Do we, as Fans need to admit we have a problem?

[Veretax]

Kevin Sheehan pointed out this week that we are a fanbase with severe trauma response when things don't make sense to us.  A lot of people are completey disheveled over the Quinn hire, and I laugh at this, because who among any of the Head coaches that were hired, were actually turning THIS debacle of a roster around in one season? I think Adam Peters is the right person for this rebuild, we needed him, like bread needs a little love to dress it up before being munched on. I think we as fans, all need to look in the mirror.  We didn't make our franchise this way, we are not responsible for its current condition. 

But we are responsible. We are responsible for how we allow ourselves to react, and how we allow the current state of the team to impact us mentally and emotionally.  I am as guilty as any of us, frankly, and I had to step away because I literally could not support cognitive dissonance on trying to support this squad while Snyder was still here any longer.  I watched from a far and said little, I feel a bit more whole today, because whether Harris will be a great owner or not, at least we have hope of having people who know football making decisions.

So while we remember that, let's consider this HC hire.  Were we really thinking we were going to land a HC, a top QB, and then its on like donkey kong?  Now I won't be surprised if we manage to win the East this year, as insane as that sounds coming out of my mouth, ALl three of our rivals are having internal strife and discord, maybe they fix it before we see them in FedEx, but a few things fixed, and this team is in the hunt for sure.  But let's be real, are we going to be perenial contenders, just plugging a couple of holes and moving forward?

No way.  

I wrote a lengthy comment on a YT channel earlier, and I had to admit, it may be even worse than we think it is.   

This team was historically, historically bad.  Make sure you get this.  They weren't just Historically bad the last few years, but they were so historically bad, that they set negative records for the Franchise predating Joe Gibbs 1 I believe.   How bad?

The 2023 Commanders have allowed the most points in a season in franchise history, with 480 points. 
https://commanderswire.usatoday.com/2024/01/03/washington-commanders-have-allowed-the-most-points-in-franchise-history-in-2023-nfl-season/#:~:text=After the Commanders allowed 27,when Washington allowed 478 points.

Sam Howell was sacked 65 times!  That's 16 more than Trent Green and Norm Sneed in 98/61!
Brian Robinson, our lead RB, had 15 Games he started, he had 178 attempts, and only 733 yards, with 5 Touchdowns.  For the lead back, that's the wost performance since:
1980 (but between Wilbur Jackson, and Clarence Harmon, we had 1100 yds) Going back this would compare to the 1976 Riuggins Season, when he had only 572 Yards but (14 games, I'd say its worse.)
1972, The lead back had 567 yards in 14 carries also.
That's How TERRIBLE our run game was.  Now as many will point out how many attempts did we have?

https://www.espn.com/nfl/team/stats/_/name/wsh/washington-commanders 
ESPN has us listed with team rushing total of 1,592 yards, but it includes a 2 yard run from Logan THomas, a Tress Way 'run' that went nowhere. A dyanmi brown one.  Sam howell had 263 yards rushing, 2 short of Antonio Gibson!, Rodriguez had 247, and no combination of any of the top 4 rushers is close to 1K.  Statistically BAD

The team had 39 Sacks

We needed a 17th game to Get Terry Mac to 1K yards receiving!  And the shocker to me is that puts him at 18th among WRs with 14 or more games started.   He was only targeted 132, times, that's more than Pierre Garcon in 2016 and COoley in 2008.

He had only 4 TDs this year.  which somehow, still qualifies him as 27th among Wide Receivers with 14 or more games started.

The next wr ws Samuel: with 613 yards and 4 TDs
Logan thomas? 496 yds and 4 TDs.
Jahan Dotson? 518 yds and 4 TDs

To say we were impotent on offense for much of the year would be underselling it especially in the Passing Game.

So what about that Defense?

We were DEAD last in total team defense giving up an obscene 6,612 yards to or opponents. and what's telling is only 3 other teams had to play more offensive plays on Defense:
We were also next to dead last in yards per play (5.9, to cincy's 6.0, denvers, 5.8, and Zona's 5.7, even the Hapless Giants were better than us with 5.6 yards per play.
Seattle with 1147, and Indy with 1137 (we were 1117)

We were the Tenth worse in takeways with a yawning, 18, tied with Phily, Green Bay, and New England  (Zona, KC, Atlanta, LA Rams, Titans, and Panthers all had fewer, the panthers only had 11. just wow) The point is, hardly one turnover a game.

