the player always had it, and the organization(s) failed them, but with the guys that never make it? The David Carr's of the world who are sabotaged by bad team building, or sabotaged by poor coaches etc, we can't be sure. The only thing I'm sure of with Fields is that he's generally not playing well, and that's generally surrounded by complete and utter garbage at every level. Compare to the scrub the Jets overdrafted, Wilson, who may turn out. Dude has Corey Davis, Elijah Moore, Garrett Wilson, a dream chain moving cheap TE (Tyler Conklin, who I was stashing on deep dynasty teams like 4 or 5 years ago when Minny drafted him), and multiple legit option RB's, and an OL in progress. That's a dream. If he flops, he could point to the team stupidly hiring a defensive coordinator as the coach, but to my mind, it doesn't excuse it. Lance? Lance has everything he needs in house. Run Game, great pass catching weapons, legit OL, great FO and HC. NO EXCUSES. Lawrence landed with a coach so bad they ran him out before the season was even over. The team build was scuttled, they dumped my man Shenault (maybe another miss of mine), let Chark leave at well, and basically have some RB's and a mess at WR, I don't know the OL quality. I do know the coach is solid. But Lawrence got screwed in year 1, and it's still a mess in year 2. Mac Jones: Credit, big credit to that guy, but still, small sample size lessons here. The Pats have garbage at WR (seemingly always) some good TE's, and good grinder RB's (but no elite athletic guys) and a solid enough OL. Mac turned that into an above .500 team last year. That was stunning to me. This draft class I hated everybody except Howell, and Willis, and Willis is raw as hell, and Howell for whatever reason seemed to drop 4 rounds in value in six months. Pretty crazy. Felt like a steal in terms of value, but he's still at best only a 50/50 chance if he had huge draft capital, he doesn't, so he's probably more a 25/30 shot out of a hundred (team is far less likely to invest the time and assets to build up his career, and he's likely to be roster fodder the next crew had no role in selecting and so won't be super interested in maximizing the value of unless his talent is off the charts to them). Difficult situation. The big problem with Fields for me, getting back to him, is I put myself in a corner where I can't lose, I can and will blame Chicago for wrecking in him, as I believe in his talent, and that's not falsifiable, otoh, to be fair, and reasonable, I've got to own that he's also just stunk. Mac didn't have substantially more to work with in terms of talent and was far better, otoh, Mac had a professional legit organization and coaching staff, Fields did not (ditto Lawrence). Will be interesting to see how it plays out, but I think Chicago has likely destroyed his career unless they bring in a great hire and have back to back fantastic offseasons. He wasn't going ahead of the big 3, maybe the big 4. I tend to think he would have gone early 2nd, maybe late 1st. But judging based on how irrationally harsh they were on him for his '21 season, I tend to think they never viewed him as a first round talent because his '21 season was totally explicable (top 4 weapons drafted the offseason before his draft season in '21, and he also added a ton of run game to his CV, and they reacted by dropping him from 1st round grades to not drafted in the top 130). I would argue he probably was never going in round 1 based on that alone.

I would say that the only part of the fandom that's left that's enjoyable for most of us is commiserating with one another over what's wrong and how to fix it or if its fixable. Fan's can have reached the point of "not caring" about the results really, but still enjoy dissecting the problems w/online friends they've gotten to know over decades. I'd say that 95% of the enjoyment I've had that's been redskins related since I first went on the internet in Jan of '96, is entirely connected to the forums I've been a part of. That's it. In terms of on the field performance, it's been miniscule. The 7-2 run to start '96, the chance to land a QB in the loaded '99 class (that busted like the loaded '18 class) after we started so poorly in '98 (0-7 start to season), the Spurrier delusion of '02, the Gibbs II intermission of misery '04-'07, the RGIII year in '12, and that's about it. Just about every other moment of joy has just been in sharing laughs with people on CPND and over here and that's about it. So its probably actually more than 95% online, and only 5% on the game itself and the team itself.

