The Official Roster Thread or similar ;)

[Skinsinparadise]

Harkening back to the Tampa-Washington game from years back which I was at.  It was an odd game.  I recall it set a record statistically for a game being so lopsided in one team's favor yet that team lost.  Fitz put up over 400 yards.  But threw a couple of picks.  If I recall Tampa fumbled the ball twice around the red zone.  Their field goal kicker missed two easy kicks.  Our offense looked "meh".  But the defense was really opportunistic.  Ryan Anderson had arguably a "meh" run as a player here but maybe his best moment was in that game when he punched a ball out of a receivers grip when he was running full speed heading into the red zone. 

 

Three things that strike me relevant from that game to the present.

 

A.  Fitz can move some.  I saw him play live since that game too and he could still do it.  It's shocking to see an old dude like him move around and escape defenders.  He's not Russell Wilson by a long shot.  But he has sneaky running ability that pops up in opportune times. 

 

B.  Humphries is a good receiver.

 

C.  No big revelation but Danny Johnson is not a hot answer at backup CB.   If I recall it was J. Rodgers who gave Johnson fits.   If I recall Humphries might have on one play.  I had good seats just about 10 rows above the WFT sideline.  And I recall Tampa picking on Johnson in the slot again and again and again and then finally a defensive coach pulled him out.  I recall Jay looking mad at Johnson.

 

Back to Humphries.  He might be the dude that the beat guys have been the most consistent on as for saying he looked sharp in camp.  Fitz being a QB who throws to spots and expects his receivers to be there -- I think likely will again have Humphries as a good crutch on that front. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2021 by Skinsinparadise

[Silvernon]

6 minutes ago, skinsfan93 said:

I agree with this. I don’t think Jimmy is a lock. I think part of the reason for signing McCain is his ability to play corner. That would put him as the fifth corner and allow us to keep 5 safeties. 

Think there will be 5 corners and 5 safeties.

 

1 minute ago, Koolblue13 said:

We also have no starting FS and he is an excellent FS. You don't think we'd play our newly signed FS at FS and instead play him at CB5?

Think the point was that position flex makes McCain the FS1 and CB5. 

 

Enough injuries, and it may be better to get the FS2 in there. 

[Anselmheifer]

45 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

This defense is loaded.  They're going to be elite, and probably still would be without any rookie contributions.  What I wish we had done is build the offense more.  This was a special offensive class and a weaker defensive class.  Not sure about Bates since he didn't do a lot of pass catching in college, and Cosmi and Dyami Brown are a decent start at rebuilding a god awful offense.  But we needed to do more, and if anything is going to hold us back this season, it's the offense.  At least we got Samuel.  Signing Leno only to cut Moses was a lateral move, but getting Samuel was big.

I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with our draft. And I think we upgraded the offense a lot. We look pretty deep and talented at WR. We look good at interior OL. I’m assuming you would have taken Najee? Where else would you have chosen differently? As good as St Juste has looked, I wouldn’t swap him out for Tommy Tremble or a 3rd round WR. If I swapped one defensive player out, I may have taken Darrisaw  instead of Jamin Davis. If we were going to cut Moses, Adding Darrisaw and Cosmi both would have given us a top rate OL into the foreseeable future. 
 

Regarding camp/OTA’s, I know McCain had a couple picks. Were there reports about whether he was lining up more at CB or FS? I’d assume we would have him do both. But I doubt the Go thinks as much of him as we do. He got a teeeeny tiny one year contract. 

[Koolblue13]

4 minutes ago, Silvernon said:

Think there will be 5 corners and 5 safeties.

 

Think the point was that position flex makes McCain the FS1 and CB5. 

 

Enough injuries, and it may be better to get the FS2 in there. 

I think you might be undervaluing the FS position.

 

Curl, Collins, Forrest, McCain are locks to the roster at Safety. That leaves Everett (decent SS, bad FS and ST captain) and Reaves (Not a great FS, not a SS or CB, meh on teams. Slow) Apke isn't making it at FS.

 

WJIII, Fuller, Juste are the only locks at CB. Moreland, Roberts, Apke, Roberts, Stroman all trying to get in.

[LetMeSeeYourWarFace21]

 

[Silvernon]

9 minutes ago, LetMeSeeYourWarFace21 said:

 

She's so good. Breath of fresh air. 

[LetMeSeeYourWarFace21]

14 minutes ago, Silvernon said:

She's so good. Breath of fresh air. 

 

 

Totally agree.....not bad on the eyes either....