We were 13th in Fumbles lost with 10.  
We were third in 1st Downs allowed and could not get off the field with 364 Only ahed of Arizona and Seattle, (369/380)
We were 7th in Completions allowed with 396 with only Jax, Tampa, Chicago, 49ers, Eagles, and Vikings allowing more. I was a bit surprised Eagles, and 49ers were higher than us on this one)
We were dead last in Passing yards allowed with 4457, nearly a 150 above the Eagles !.  
We were dead last in passing TDs allowed with 39 (4 more than Philly!)


Surprisingly we only threw 8 Interceptions.  That's actually 27th in INTs thrown.  Hard to know if that's a deceptive stats given the number of Sacks Sam and Jacoby Suffered combined.  (unles I'm miss reading this Interception's thrown stat, and its the oppositions passes being intercepted in which case that puts us at 6th?.)
We were 2nd worst in 7.0 Yards per pass completed allowed.

And I had thought our Rushing D was actually decent, I was wrong, we were 6th worse giving up 2155 yards. (only the packers (2181), Giants (2251), Broncos (2331), Seahawks (2352), Cards (2434) had more.
We were 11th worse in Rushing TDs given up with 11.

pro football reference's advanced team defense has us as 7th worst in Total Air Yards per completion with 2424, 2197 YAC allowed (8th worst), and we were 6th wors in hurries with 34, 1 better than Dallas astonishingly.  7th worst in Team sacks with 39.  

I could go on and on on the stats:

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/opp.htm#all_team_stats

We have a ton, a ton of players who expired contracts, that's why we have so much Cap Space, let's not pretend we have cap space because the roster was managed well.


And as for talent, at last check, we do not have a SINGLE pro bowl player on this roster this year, not even an alternate (someone please correct me if I missed someone).

SO when I say historically, historically bad, I mean we were so bad, we reset historically bad as an expectation.  We were THAT bad.

AS for the coaching hire, I feel people are putting too much stock into what National Personalities said about who we were going to hire and why, and being extreme fans we all went and drank it whole straight from the hose saying 'let's go'.  Well folks, This isn't the Synder/Ceratto, or even Snyder/Allen group.  They aren't leaking like a screen door on a submarine to the press, so when people aren't talking, the press will talk to people with third or fourth hand knowledge, and spin speculation.  Local reporters had much more info than national folks for the most part only near the end when shefter started saying, don't presume that the projected stops in the HC carousel end up this way, one or both seattle and washington may turn out different.  (this is why you heard talk about Bellichick for example)

Now we have seen a lot of teams go from worst to playoffs, we may even make the playoffs next year, you just don't know, but when you look at our team, Washington fans needed a reality check.  Even with new ownership, a house cleaning, the #2 pick in the draft and wads of Cap Space, we were not the best opening in the League, nor where we the second.  It might be debatable if we were the third or fourth, frankly, we need to stop letting our overinflated opinions of this franchise dilute ourselves into thinking we are more than we are. We have to earn respect back, it may take time.

The best openings this year were in: San Diego, Seattle, Atlanta.... It's hard to rank Las Vegas, Tennessee, and New England since they went internal with their respective hires.  The Panthers were clearly the worse position.  


So as much as people may not like the Dan Quinn hire because - its a microwave league - we want those instant results, I feel its going to take time to fix everything.   Will we resign Curl and Fuller? If not there are two holes we know we need to fill somewhere  There aren't a lot of quality safeties in Free agency the last time I checked.  Corner might be more possible.

We all know how bad our Linebacking core has been.  Davis has 1 year left on his deal.  We may need a DT and at least one Edge Rusher (DE probably) because we traded Sweat/Young away. (I think there are some solid FAs that can be stop gaps or end their career here. 

I'll let someone else look at Offense and make suggestions on what we might be able to look forward to, I think we are scraping the barrel at RB after Robinson, and Tight Ends are hidden, but I don't see retaining Gibson, but I don't know who we replace him with either.

