Talk Commanders

It has come to be time for some almost-real football. You know, people actually get tackled to the ground. The key word here is “People” not Stars. The stars are going to be on the sidelines in sweats and ball caps. The purpose of pre-season games, aside from selling tickets, used to be to hone the team against real competition. Then late in the games put the players on the field that are “on the bubble” for making the roster. Confirm suspicions, if you will. That’s all gone by the wayside. The honing and real evaluation comes in the joint scrimmages. What’s left is to determine the low end of the depth charts. Tonight’s game will certainly follow that script.

The word “Camp” has many meanings. Somewhere on the definition spectrum between a Kid’s Summer Camp full of fun days and an Army Base sits Football’s Training Camp. Our mind’s eye sees players in full pads under the searing sun engaged in endless repetitions of the Oklahoma Drill for two-sessions a day. But, that imagery is preceded by the phrase, “Once upon a time…” For those unfamiliar the Oklahoma Drill was a tackling exercise in a confined area developed by Oklahoma Head Coach Bud Wilkinson. The point was not only to teach tackling to Defenders it also taught Running Backs how to get tackled without getting hurt. The drill was ubiquitous. There was scarcely a football program from High School upwards that didn’t use it. But, time and sensitivities have moved onward. The OK Drill, once a part-and-parcel of Training Camp has been banned by the NFL. Some States have legislated it to illegality. The absence is part of a bigger picture: “Camp” today would be unrecognizable to the players of the last century.

The long sweaty days of the offseason roll on. The NFL is nothing if not the master of media attention. Somehow they pack more energy into their down time than any of the other major sports. Baseball has a “Winter Meeting.” That’s their big action. Gridiron owners meet in the spring between the Scouting Combine and the Draft. The Combine may be a bit of a snooze. But, it still attracts eyeballs. The Draft is now a supernova of an event with ~600,000 attendees and an audience of 7.5 million viewers. Just to keep interest the teams have “Organized Team Activities” sprinkled over several months. These are “No Contact” affairs. The biggest story lines are always about three things; Holdouts, Injuries, and glowing reports about rookies. Keep it all in perspective. The only real news of substance is the injuries. Otherwise, it’s just men in shorts running drills.

Just as anticipated, the WFT selected an Edge Rusher with their first pick. Oooops! Not exactly. A projected Top-10 player, Josh Conerly Jr checked off all the boxes. The O-Line pick feels a bit out of place. That’s only due to the big trade for a starting Left Tackle. Two picks this year and two next for Laremy Tunsil are now added to the 1st-Round pick for Conerly. There may be a bit of a theme here. Investing in the O-Line has been a thought long lost on the Burgundy-and-Gold afterguard. The new crew is righting the ship on that front. Tom Brady said before the NFC Championship Game started that the Washington O-Line was “Below Average.” Some five Draft Picks’ worth of investment later that’s no longer the case.

After a couple of months of speculation the 2025 NFL Draft is finally upon us. It’s a spectacle now. The League has turned what was a droll one-afternoon exercise held in a hotel ballroom into a highly produced show. If you haven’t had your fill of “Mock Drafts” yet then your thirst for speculation is un-slakable. They are out there by the dozens. Any resemblance a mock draft has to reality is more a function of blind luck than skill. The attention always goes to the top of the board. That’s where the bad teams are (unless they have traded away that pick earlier). For the first time in a long time Washington is not up there. All those top-10 selectors are hoping to turn their team’s fortunes around in a lightning strike. It usually doesn’t happen. But, it did for the WFT when it selected Jayden Daniels at #2. The Burgundy and Gold went from doormat to the Final Four. Already unthinkable it becomes a certain impossibility without Daniels. That’s the magic of the Draft in a microcosm.

Free Agency is going through this two-day Kabuki Theater where no player can actually sign. But, everyone on the planet that cares to know will know who’s going where. Come Wednesday the signings start. With that will come team acknowledgements. This article is short on verbiage. But, there is a lot of information on the Tracker Chart below.

Once upon a time in the NFL there was no “Free Agency.” Drafts went to 20-rounds. Hall-of-Fame Linebacker Chris Hanburger was taken in the 18th round in the 1965 Draft. He found out he was drafted when a reporter called him for comment. Teams retained the rights of a player until he was cut, traded, or retired. As a result Training Camp became the place where the roster was really formed. There the 20 Draftees and the veterans fought for a roster spot and a paycheck for the winter. That’s all gone by the stern now. The modern process is a study in 3D Chess with a strict clock counting cadence. Long before Training Camp the roster is set to within a few players. Camp is for installing the Offense and Defense. The first stage of roster construction is upon the WFT and all the other teams in the League.

The shame of this Super Bowl is that it will probably be a good football game. It’s also the last football game of meaning for seven months. Those two combined will provide sufficient reason to actually watch it. Pity. This is a game between one team that is annoying and one that’s repulsive. Kansas City has become the team that’s easy to dislike. Perennial winners transform into that role. The over-exposure eventually irritates the senses. There are advertisements in abundance, hyperbolic accolades in bunches, and the inevitable winning despite dire circumstances. It’s an old formula that invariably induces fatigue. The only twist with the Chiefs is the Taylor Swift angle. Apparently some people watch the games just to see the glimpses of her jumping up and down in the luxury suite. Imagine that. The networks feed the need. Then there’s the Eagles. Gag-Ack!

The 2024/2025 Washington Commanders season will stick with most us as the greatest season in the franchise’s history that did not finish with one of their three Super Bowl wins. To make it to within one game of the Super Bowl in this season was nothing short of miraculous. What owner Josh Harris built with his philosophies of: Culture-People-Talent is nothing short of incredible. Actually all of his businesses and sports teams have been built this same philosophy, but certainly the results will vary.

In the HBSE sports empire, the Commanders are the crown jewel. The decisions on-and-off the field have scored big. From hiring team president Mark Clouse to team GM Adam Peters to head coach Dan Quinn to quarterback Jayden Daniels to lesser known employees like Ops assistant Cyrus Daniels who was promoted from his position as an intern. It takes a village, and building a winning culture with talented people is a key. Computers and analytics can only do so much — this is a game played by humans, even though the Commanders’ quarterback seemed like a cyborg at times.

Sports exist at some level to remind that logic and reason don’t always carry the day. Analysts exist to bring reason and perspective to what we observe. In a field absolutely flooded to saturation with people the desire to have a unique thought is beyond difficult. The few, and this means very few that predicted a Washington win last week at Detroit were certainly unique. Detroit was the deserving #1 Seed, rested, and playing in front of their frenzied fans. The Burgundy and Gold was Cinderella awaiting the pumpkin ride home. The Lions’ Quarterback, Jared Goff had thrown 12 interceptions all year with 5 of those coming in one game. In his previous 8 games he had thrown 21 Touchdowns versus 3 picks. Washington’s Defense was averaging right around one turnover a game. There was nothing reasonable or logical to suggest that Goff would throw 3 interceptions in this one game. But, he did. That’s sports for you.