Edited June 17, 2021 by LetMeSeeYourWarFace21

[terpfan]

8 hours ago, Silvernon said:

Moreland has 2 years on his deal, and that can be a positive, but let's not forget he got beat like a drum. Tom Brady's plan was Darby + Moreland + Bostic.  

 

They signed a top corner and drafted a starting CB. Added to the Roberts signing and that's a 60% turnover in one year. Fuller + 60% new faces + a young development corner.  

 

They're cleaning house. 

 

They'll draft a corner next year too. 

If he gets beat out by better players that’s fine. I’m just saying his contract works in his favor at this point, not against him. And I’m not convinced there are more than 3 corners on the roster better than Moreland. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

6 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

PFF loves to tout their yards per route stat.  I've talked about it plenty on the draft thread.  I'd be lying if I said I understood the stat but its one of their metrics as for judging productivity.

 

 

 

 

I'd guess it's just removing snaps from the WR that are run plays.  Shows how involved the WR as an earlier read in the passing game.  Instead of running clearing routes for other guys, are the plays more scripted for you?  That's my take on it.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

6 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

This defense is loaded.  They're going to be elite, and probably still would be without any rookie contributions.

 

Just saying, it's really hard to have repeat elite defensive years.  It's easy to regress back to just above average (top 10ish).  Some exceptions I've seen is if the defense winds up having some real HoF talent.  I would guess we've only got 1 player on our defense that can do that.  Chase Young.  Lots of pretty good players, but not elite by any means.

 

William Jackson, Fuller, Payne, Allen, Sweat, Curl are all better than average.  But not gamechangers.  Maybe Young is that.  Maybe Juice and Jamin Davis are, but a still good outcome for us is if they're simply above average as well.

 

The previous 2020 defense had some serious holes.  Some teams could not exploit it, so we feasted.  Some teams could make our defense look silly.  Rams (when it wasn't the monsoon), and the Bucs come to mind.  But if we ran that same roster back (with Darby), and didn't upgrade our LB group, I feel confident the defense would have regressed to above avearge from elite. 

[Skinsinparadise]

16 minutes ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

I'd guess it's just removing snaps from the WR that are run plays.  Shows how involved the WR as an earlier read in the passing game.  Instead of running clearing routes for other guys, are the plays more scripted for you?  That's my take on it.

 

something like that

 

 

https://www.pff.com/news/fantasy-football-metrics-that-matter-yards-per-route-run

 

The Pro Football Focus “Yards per Route Run” figure takes into account the number of snaps a player went into a pass pattern, which provides a better indicator of production than yards per reception or even yards per target.

 

Across the PFF-era (2007-2017), there have been 565 instances of a wide receiver drawing at least 50 targets in back-to-back seasons. Using this as our sample, yards per route run had a 0.43 correlation to receiving fantasy points scored in the following season. Raw targets fared only slightly better (0.46) and yards per target fared much worse (0.18).

 

Yards per route run is one of my favorite metrics, and it’s why you might have noticed I’ll frequently reference it when attempting to identify breakout candidates at the wide receiver position. It’s also why you’ll rarely see me reference yards per target, or why I’m apt to chastise fantasy analysts who put too much stock into it.

 

As outlined in the article linked to in the opening sentence, the correlations are even stronger at the extremes. I wrote, “on average, wide receivers who ranked top-20 in yards per route run in one season scored 154 percent more fantasy points than bottom-20 wide receivers in the following season.”

With this in mind, let’s look at the top-10 wide receivers (min. 50 targets) by yards per route run last season.

Perhaps again speaking to YPRR’s value as a metric, you’ll notice the top-10 list is littered with some of the consistently best wide receiver in the league (and there were relatively few surprises).

[HTTRDynasty]

 

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2021-quarterback-rankings-analytical

[wit33]

1 hour ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

Just saying, it's really hard to have repeat elite defensive years.  It's easy to regress back to just above average (top 10ish).  Some exceptions I've seen is if the defense winds up having some real HoF talent.  I would guess we've only got 1 player on our defense that can do that.  Chase Young.  Lots of pretty good players, but not elite by any means.

 

I don’t totally disagree it being difficult to repeat as elite statistically, especially if you treat each season as it’s own entity and realize being elite is difficult to do. Being elite is subjective and messy to identify at times, especially on defense. 

 

Stats are incredibly fickle in the NFL. Strength of schedule, injuries, match ups, and timing of when you play an opponent. 
 

1 hour ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

William Jackson, Fuller, Payne, Allen, Sweat, Curl are all better than average.  But not gamechangers.  Maybe Young is that.  Maybe Juice and Jamin Davis are, but a still good outcome for us is if they're simply above average as well.