That's something a ton of people forget, and the media as well forgets. The Redskins '93-'98 were complete horse manure in 1993, 1994, 1995, and 1998 (until the second half of the season when they ruined their draft slotting: they were dead last in the league in late October in record), 1996 was the famous 7-2 start following by 2-5 finish to inexplicably miss the playoffs, '97 was then the season with Westbrook nearly killing Stephen Davis (who was obscure then), and the famed Frerotte Headbutt choke against the giants.... '93-'98 was a house of horrors no doubt. The difference to me was that was the product of naive ownership, incompetent coaching, and terrible team building in the late eighties and early nineties in terms of utilizing the draft (so we got the '90-'92 run, but the cost was the following 3 years of misery due to getting nothing out of a half decade of bad drafts towards the end of Gibbs I) was fixable w/quality hires and a more engaged, intelligent owner. What we got instead was the stupidest, and most megalomaniacal owner in North American sports, and that is not fixable. If you have the worst owner across all sports on a continent, you are well and truly ----ed, and thats where we are. We could have dug our way out of the Turner hole. In the intervening 24 years since the '98 season there were innumerable elite coaches, GM's, and franchise QB's that could have been hired, or drafted by us, hell many were actually in our own organization, but we failed to draft any of them, and we failed to either hire or promote any of the relevant ones and we will continue to suck, forever, due to Snyder, till he's dead, sells, or is kicked out and forced to sell (I'll admit there are rare exceptions of incompetent, arrogant owners that win anyway, but they, almost across the board, haven't poisoned the franchise in the way Snyder did).

I would have loved trading for Fields. Still love him as a prospect, though it looks awful now. Pretending there isn't something to falling into a ---- heap of a team with no OC, no HC, no weapons, and a middling or worse OL? I don't know, does Trevor Lawrence suck, or did his coach, organization, and the talent around him suck? I tend to think the latter, and it's equally true w/Fields. He's been completely sabotaged by a dog ---- organization. Jacksonville may yet save Lawrence, but I see no chance for Fields in Chicago. No WR's to speak of, no RB's w/dynamic skills, OL is whatever, coaches are unproven at best. You can pretend it's Fields fault, or Lawrences fault etc, but if you saddle young QB's w/horse manure in terms of talent, and inept coaches, when they're play is uninspiring, we shouldn't act like it's a surprise, or entirely an indictment of them. We'll see going forward, if Fields can turn it around, but I don't think it happens in Chicago. They have nothing and nearly half his rookie deal is already over. They can't rebuild the entire offense around him in two offseasons. He's screwed. As crazy as it is to say, we actually might have made Fields into a good QB. Legit pass catchers, reasonable rb options, OL that's borderline competent at times. There's hope here in terms of surrounding talent. In chicago, its a giant pile of horse manure everywhere.

Not totally alone. I was 1000% against the Young pick as well, though not supersmart about it, lol, I wanted Burrow or failing that Tua, I didnt know what to think of Herbert beyond basically worth targeting over Young. I was basically for QB, period and everything else was irrelevant. I've been arguing that since 1998, and its hilarious how rarely we've addressed the issue intelligently (basically since then, just in 2012, and I was fine with the RGIII trade btw, and still am-if it fails, you find out quick, bottom out in 2+ years, and by then you have a top draft pick in a draft, unfortunately for us, that would have been the crappy '15 and '16 classes but so what, reboot again, and try again in '18, or '20/'21).

The trades needed to happen for the '20, '21 and '23 classes. Scouts everywhere knew going in the classes with the good and interesting prospects where those, just like they knew '12 was great, but '13 and '14 looked lousy, and that '17 and '18 looked great, but '19 looked lousy. Are they right on these grades? Nope, we all know the QB miss rate is around 50%, so sometimes, a class has an outsized hit rate versus expectations ('17 and '20) and sometimes it has an outsized miss rate ('18 and for now, '21).... Ron had to know this. If he wanted to draft and develop his own QB, he had to do it in '20, '21 or '23. And he had to play draft pick assets that way. Instead he focused on defense and quick fixes, and like very single year going back decades, it blew up in our face, quite predictably. I'm not here to tout my hits, I've been horrendous at evaluating which guys to go after: In '17 I was afraid of Watson's arm strength, but liked Mahomes and hated Trubisky. In '18 I had Allen Dead last due to accuracy issues and was all over Mayfield, Darnold, and Rosen. In '19 Kyler was the only one I cared at all about. In '20 I liked all 3 and overrated the hell out of Tua. In '21 I had them Lawrence, Fields, Lance, Mac, and then the Jets guy as a near certain bust. In '22 none were worth even a late first for me beyond Willis and Howell and that would have been a colossal waste considering what they went for. In '23 We've got four or five guys, and in Young and Stroud, two guys that have generally been 1-2 for 2 years. Its very interesting how this will play out. As for Wentz as talked about in other posts: He's a compiler. He has the raw tools to throw any pass, so he can produce gaudy stats, but like Jeff George, Cousins etc, he just doesn't have that last bit that turns tools into wins, and playoff runs, mental make up, who knows. But there have been guys like this every generation, that have the physical tools, but lack the rest of the details and Wentz is that guy. If he wasn't, if he had the tools, there's no chance the eagles would have dumped him for a guy who may not be NFL accurate enough to stick as a starter circa 2020 and beyond. Nor would the Colts who also had nothing to turn to behind him. The fact that he was dumped by good solid teams who lacked clear answers and dumped him anyway was the trail of clues on why not to do this. Interesting to note that now we know he was the third plan after the Stafford and Jimmy G plans failed. Jimmy G's smartly timed surgery probably saved his career.

