Talk Commanders

The good boat “WFT” found itself in a bit of the doldrums entering last week’s game. There was simply no real momentum to be found. The injury list was long and growing. And, the loss to Atlanta had left a general feeling of ennui in the fanbase. That was the feeling entering the game. Ten-minutes in one could be excused for feeling something worse than simple listlessness. It reminded of the old 12-Meter America’s Cup days. Dennis Conner would be in some trouble as his boat was being overtaken when he’d look over at his master Tactician Tom Widden: “Find us a Lift.” Invariably he would find the most subtle color change in the water that indicated a wind shift that would “lift” or help the boat sail closer to the most favorable line. On Play #10 of the Chargers’ third possession, in Washington territory, with Washington already down 10-0 the lift came in the form of Safety Quan Martin‘s violent collision with LAC Receiver Quentin Johnson. Out came the ball. Often maligned Corner Marshon Lattimore pounced on it. Los Angeles would not score another point. The Offense shed its early game funk scoring 27 in what turned out to be a comfortable win. One Lift turned everything.

After 25-years of failure and ridicule the Washington football fanbase has been condition-response trained to find and embrace agony at the slightest opportunity. Last week’s game against a nice Atlanta squad sent the masses to the Cellars of Angst quick, fast, and in a hurry. It was spectacular in some respects. By mid-week not only had the team been declared an utter failure; significant shade was being thrown at the General Manager for not stocking the team 3-deep with All Pro players. After all, he has had two whole years. “C’mon! Get with it.”

The truth was far less dramatic. An Offense without its three best “Skill Players” still put up 27-points. Only 12-teams scored more points than that for the week. And, Washington was the only team scoring 27-points or more who lost. (Dallas and Green Bay tied at 40-all.) WFT’s Special Teams were really good. It was the Defense that played poorly. Bijan Robinson helped in that regard as he slithered through cracks and forced missed tackles. Atlanta had all of their Offensive weapons on-hand and used them well. Washington was missing three Defensive Back starters. It showed on any number of broken coverages. Still there was plenty of opportunity to win. With 8:08 remaining Atlanta started a drive at their 23-yard line with a 7-point lead. One Defensive stop would give the WFT time to go tie the score. Didn’t happen. 69-yards, 15-plays, and 6:51 later the Falcons would ice the game. Boiling down the day to that drive tells the tale.

At the end of the day it was an opportunity lost. While much of the fanbase has clenched their pearls into dust the team has no time for such things. New week, new game.

Aside from sheer sloppiness and injuries aplenty the early NFL season has produced an interesting trend: The blowout loss turns into a solid victory a week later. Look no farther than Washington’s turnaround from the Green Bay loss. 28-17 doesn’t sound like a blowout, but the game was never competitive. A week later, with the wunderkind Quarterback up in a suite far removed from the field the WFT played relatively well. There were a number of such bounce backs around the League. One stands out. The Chicago Bears did their best impersonation of a collection of crash test dummies against the Detroit Lions. A week later they throttled the Cowboys. The reportage out of Chicago was that the week’s practices were, shall we say, not fun. Coaches did their best impersonation of Drill Sergeants at Parris Island. For the players it was a group trip to the proverbial woodshed. And, it worked.

One old saw is that it is one thing to enter a sailboat into a race, but it is a totally different venture to campaign a boat over a series. The latter requires pieces and parts to be on-hand at the ready to insert when something breaks. Races don’t re-schedule to await your readiness. Professional football is no different. It is the curious reality of the sport that it takes an elite Quarterback to enter the “Contender” portal, but it more often than not takes a competent backup QB to stay there. In a 32-team league there were 59 different QBs who started games last season. It’s close enough to two-per-team to assume that the QB2 on every roster had best be competent. But, many are not. The ideal is to have a QB2 with starting experience who is able to watch practice all week then come off of the bench with no warning and win a game. Last season Marcus Mariota did that very thing twice. Ideal, indeed.

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.