 

How do you define game changer? Is a pro bowler a game changer? The defense is full of pro bowl talent, IMO. 
 

1 hour ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

The previous 2020 defense had some serious holes.  Some teams could not exploit it, so we feasted.  Some teams could make our defense look silly.  Rams (when it wasn't the monsoon), and the Bucs come to mind.  But if we ran that same roster back (with Darby), and didn't upgrade our LB group, I feel confident the defense would have regressed to above avearge from elite. 

Defense wasn’t elite last season. The run defense was too inconsistent and lacked coverage in the middle of the field. 

 

Not all about stats, Washington had a favorable schedule with many average to below average QBs in the schedule. I would expect a decline statistically against the pass this season, due to the level of QBs the defense face this upcoming season. This will not mean a regression has taken place, they may even improve due to being challenged by great to elite QBs, but statistically decline. 

[Going Commando]

7 hours ago, Anselmheifer said:

I don’t know. I’m pretty happy with our draft. And I think we upgraded the offense a lot. We look pretty deep and talented at WR. We look good at interior OL. I’m assuming you would have taken Najee? Where else would you have chosen differently? As good as St Juste has looked, I wouldn’t swap him out for Tommy Tremble or a 3rd round WR. If I swapped one defensive player out, I may have taken Darrisaw  instead of Jamin Davis. If we were going to cut Moses, Adding Darrisaw and Cosmi both would have given us a top rate OL into the foreseeable future. 
 

Regarding camp/OTA’s, I know McCain had a couple picks. Were there reports about whether he was lining up more at CB or FS? I’d assume we would have him do both. But I doubt the Go thinks as much of him as we do. He got a teeeeny tiny one year contract. 

 

This was my post where I made a record of who I would have picked on draft day--in the immediate aftermath of the draft--with no benefit of hindsight (I wish more people had done this, by the way):

 

On draft day I didn't know about Owusu-Koromoah's heart condition.  If I had, I think I would have put either Najee or Etienne instead, who I already had as BPA over Owusu-Koromoah anyway.

 

That would have yielded an offensive draft class of:

 

Najee

Cosmi

Davis

Tremble

Wallace

Smith

Johnson

 

That's a massive foundation for an offense in one draft, made possible by the unusual depth of offensive talent in the class.  I agree that we almost did everything we could to realistically improve our QB situation.  The only difference I might have done--with the benefit of hindsight--is moved up into that late second/early third round range to get into the middle of the QB run on Trask/Mills/Mond and get one of them to groom as the third stringer this year.  And I agree that we did a pretty decent job of turning around the WR position with the Samuel, Humphries, and Brown acquisitions.

 

But I definitely don't agree that we did all we could to build the offense.  Give me Samuel, Fitzy, and Humphries still, plus the class I drew up, which takes no trades.  Swapping Brown/Bates for Tremble/Wallace could be a push, and perhaps there isn't a huge differencein quality there.  St Juste is a major surprise though.  I could definitely see him ending up better than Wyatt Davis.  But I can't see Davis ending up being better than Najee unless Najee gets hurt.  Cheeseman over Smith was indefensible IMO, even if Smith completely busts, the upside of picking a longsnapper over a collegiate stud like Smith is so inferior as to make the risk/reward calculation drastically in favor of Smith.  And I'm only talking about the draft, not considering different vet offensive players we could have signed/traded for.

 

I think the benefits would have started to show next season too.  We wouldn't necessarily get sucked into the pass-happy offense that we're probably going to have to run this season, with either a 50/50 QB or a guy with two career starts.  But we also wouldn't be limited because we'd have passing game weapons too. 

 

It's early and they could end up being studs, but I'd trade St Juste and Davis for a high powered offense given how good the defense already is.  Right now I see the absolute ceiling of the offense being like 18th or so in DVOA plus requiring significant building next offseason because there isn't enough ascending talent already in the fold to break through that ceiling.  But with a full offensive class, I think we can devote our resources to finding a QB and filling in the holes next offseason.  Now we still have to do that next offseason, but we're not going to have an offense full of weapons and a loaded OL pipeline to grow up with him.

[SmallDaddy]

Along the hypothetical draft scenario discussion, I wonder what our draft would have looked like if we had lost that last game to the Eagles. I assume we would have ended up with Justin Fields. 

[mojo]

3 hours ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

Just saying, it's really hard to have repeat elite defensive years.  It's easy to regress back to just above average (top 10ish).  Some exceptions I've seen is if the defense winds up having some real HoF talent.  I would guess we've only got 1 player on our defense that can do that.  Chase Young.  Lots of pretty good players, but not elite by any means.