I don't know. I'm here for QB prospect talk, I care in that sense of maybe something miraculous happens, and we back our way into a franchise QB and then possibilities, the open road at the end of terminator style, open up (that always reminded me of the drive between Nevada and Salt Lake on 80), but the actual passion and attention to watching, and living and dying in the monent of results began petering out for me sometime between the Zorn years and RGIII's knee injury and its handling. My watching collapsed after that. And I've spent probably 10,000x more time on the message boards than watching the games in the decade plus since. It is fair to say I've watched maybe 3 games in their entirety since December 2015. This after making the effort to drive to sports bars to watch with friends from 1997-2003 (in the bay area, games rarely on). The problem for me of being a fan of a team that's terrible is that if the franchise is terrible accidentally, there is hope (thats the 1993-1998 Cooke misery years), but the Snyder years torpedoed that hope and sent it to the bottom of the pacific. When your owner is incompetent, and megalomaniacal, like Snyder, the hope is dead until he's dead or sells. As such there is no hope whatsoever. That, I'm unwilling to inflict on my kid (and my wife would kill me if I tried to lol). When you know this team has no hope at all until the owner dies. That its a late stage Al Davis scenario, a Bill Bidwill scenario, a Clippers under Sterling scenario, I'd say the Indians/Guardians, because their owner is a cheap scumbag, but like the Loria scumbag, even being a cheap villain, you can hire smart people and still accidentally be successful and thats the Indians Guardians. For me, I just can't inflict this on my kid. At least I got the joy of the eighties and early nineties. Those years (Gibbs I), literally mirrored every year of my public education other than the Pardee season preceeding it when I was a kindergartner. I had the heaven of four super bowl runs from 1st grade through 12th, of good teams that didn't quite get it done in 4th grade-6th grade ('84-'86 season), and the one blip ('88-'89) when I was in eighth and ninth grade. In retrospect, its hilarious how miserable 1988 made me, and how painful the Eagles loss, and somehow failing to make the playoffs after that lead (was it 21-0 1st quarter, 37-28 with 2 minutes and change left. I still remember that crap and it was September 1989). Anyway I had that, I had the great years of '82-'83, '86-'87, '91, and some reasonably good years around them and since then its been a slow but steady decline into a cess pool. I can't do that to him. It's literally been miserable for 29 years. TWENTY Nine Years, and since Snyder is reasonably young, it could stay miserable for another 3 decades. So, no. I get the problem with the kids though, and it's my own problem too, if you dip them into this, its hard not to lock in. Because of how fandom worked, at least for our generation (I think the NBA star based fandom made kids changing teams easier for them than us), once I was in, I wasn't getting out, ever. So I can't quit this team. It's not possible, unless they folded. Im stuck. I can become apathetic, which I have, but I can't put on a Lions hat and pretend I'm a Swift and ASB fan just because Im sick of being a fan of a team thats made me miserable for several decades. I can't create new fandom out of nothing. It has to be born, and raised, or it just doesnt exist. Are you guys natural Nats fans? I'm a Nats fan for a funny reason. I was an Expos fan, so when they moved to DC, it made it easy and legit, it is in my blood because I've been following the Expos since Dawson and Raines were their all stars, and they had Randy Johnson as a prospect they could throw away for a Mark Langston rental. If you guys can explain how you become Nats fans, and how it is as legit in feeling as redskins fandom it would maybe help me divorce this team lol. But in truth, I still think its impossible for me. I will just be an apathetic fan, focused 10,000x more on fantasy football than on the redskins on sundays. Its just how this has played out over the years. Playing in my first league in '98, and becoming even more and more obssessed since (16 teams, 13 dynasty, 2 RSO, 1 Keeper). That's where I transferred my fandom.