This is going to be a hard slow rebuild unless we really nail FA and draft, and while Peters is supposed to be ELITE as a talent evaluator, he can only pick from the talent that is available this year.  So, in conclusion, friends, I think we need to be patient, we need to recalibrate and get ready for a possibly slow ride, cheer this team on as we begin to fix things schematically and with fresh blood, but we need to give this team time to figure it out, we may literally be starting completely new for many of our vets even with new coaches.   I just wanted to take a moment to say what I've been thinking.  Am I elated by the Quinn hire?  No, but I remain unconvinced that there was a single person available that would have brought enough to justify the kind of expectations some people thought we would have with say Ben Johnson.  Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but we always tend to over value our guys, and I think we need to keep in mind, that we had inept personnel management, and likely, inept coaching for 3-4 years.  We don't really know what we have in any of these guys.  (maybe with Terry/Tress Way we do, Payne/Allen) other than that, It could be a lot of growing pains, and does it make sense to draft a top QB this year knowing this? if we do we may need to sit them and many will not like that, but it may take 6 weeks for a new OL to gel well.)

I'm optimistic that we are getting up off the mat, but we may have a bit of a climb ahead of us, because we were unfortunately, historically, just THAT bad.

I thank you for your time.  I would love to hear What positions people think we might be able to make appreciable changes to make us at least a bit more competitive next year, but I'm not even sure where we start when I look at this roster.


 












 

Edited February 3 by Veretax
I tried to clean up some of my typos.

[Command The 414]

I think the only reason many are upset over the Quinn hire is we saw what the RR hire eventually ended up becoming over the tenure of his being the HC, we see that in a lot of cases that retreads being successful aren’t necessarily the norm, but the exception, and to be fair I think the biggest reason for disappointment is we were told that Ben Johnson was the hot new shiny toy and the up and coming Coordinator… (sadly that’s how a lot of ppl live their daily life’s as well, follow the norm, think how they think ppl want them too, and follow everything they hear and are told without doing their due diligence to find out for themselves) let’s be honest not many really knew anything about Ben Johnson accept for what they heard and were told by the NFL outlet pundits …. A lot of ppl never heard of Ben Johnson up until last season I bet.
 

 

Edited February 3 by Command The 414

[Veretax]

I defnitely agree with that.  I certainly did not know who he was before.  One thing people are short selling. Quinn had to suffer humility and not work as HC after he was ousted in Atlanta, and he showed potential in several places as a Coordinator.   Ron, never really had to suffer and evaluate himself, and I think that hubris + Snyders preeminient hubris ('Happy thanksgiving? really?') Combined in a situation that was never going to work.  It was only good for the character reasons, but Ron was not the only option that could have done that, but noone was going to succeed these 4 years, if we are honest, we know Snyder had to go, it was time.

Now we could bottom out more, its possible too, HC choices are crap rolls.   Unlike previous years we've been looking there aren't a tone of experienced candidates out there to look at.  Billicheck is 72???   Harbaugh was never going to be a fit for obvious reasons, so what can you do?

WHat would be interesting, what happens if Andy Reid wins the SB, and retires.  who gets that spot?  I don't want to dereail our discussion with that (maybe it is good for the other forum), but there has been some stuff hinted on some programs that it wouldn't surprise people if he did.

 

[Probos]

Woah,....I read like the first 1/4 of your post, but I see the point you're making.  Sheehan is correct and you're correct in knowing this rebuild will take time.

 

I made a similar point in the GM/Coach thread.  This franchise, in its current state, is the dregs of the league.  It's not just a rebuilding of the roster, it's from the ground up.  Identity, culture, fanbase, stadium, roster, etc.  Any fan that thinks the script is going to magically flip in one season with the new regime is delusional.  

 

Dan's reign completely annihilated everything positive built over the course of the 70s, 80s and into the early 90s.  With the exception of the colors, it's all gone.

 

Now, he's gone and so is the last staff he hired.  Lots of work to do.  It's gonna take some time.

Edited February 3 by Probos

[spjunkies]

Yes, I think we are fractured as a fan base and afraid of things falling apart again like they always seem to do.

 

My initial response to the hiring was total rage, but after sleeping on it, I had a chance to simmer down and see what they’re trying to do. Quinn has experience as the head coach, which could help immensely with our situation. The staff he puts in place will be crucial to the success or failure so we'll see if he can get that part right or not. 

 

I'm still not overjoyed; however, I am open to what they are doing here.