 

William Jackson, Fuller, Payne, Allen, Sweat, Curl are all better than average.  But not gamechangers.  Maybe Young is that.  Maybe Juice and Jamin Davis are, but a still good outcome for us is if they're simply above average as well.

 

The previous 2020 defense had some serious holes.  Some teams could not exploit it, so we feasted.  Some teams could make our defense look silly.  Rams (when it wasn't the monsoon), and the Bucs come to mind.  But if we ran that same roster back (with Darby), and didn't upgrade our LB group, I feel confident the defense would have regressed to above avearge from elite. 

The defense is getting tons of hype and while I love their potential, they’re gonna have to prove it on the field.

People forget the fact that we feasted on back up QB’s and battered offensive lines when we went on our late season run.  When we faced an elite offense in Tampa, we all saw what happened.

[wit33]

13 hours ago, mojo said:

The defense is getting tons of hype and while I love their potential, they’re gonna have to prove it on the field.

People forget the fact that we feasted on back up QB’s and battered offensive lines when we went on our late season run.  When we faced an elite offense in Tampa, we all saw what happened.

Over valuing individual games is dangerous. Some times it’s a bad match up or a few bad plays that lead to a bad game defensively. Especially in todays NFL that provide many advantages to the offense. The one pattern that screamed out for last years defense was inconsistent run defense. 
 

The Rams the number 1 defense in 2020 got 32 points hung on them by Rodgers and were run on for over a 180 yards. 
 

The Steelers the number 3 defense got 48 points put on them by the Browns. Big bens 4ints didn’t help, but Baker and the run game didn’t experience much resistance on that day. 
 

It’s tough in today’s NFL, an elite defense isn’t going to be elite every game. 

Edited June 18, 2021 by wit33

[skinsfan93]

10 hours ago, Koolblue13 said:

We also have no starting FS and he is an excellent FS. You don't think we'd play our newly signed FS at FS and instead play him at CB5?

I’m not saying McCain will strictly be a corner but used as one in case of injuries. Reports have said the 2 safety positions are interchangeable so I see Curl as our FS and if fully healthy Landon at strong. I think Reeves, Deshazor/Forrest (maybe PS) along with McCain makes the roster. That would be 5 safeties and we can go with 4 corners. 
 

Also Curl played some corner last year but I think McCain is better suited for it. He played a lot of corner in Miami. 

[skinsfan93]

10 hours ago, Silvernon said:

Think there will be 5 corners and 5 safeties.

 

Think the point was that position flex makes McCain the FS1 and CB5. 

 

Enough injuries, and it may be better to get the FS2 in there. 

Glad someone understood what I was saying! The other guy obviously didn’t. 💩
 

Anyway I’m really curious how many corners make the team. We will carry a 3rd QB and possibly a 4th running back due to some uncertainty about Gibson’s toe. Usually only 4 safeties make the team so Apke is definitely out and depends on how the rook Forrest does in camp. I think the team likes Reeves and Deshazor plays special teams and been around a while. With the team probably easing Landon in we will probably carry 5 safeties. If so tough to carry 5 corners. 

[Darth Tater]

4 hours ago, wit33 said:

 

I don’t totally disagree it being difficult to repeat as elite statistically, especially if you treat each season as it’s own entity and realize being elite is difficult to do. Being elite is subjective and messy to identify at times, especially on defense. 

 

Stats are incredibly fickle in the NFL. Strength of schedule, injuries, match ups, and timing of when you play an opponent.

Also, an offense/teams can give up cheap scores or put defenses in bad situations or not do that. Help minimize how much work the defense has to do (even a great defense gives up the big play if the other team's offense has too many chances. A good dc will also be able to take advantage of how his offense may limit the other team's playbook.

[mudhog]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

This was my post where I made a record of who I would have picked on draft day--in the immediate aftermath of the draft--with no benefit of hindsight (I wish more people had done this, by the way):

 

On draft day I didn't know about Owusu-Koromoah's heart condition.  If I had, I think I would have put either Najee or Etienne instead, who I already had as BPA over Owusu-Koromoah anyway.

 

That would have yielded an offensive draft class of:

 

Najee

Cosmi

Davis

Tremble

Wallace

Smith

Johnson

 

That's a massive foundation for an offense in one draft, made possible by the unusual depth of offensive talent in the class.  I agree that we almost did everything we could to realistically improve our QB situation.  The only difference I might have done--with the benefit of hindsight--is moved up into that late second/early third round range to get into the middle of the QB run on Trask/Mills/Mond and get one of them to groom as the third stringer this year.  And I agree that we did a pretty decent job of turning around the WR position with the Samuel, Humphries, and Brown acquisitions.