You imagine something that generally isn't accurate. I know in my case, I was turned into a redskin fan by my older brother when I was little. It is easy to be a fan of the local team, easy as hell. Far more difficult to be a fan growing up of a team from outside the local area. You get harassed about it ALL SEASON LONG as a kid. Taunted mercilessly at school if your team sucks by EVERYONE. Getting spit on and attacked leaving stadiums, having your car trashed after losing yet another game against the local team in the parking lot etc. Its anything but easy. You imagine its bandwagoners. Its not. Its usually kids who have family from somewhere else, and so are taught by their parents to follow a different team, or simply become a fan because of a particular player, color of uniform etc. I had a friend that chose to be an Eagles fan when they were crap, same with Packers, an Oilers fan because Earl Campbell was cool, a Steelers fan because of the black and Gold unis etc. Are there homers? Sure, yankees fans, red sox fans, dodger fans, cowboys fans, but generally that sort of fandom is more NBA connected than NFL connected. I am not quibbling with your home loyalty, just with your depiction of bandwagon fans. Generally bandwagon fans are most commonly fans of the local team that sit on their hands when the team sucks and put the jersey on when they win, simple as that.

I always find this kind of topic interesting because of where my fandom comes from, and how poisonous it became over time. I'm an inauthentic fan in a way, and it annoys the ---- out of my wife, but was an enjoyable part of my identity as a kid. My family moved to Northern Virginia in 1968, my brother was born while they were there, and then they moved back to the SF Bay Area right before I was born in '74. My brother made me a Redskins fan as a kid. The memory is still quite vivid (got a Cowboy plastic helmet out of a grocery store quarter machine near the door), he crushed it, threw it in the garbage and pointed to the team I should be a fan of. I was around 4 years old, maybe 3, I forget which. It was actually fun and glorious to be a fan as a child, other than when they played the local niners (the first game I saw was the 1981 loss, I think 31-16 or something like that, the redskins lost to the niners every single time they played them during my teens and early twenties other then in 1983 in the NFC title game and in 1986 when I was in 6th grade on MNF). I enjoyed being one of the handful of kids in school that wasn't a Niner or Raider fan, and we built a little club of Redskins fans from scratch, and fans of other teams too (Steelers, Eagles, Jets, Dolphins etc) and it was fun to stand outside of the group think. Then it ended, just in time for my high school diploma (June 1993). It's been different versions of utter ---- ever since. I can't pin down exactly when it was I gave up. I'm not entirely sure. I used to spend sunday's at the local sports bars in the East bay circa 1996-2003, I still watched most games in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, but around 2007 is when I stopped seeking out the games. Didnt have as easy access to tv, and later met my future wife, in '08, and she found the fandom utterly stupid (why not a local team, why stay loyal to a team just because of some choice your brother made for you when you were 4, why be a fan when being a fan sucks ALWAYS etc). I once explained how much torture it was to be a caps fan, and she asked what could justify being a San Jose or Las Vegas fan, or something else, and I said, well, if they moved, and changed their name, I technically wouldn't be a band wagoner if I changed, and she joked about encouraging that to happen. They ended up winning the Stanley Cup a few years after that joke (after numerous more epic chokes). Anyway, I think about a decade ago, it started fraying badly, not watching every game I could, circa 2007 or 2008. When the RGIII thing failed, and how horrendously his knee injury was handled, that killed about 1/2 of it, and then McCloughan being ran out of town, and his reputation being driven over w/a bus did another 25-30% of it, and then I think when they didnt address the QB issue intelligently after the Cousins debacle? That was a wrap for me. I'm still a fan, but I pay no attention beyond confirm the latest loss and catastrophic failure, and then the ensuing pointless wins to ruin any chance at a franchise QB etc. The Snyder ---- the last few years has jammed a couple of more knife strokes into my fandom. It would be fair to say that I don't care about the results much anymore. As long as the attempted builds remain incompetent in approach, I can't take it very seriously, the fact that the FO, and owner have been loathesome pieces of trash until Ron arrived (and that applies to just Ron and some others) has made it nearly impossible to care anymore. I can imagine my fandom coming back, somewhat passively with best practices and good process involved, but I can't imagine that happening w/o Snyder being gone. Regardless, it says something that being a fan of this team is basically a consistently miserable, utterly ---- experience, and has been for decades and decades. And as for my son, I've made a point of insuring he doesn't follow me down this road, no need to make this multi-generational.