Edited February 3 by spjunkies

[thebluefood]

This franchise has been through two turbulent ownership changes in less than 30 years and there is an awful lot of gunk built up that must be cleaned and that isn't just from the Snyder regime. This franchise was a mess during those last few years the Cooke family ran the franchise and could not get its barring when the current free agency and salary cap system was implemented in the 1990s. Bad management and bad timing set this franchise back immensely - maybe more than any other franchise in the league (with the exception of, perhaps, the Browns who, outside of their branding, had to start anew four years after their original franchise left for Baltimore). Even the Lions haven't had the sort of upheaval in the owners suite we've experienced, for better and for worse. And this stretch of futility is longer than the last one we had following WWII. Even the civic/regional connections to this franchise have been nearly severed in ways that never seemed possible (and that started well before the nickname change). 

 

All this to say: we are deep in the doldrums and in unchartered waters. We're dealing with an identity crisis that even our predecessors haven't dealt with. Seeing the way the last 30 years have played out has left us shook. It's going to take time, patience, skill, and some good breaks to get us back to respectability, much less competitiveness. We're not used to any of that, especially those of us born after the glory years, including myself. For the record, I turn 33 in April.

 

Personally? I tend toward embracing the absurdity of it all and just accept that whatever happens, it's probably going to suck. If it doesn't? Great! Pleasant surprise. And that's the viewpoint I've taken with this head coaching hire. I didn't want Mr. "I Coached a Team that Blew a 28-3 Lead in the Super Bowl" but maybe time's helped foster greater skill and wisdom and he'll be just the guy we need. But I don't expect this team to be that good in 2024. I don't really expected them to be good in 2025. There's so much gunk to clean out in Ashburn. Who knows when it'll be manageable?

[Renegade7]

Stuff like this is why EB will be back as OC...

[FrFan]

We suffered the worst owner in the history of sports franchises for almost a quarter century. This coming season will be a warm-up since we've revamping the whole team from top to bottom, and that we will be able to hire or promote new scouts only after the draft. We must also change the name and give the process time to succeed.

 

The only way for us is UP.

 

 

Edited February 3 by FrFan

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

Yes. Some of you guys are a mess. It’s no way to go through life.

[FrFan]

3 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Yes. Some of you guys are a mess. It’s no way to go through life.

 

Great song about trying to find the beauty in life despite hopelessness and despair.

[DazedSkinsfan]

A great QB can change everything,  that's something we've never really had. Gibbs won 3 super bowls with 3 different guys, all good QBs but nothing exceptional.  If we can just for once strike gold with the QB position then that at least gives us a chance.  

 

 

 

 

[skinsfan66]

My reaction to the Johnson passing on us was laughing and had not laughed that hard in a while being honest. Not that it was a revenge thing, just laughing at some of the posts.  Fans get sucked in to and listen to the media music and determine we have to go my way. Boomer said he was a lock, I called him a mouthpiece. We are fed he/she said this over and over.  I keep reading posts with things like we need a coach for our young QB, like it is a done deal, and we are taking a QB at 2. It may happen but....... Nothing is 100% before it happens, and nobody is right before it happens. I thought they would go OL last year I am still pissed. We have to live with their decisions. It's what it is, Quinn is our coach we need to move on.

[skinsfan66]

40 minutes ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

Yes. Some of you guys are a mess. It’s no way to go through life.

It's time to move on.

[Berggy9598]

3 hours ago, Command The 414 said:

I think the only reason many are upset over the Quinn hire is we saw what the RR hire eventually ended up becoming over the tenure of his being the HC, we see that in a lot of cases that retreads being successful aren’t necessarily the norm, but the exception, and to be fair I think the biggest reason for disappointment is we were told that Ben Johnson was the hot new shiny toy and the up and coming Coordinator… (sadly that’s how a lot of ppl live their daily life’s as well, follow the norm, think how they think ppl want them too, and follow everything they hear and are told without doing their due diligence to find out for themselves) let’s be honest not many really knew anything about Ben Johnson accept for what they heard and were told by the NFL outlet pundits …. A lot of ppl never heard of Ben Johnson up until last season I bet.
 