 

But I definitely don't agree that we did all we could to build the offense.  Give me Samuel, Fitzy, and Humphries still, plus the class I drew up, which takes no trades.  Swapping Brown/Bates for Tremble/Wallace could be a push, and perhaps there isn't a huge differencein quality there.  St Juste is a major surprise though.  I could definitely see him ending up better than Wyatt Davis.  But I can't see Davis ending up being better than Najee unless Najee gets hurt.  Cheeseman over Smith was indefensible IMO, even if Smith completely busts, the upside of picking a longsnapper over a collegiate stud like Smith is so inferior as to make the risk/reward calculation drastically in favor of Smith.  And I'm only talking about the draft, not considering different vet offensive players we could have signed/traded for.

 

I think the benefits would have started to show next season too.  We wouldn't necessarily get sucked into the pass-happy offense that we're probably going to have to run this season, with either a 50/50 QB or a guy with two career starts.  But we also wouldn't be limited because we'd have passing game weapons too. 

 

It's early and they could end up being studs, but I'd trade St Juste and Davis for a high powered offense given how good the defense already is.  Right now I see the absolute ceiling of the offense being like 18th or so in DVOA plus requiring significant building next offseason because there isn't enough ascending talent already in the fold to break through that ceiling.  But with a full offensive class, I think we can devote our resources to finding a QB and filling in the holes next offseason.  Now we still have to do that next offseason, but we're not going to have an offense full of weapons and a loaded OL pipeline to grow up with him.

I loved your draft day grade bump Steve. Just read that first page, but it will be fun to dog some folks after we end up with 4 starters and all that quality depth. The only one I might question making the final 53 would be Milne, and that's not because of a lack of talent, but just because of a numbers game. 

For day 1 starters I have;   1. Davis at LB(don't know which spot)

                                            2. Cosmi at RT/LT
                                            3. Juste at CB2
                                          *4. Brown at Z WR(I don't know how xyz works, but TMC #1, Samuel iWR, and Brown WR2) I put the asterisk there because I don't know what defines a starter. Is it a day 1 thing, or any game of the 17? Is it because you earned it, or because of injury or because you suck less than the last guy?
                                            5. Cheeseman at LS(I guess a role player is still a starter in this case)

Quality depth guys;   1. Patterson at RB will see the field more than Barber and McKissic. 

                                    2. Toney at DE/OLB 
                                    3. Bradley-King DE/EDGE
                                    4. Bates at TE2

All in all, that is a stellar draft. I put Brown in as a day-1 starter because I don't know how the line-up goes, but everyone is talking about Samuel as an outside receiver, when we all know he does his best work from the slot. Therefore, Brown should have the edge over him and Humphries as the Z receiver.
                                            

 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

4 hours ago, wit33 said:

 

How do you define game changer? Is a pro bowler a game changer? The defense is full of pro bowl talent, IMO. 

Poor choice of words on my part.  Ignore that.

 

4 hours ago, wit33 said:

Defense wasn’t elite last season. The run defense was too inconsistent and lacked coverage in the middle of the field. 

 

 

There were some matchups where we dominated, but those were more schematic.  If we played against quality OC's, they exposed us weaknesses with ease.  If quality OC's can watch gametape and know if we do X or Y pre-snap and then A or B post-snap, their LB's will be a mess.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

5 hours ago, HTTRDynasty said:

(Bayesian thingamajigger)

 

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2021-quarterback-rankings-analytical

 

What is this telling me exactly? lol...it's too late to do any real reading.

[terpfan]

1 hour ago, mudhog said:

Patterson at RB will see the field more than Barber and McKissic.

I like Patterson too, but how do I take the other side of this bet? He’s more likely to be cut than be our #2 RB. 

[Gurgeh]

10 hours ago, mojo said:

The defense is getting tons of hype and while I love their potential, they’re gonna have to prove it on the field.

People forget the fact that we feasted on back up QB’s and battered offensive lines when we went on our late season run.  When we faced an elite offense in Tampa, we all saw what happened.

 

Brady has a particularly good record against Jack del Rio:

"Del Rio's teams have gone 1-9 against Brady. In those 10 games, Brady has thrown 25 touchdowns against just one interception"

https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/football-team/tom-brady-has-found-remarkable-success-against-jack-del-rios-defenses