That's the problem with keeping guys around when they are on win or your fired contracts. They will sell everything in sight to keep their paycheck and gig another year. Tanking is a win, win, win. *You get a chance at a top pick in a rare draft loaded at the QB position ('23 has 2 top 2-3 guys, and 4 top 10 guys). *You keep your '23 2nd rounder by sitting Wentz, rather than trading it. *You get to roll out Howell so you can figure out if he's worth keeping around as a legit starting QB kind of guy a la Cousins, or merely backup fodder, a la Cary Conklin. You keep rolling out Wentz you cost yourself a second, you hurt your draft slotting in his rare good games, and you learn nothing about Howell.

They are not. Historically when the team has had starts this bad, they've blown it with meaningless wins to play their way out of top draft picks. The most painful versions of this happened in the fall of '98, fall of '09, '10 and '11, and again in the fall of '19 and '20. Some years it mattered less. This draft is top heavy in elite QB prospects like 2012, 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021. Some years it plays out well (2012, 2017, 2020) some years it doesn't or seems not to (2018, 2021). We'll see how this one plays out. For now, it does look like there's a top 2 again, and 4 or so likely to go top 10-12. Before the season started if memory serves, I put our ceiling at around 9-10 wins, our floor at about 4-5, and our expected wins just in line with Vegas at 7 or 7.5. Now looking at the schedule, 5-7 wins seems the most likely. We're going to need to keep that as low as possible and while infuriating is a strong word, winning the season opener was a complete and total disaster since we likely won't win opponent winning percentage tie breakers. Our chief competitors in slotting who seem likely to be interested in QB include Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, NYJ, Carolina, and Detroit (am I forgetting anyone?). I definitely see Seattle, Carolina and Detroit as prioritizing QB, the others are more open to question.... Praying we stall out at 4-13, or 5-12 at best, if we win more than 5, we probably pick up the leftover crumbs. We're benefiting potentially from teams being caught between QB's which should help as well as teams like NYG, catching a run, and likely playing themselves out of options. I don't know what teams like Atlanta, Chicago, NYJ, New Orleans, Indy, Houston, and Tennessee will do. All of them save for New Orleans and Indy have young potential answers in house, do they still want a QB? I think Chicago and NYJ will stand pat, but pending record, I think Atlanta, New Orleans, Indy and Houston might pull the record if they crap out enough. I will note, this was one of many reasons I've wanted us to trade down for future picks the last three drafts and been increasingly frustrated that we haven't. One day we'll be run by forward thinking GM's, but it's probably unlikely to be soon. Btw, if you want to know a sign about the team being run by halfway intelligent people, look for them to unload players at the deadline to improve the tank, and add picks for the loaded '23 class. Needless to say, THEY WON'T, but they sure as hell should, and a smart team WOULD. To be fair to the chuckleheads that have run this team into the ground over the past 30 years or so, almost no NFL teams utilize the trade deadline because this is the ultimate CYA league where coaches and GM's fear losing their gigs if they waive the white flag on seasons, but when you have a loaded QB draft, and your team lacks an answer at QB, you sure as hell should.

Over Under is 7.5, over is now at -150, so either the Over continues to lose value, or it climbs to 8. I've got: Ceiling: 9 Wins Likely: 7 wins Floor: 5 wins My projection is a bit too close to the O/U to want to bet it, I prefer to have at least a 2 win difference in my projection before I lay money down on it. For the record, the only times I can recall the Redskins beating the over in recent years would likely be 2005, 2007, Maybe '09 or '10, '12, '15, and '20. I would imagine they've gone under the win total 14 or 15 of the past 21 seasons. It's a reliable bet most of the time, unless Gibbs was HC, when it was just likely 50/50.

