Talk Commanders

The “S” in September football is for “Sloppy.” Teams simply are less than ready for real football. If one goes looking back in the day they can find stories about Johnny Unitas leading a fourth-quarter comeback with all the starters against Philadelphia in pre-season game #4. If processing that for a moment the realization may hit that Jayden Daniels didn’t even throw one pass in pre-season. It showed on Sunday. Against a Giants team that looks to be on the verge of dysfunction Daniels’ passes were off a number of times. He was behind on crossing routes pretty much all day. Two deep shots resulted in two overthrows with his feet fully set. Clutch your pearls if you wish. But, this type of performance is to be expected to start the season. Almost 12% of all snaps during Week #1 resulted in penalties. Washington contributed mightily with 12-infractions. Like it or not the early NFL season is really the old pre-season…only the games count.

After all of the waiting it does feel a bit surreal to see honest-to-goodness football again. And, the NFL isn’t wasting time with warmup games. The New York Football Giants are coming to Washington for one of eight Division games during the first weekend. Those games count more than just one-up or one-down in the standings. When it gets to tie-breaker time those Division games have special meaning. Want to win the Division? Go 4-2 or better in those head-to-head tilts. Washington didn’t win the NFC East last year. But, the 4-2 was invaluable in getting them into the playoffs. The recipe is easy to state; harder to deliver: Split the games with Philly and Dallas while sweeping the Giants. If you think that’s an easy deliverable, think again. Washington has played the Giants 184-times over the course of their history. The WFT has lost 107 of them.

College Football gets to rule the airwaves here on Labor Day weekend. For the professionals the weekend is one for the Front Office personnel to decompress after the tumult of cut-down day. The churn of bodies to and fro is a dizzying sight from afar. From within it must be a maelstrom of moving parts. It’s all too easy to declare that the “Final 53” have been selected. Here’s a pro tip; the 53-man roster is never “Final.” There will be changes all the way until the end. Washington’s roster is not immune. This is a game where injuries and poor performances occur on a seemingly non-stop basis. Depth Matters. It matters more in this sport than most other team games. Accumulating top talent is a given prerequisite. But, building the depth is what holds the enterprise together.

Washington has built a roster with some unusual characteristics. Jason Reid, of ESPN said last year after the playoffs that Adam Peters was on the clock to assemble a roster around Jayden Daniels while on his rookie contract. Mr. Peters got the memo.

This is the last of the pre-season games for both teams. During the regular season last year it was the upstart WFT against the established Ravens. Washington put up a plucky fight. But, the Ravens were too much to handle. Another regular season matchup would be most interesting. Despite the 12-5 record and NFC Championship Game appearance of last year, this year’s squad has a number of questions surrounding it. Not so up in “Charm City.” This Ravens team is locked-and-loaded. It says here that Baltimore has the best top-to-bottom roster in the League. The position rooms all grade out in the top few. No other team in the League can say that. It is a pity that all we’ll see is likely to be backups. Spoiler Alert: Their backups are better than ours pretty much across the board.

The second of three pre-season games is at hand. It will be the first time since January for the fanbase to see Jayden Daniels taking snaps during a game. Enjoy each and every snap. There will not be many. As has been noted here and seemingly everywhere else the pre-season has evolved into less and less meaningfulness. But, this game stands out as a bit of a real test. Or, it did about a week ago. Cincinnati is apparently desperate to overcome their nasty habit of starting slowly. So, they intend to start their first team in at least their first two pre-season games. It was thought Washington would return serve. Especially given the whipping they received from New England in the first game. What is taking the field for the WFT will be absent some 12-players, 8 of which are Starters. So, maybe it won’t be a “Real Test.” A small quiz would be more accurate.

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.