 

Not the norm? 19 out of the last 26 Super Bowl winners were “retreads”. That’s 73%

[MrJL]

9 minutes ago, Berggy9598 said:

Not the norm? 19 out of the last 26 Super Bowl winners were “retreads”. That’s 73%

course Belichek getting all six of his wins in that period shifts things a bit

[Berggy9598]

18 minutes ago, MrJL said:

course Belichek getting all six of his wins in that period shifts things a bit

That the most decorated head coach in NFL history is a “retread” isn’t an argument against retreads. It’s also still over 50% if you remove Bellicheck so wrong on all accounts either way. 

[Destino]

Wait wait wait…. we’re bad? 

[KDawg]

No. The fans are fine. We are allowed to dislike moves even if we think we are on the up and up. 

[Berggy9598]

Can fans fill me in on the reason people that run NFL teams offered Dan Quinn a head coaching positions last cycle? 

Edited February 3 by Berggy9598

[mh86]

I think people are undervaluing the importance of scheme. We had bad execution on both sides of the ball, but a lot of that is due to scheme. Who puts Emanuel Forbes 1 on 1 with AJ brown with no help? That’s on the coaching and scheme more than the execution. There are tons of examples of this. While I don’t think we’re one year away or whatever, I do think we have a better shot having someone who knows what they’re doing in charge of personnel. 

[spjunkies]

1 hour ago, Destino said:

Wait wait wait…. we’re bad? 

 

[Veretax]

1 hour ago, Destino said:

Wait wait wait…. we’re bad? 

Noone here is saying we tha fans are bad. If you thought that's what this thraed is about, you are misunderstanding.

My point in the op, was to point out that we are all scarred by decades of mental, emotional, and stressful abuse of this franchise by Dan Snyder and his chosen 'handlers'.  

If I have learned anything from my experience recently, of grieving for the loss of my first wife, it is that at some point we must exhale, admit that we still love them, but we cannot live in the trauma of the past.   We also need to admit that we can only control, what we can controll.  People who run businesses, and teams, will end up doing what they want, and whether they listen to us fans or not in the end we don't make the decisions, because we don't write the pay checks.  All we do is pay to watch, and buy merchandise.  So, we need to get space in our minds from all that happened from Ron all the way back to Norv, and we need to all of us go to the window, open it, stick our heads out and yell, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore.  I don't have to relieve  and be okay with it anymore, and I don't have to let it hurt me anymore. We need to heal, we need to get back to loving the franchise that represents our hopes and dreams, and we need to give them a chance to earn our trust on the field, and it may take more than a year to do it.   

 

[Renegade7]

2 hours ago, KDawg said:

No. The fans are fine. We are allowed to dislike moves even if we think we are on the up and up. 

 

We all recovering from a very traumatic abusive relationship concerning Snyder being the owner of this franchise.

 

The OP is on point, and many of us are at a different stage of healing from that then others.

 

We have the right to say what we want to say, it's healthy as a fanbase to talk about why some folks may be saying what they're saying.

 

 

Edited February 4 by Renegade7

[KDawg]

5 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

We all recovering from a very traumatic abusive relationship concerning Snyder being the owner of this franchise.

 

The OP is on point, and many of us are at a different stage of healing from that then others.

 

We have the right to say what we want to say, it's healthy as a fanbase to talk about why some folks may be saying what they're saying.

 

 

Isn’t this what I said?

 

Aside from the fact that I don’t think our fanbase has any more of a problem than any other.

[Renegade7]

10 minutes ago, KDawg said:

Isn’t this what I said?

 

Aside from the fact that I don’t think our fanbase has any more of a problem than any other.

 

Honestly,  that wasn't my takeaway from your single line post in this thread.

 

I don't think it's a big deal, but I don't agree we're more or less compared to other fan bases with what we jus saw here this week alone.

 

It took us three years to get comfortable calling out Chase Young effort, it took less then 3 months for 49ers fans to get sick of it and say **** we'd probably never say like potentially benching him for the super bowl.

 

Some fan bases have notorious reputations, ours has been brutally eroded and gunshot over the years.  Many more then I was expecting went from "Anything but Snyder" to "OMG, it's like Snyder again" like they were recovering from codependency or something.

 

Yes, our fan base needs helping having lost two generations in a row and a level of reassurance that frankly only results can rectify.  Seeing so many folks ready for this to fail already is depressing, that level of disappointment around Ben Johnson was clearly too soon for some.