Howell came into the year projected to be a top 5-15 pick, and the #1 or #2 QB in the class. Every single production marker his final year was down. Every single one. Save rushing. Now despite all that, I thought it was largely immaterial. He broke out as an age 19 starter, was awesome from the jump and his only subpar season (for him) was after his starting and sattelite backs and both his starting WR's moved on to the NFL). So not surprising at all that his play fell off. I was hoping we could get him in a trade down in round 2 or early round 3. I was absolutely stunned he dropped as far as he hid. As for Trubisky, I hear that, the problem is, to be a stop gap you have to at least be competent, there's never been any evidence he was adequate at anything other than athleticism. So I didn't see that. Not a fan of Pickett, I had Willis as my #1 for ceiling, Corral and Howell as my 2 (slight preference for Howell until draft capital used), Picket was after Ridder for me and maybe another guy, can't remember, no higher than like 6th for me. Doesnt mean he's done, he could be great. Same for Wentz, I don't think he's this bad (as practice reports) the same way I dont think he's '17 version of self either. I just think he's a league average starter across the breadth of a season, nice tools, but not special. Pickett could get decent, we'll see, but I'm not expecting much.

I think the core problem with Cousins was he was kind of the anti-Jeter of football. He was the ARod, but before Arod finally started hitting in the playoffs again late in his career. Jeter was so good in the post season people finally started studying the clutch ---- in baseball to figure out just how good he was and what they found was that it wasn't that he was a monster in the playoffs, it was that he was utterly and completely unchanged. Turn up the pressure, and he was still, exactly the same, gold glove brain if not gold glove talent in the field, and consistently hit for his regular season average or slightly better typically in the playoffs. He didn't suddenly become King Kong in the playoffs, it was just, unlike 90% of hitters in the playoffs when they run into staff's full of top of the line ace's and elite relievers, instead of the mixed bag of regular season rotations, Jeter actually hit just as well in the playoffs against the elite staffs as he hit against the garbage, the pressure had no effect on him whatsoever. Cousins is/was what those people trying to keep Monk out of the HOF argued he was: a compiler. Cousins piles up raw stats, but he does the piling mostly in empty calorie games against crap sides, and the every once in a while low pressure game against elite sides (not in prime time). Turn up the pressure, and like most hitters in the playoffs, he suddenly can't get a "feel" for anything, and his game falls apart (which makes it interesting that he's now 5-4 the last couple of seasons in prime time after seemingly being like 2-20 as a redskin in prime time (hyperbole I know, but probably not that far off either). Cousins is just one of those guys that produces #'s like you said, right around 9th-12th best in the league year after year after year, and before you know it, you see his yardage, TD-Int ratio, and you're utterly confounded that this guy that has HOF #'s, is like 0-6 in the playoffs, and like 4-30 in big games. For whatever reason, he can produce huge #'s generally, but when it counts historically, he definitely does not hit for his normal average when the pressure is applied, historically, he suddenly can't get anything quite right, especially if you add in the highest of high pressure moments, like 2 minute drills where he was a notorious turnover machine for us (which is where craziness like "You Like That!" come from). Wentz has got to produce another 4 or 5 seasons of empty calorie, huge # seasons to approach Cousins jock, but in fairness to the guy, he has more physical talent than Cousins, he's just not the same caliber of QB, and seems to have the same issues with pressure as well.

Definitely a case of wondering why he was a hot property supposedly in the offseason. Guy flopped, horrendously in Chicago, made the one famous throw and was otherwise horrific. Is athletic, but beyond that, what exactly? Raw tools? I wouldn't argue. He just has never put it together, and when that's true after five seasons, that's a wrap for all intents and purposes about 98% of the time (guys like Rich Gannon, and Jim Plunkett did exist, in a way, Steve Young was vaguely similar). I'm not really surprised at whats going on with him, if Pickett looks bad as someone mentioned, that doesn't surprise me either, he had one outlier seasons, and several anonymous ones, Burrow did that too, so there are exceptions like that, but I definitely trust a Howell, who had nothing but great seasons until he lost all his weapons, and then had his one bad season, I remain baffled why that profile was somehow not worth a top 100 pick, but Picketts was worth a top 30 pick. It makes ZERO sense to me. Anyway, Wentz not being great is not surprising, like others, I am hoping he gets benched before he costs us a top 40-50 pick. My hopes are on Howell or a reboot next spring. I will note, I find it odd how his accuracy problems have gotten worse w/time rather than better? is it constant changes at OC, QB coach, and surrounding teammates? Or is it the man himself It's hard not to give him that one life vest: guy has had constant turnover pretty much everywhere since what 2018? or 2019? Still, not a believer, at all, and would've preferred us getting our QB when we should have, in '20 or '21, hopefully Howell becomes the QB many thought he might become a year ago at this time.

The easiest way to look at it is to consider trend lines with the handful of hits, and he fits in with them. Good early breakout, good #'s, good production when things were right, the horrible season is totally explicable. Will he hit? Probably not, but with Howell, the talent generally had a 1st to 2nd round grade before the disaster last year. He's not a normal "Chris Hakel/Gibran Hamdan" day 3 flyer that you know will suck from the jump. He's the day 2/day 3 guy that eight times out of ten is Conner Cook or Jimmy Clausen but is occasionally a Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott, or theoretically <cough> Davis Mills. Additionally you could look at it from the hit rate percentage (which I'm absolutely sympathetic too, especially if it was some whatever prospect like a Hakel, like a Hamdam), or you could look at it from the "we have no chance in hell till we have a QB perspective" which is actually true and has been for decades. Maybe Wentz is, but I don't think the Eagles let him go for the roll of the dice that Hurts can learn to throw, let alone throw at the NFL level, or that the Colts let him go when they have no other options worth a damn on the roster if they think he has it.

Both arguments can be true. My issue with what they did is more about underrating Burks, and Moore, and not prioritizing Williams more. I like Dotson fine, really like the comps I hear (Lockett as what he probably is if he hits, Hilton as a ceiling, and then the bust risk), but I do think that two things are true, hell maybe three: 1.) He was a reach at #16 2.) Like most teams, he was in a tier we had before a fall off, many teams feared Burks was an N'Keal Harry clone (lazy to me, but I get it), some may be worried about Skyy Moore's competition, so if we really didn't like Burks or Moore as 1st round caliber talent, or fits (I could see the fit issue with Burks, he's too similar to other guys we already have in my view, not so much see the issue with Moore since he does the same things to me that Dotson does, but better), then wanting to just not risk a second tier drop after we lost out on Hamilton, Olave and J. Williams. 3.) No matter how we may feel one way or the other, it does at least seem like, for now, Dotson is probably gonna look like a hit after a year or two, not at the McLaurin level, probably more production wise like a Tyler Lockett or a Darrell Jackson type lol, why two seahawks I don't know, but for me anyway, I see the teams reasoning fine, and I also see the critics reasoning. I think there's a reasonable side for both. Now we just see how it plays out. My guess is that Dotson turns into one of those guys that gives you 64-75-900 to 1100 and like 6 TD's type guy, just projecting out with counting stats, I think he becomes that sorta thing. Could also be a bust. We'll see. But I like him well enough, and I've definitely been a big fan of the weird athlete factory Penn State products have been at WR and TE and RB in recent years. Lots of hits. Saquon Barkley Miles Sanders Chris Godwin KJ Hamler DaeSean Hamilton J. Dotson Pat Friermuth Mike Gesicki Some interesting guys produced in the '17-'21 era. Hamilton didn't hit, but supposedly he behaved like an idiot, I think with Denver, and eventually they replaced him and moved on, But Godwin, Hamler, Dotson, and Gesicki were all plenty fast, same with Barkley and Sanders, Dotson's size adjusted 40 is kind of crappy (you get punished for being small and thin and not breaking the 4.40 barrier basically), but it is interesting, they've done a good job of developing guys that are at least athletic enough for the next level, Dotson looks no different in that sense though his agility seems a bit sketchy at best. We'll see, it is interesting, explosion and 40 scores put him basically as a mediocre athlete. The good news is that while those scores seem to correlate a great deal to future success for RB's and TE's, it's virtually irrelevant with receivers, with breakout age, draft capital and market share #'s mattering more. Anyway, I think he'll be fine, a good solid WR for us, but not a difference maker in the McLaurin sense and that's fine. I liked him a lot, but for me I had him behind 6 other guys. 1.Wilson 2.London 3.J. Williams 4.T. Burks 5. Skyy Moore 6a 6b Pick between Olave and Dotson, I prefer Dotson a smidge, mostly because he could be had cheaper, I think we would have gotten him no matter what so long as we kept in front of a couple of teams that picked before around 22, whereas I think Olave was always going somewhere in the top 15 or so, so Dotson was more attractive to me, especially consider we could get him and some extra picks, or just Olave alone.