- 12 hours ago
The Commanders only have 2 home games in the first seven weeks. Are there any advantages the schedule reveals?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Videos all around.
00:01The Commanders had Ja'Cory Krosky, Merritt, old Bill,
00:05as Bill Merritt, the science guy, doing science fair experiments.
00:10There were some good little moments in there.
00:12I didn't think it stacked up great with a lot of the other teams around the league,
00:15but it was fine.
00:16They put some good work in and clearly took some time doing it.
00:19It wasn't terrible or anything.
00:21But I don't know if you saw theirs.
00:22Did you get through that?
00:23I did.
00:24I watched it.
00:24I wasn't sure what I was watching.
00:26The sound wasn't all the way up the whole time, and I'm kind of, I don't know.
00:29The sound wasn't up?
00:30Yeah, like I couldn't hear some of the things,
00:32and I kind of didn't know what was going on.
00:34I got distracted once.
00:34Because you didn't have the sound up or because the volume wasn't high enough?
00:36The sound was fine.
00:37Maybe I touched something on the screen, and I was really bored.
00:40I wasn't sure what I was watching and didn't really catch my attention.
00:45I was ready for it to be over.
00:46He's a fun guy.
00:48He's a fun guy.
00:49Danny fun guy Ruyeh, as they call him.
00:51Let's get into the schedule, though.
00:54The Commanders are favored to win five games.
00:57They will be favorites five times this football season.
01:01What did you love most?
01:02What did you hate most, Danny, about the schedule?
01:04The gauntlet to start the year?
01:06It is 100% reasonable.
01:09They could get off to a rotten start, a really, really bad start that casts a pall over the
01:13entire year, even if you're better than you were last year, which I expect them to be.
01:16The idea that the fairytale of 2024 is replicable, I think, is just that.
01:21I think it's a fairytale.
01:21You could get off to an awful start with a bunch of division favorites, repeat Super
01:27Bowl champion, and some of the best teams with the best odds to be really, really effective
01:33this year and go deeper into the postseason in their own right.
01:36You'd be behind the eight ball with a bunch of NFC games against really good opponents.
01:39I hate the way it's distributed.
01:41I hate it.
01:41So the thing I hate most about their schedule would be that in short order after the trip
01:47to London, they're back out west to take on San Francisco.
01:51There is a home game sandwiched between the two, but it's not that big of a difference
01:55when you're talking about like 14 days between games.
01:58And so really, it's like 11 or so days between travel of going to London and then going out
02:04to California to take on the 49ers.
02:06That's on my hate list.
02:08I also, if I'm going to add one more thing, would say, and again, going through what we
02:13love and what we hate, I think it was actually about as good a schedule in terms of rest and
02:17some of the things that were laid out for Washington.
02:19It's just a tough schedule, but we knew that already with the opponents.
02:22The thing I hate the most probably, Danny, when they're playing a week eight home game,
02:27it will only be the third time they've been at home all season.
02:31So in other words, they have two home games through week seven, which is the lowest total
02:36I think that they've had since the 90s.
02:39It's really hard to get through seven weeks of a football schedule and only have played
02:44two times at home.
02:45Most teams have played four times at home.
02:47Rarely, but sometimes you'll get five times in that stretch at home.
02:51In their case, they'll have played twice because they lose that home date out in London.
02:56And that's a good thing for what lies ahead.
02:58There's a lot of home slate after that.
03:00But to only play a couple times, you're trying to get into the rhythm of the season.
03:04You're trying to sleep in your own bed and stay at the facility and put in the hours
03:07and the work deep into the week.
03:09It's a lot of travel early on for the commanders, which I hate.
03:12Not my favorite thing.
03:13The thing I love about the schedule, you know how big I am on net rest differential and on
03:21just how many days before the game are you resting versus your opponent?
03:26Washington finished this year fourth in the NFL in net rest days.
03:30The Bears are the luckiest team in this regard, plus 15 rest days.
03:34The Bills are number two at plus 14.
03:37And the Cowboys are actually plus 11 and a half.
03:40They have a built-in advantage a lot of times because of the Thanksgiving Day game and whatnot.
03:45But they're third.
03:46For the commanders, who play twice on Saturday and back-to-back weeks,
03:50only have the one Thursday night game,
03:52they have 10 more rest days than their opponents.
03:55The Chargers, as an example this year, I don't even know how this is possible,
03:59minus 24 in rest days.
04:02The next worst team is the Philadelphia Eagles, who are minus 15.
04:06The Chargers might be setting a record in terms of how little rest they're getting
04:11compared to their opponents.
04:12But I think this is one of the most underrated things.
04:14Everyone wants to talk about strength of schedule.
04:16We don't know who's going to be good and who isn't.
04:18We're looking at last year's standings and the winning percentage of a team
04:22that's been completely reworked, a roster that's completely redone.
04:24How many days, on average, do you get the advantage of over your opponent?
04:31Over recovery, yeah.
04:32Did they play Monday and you played Sunday?
04:34Did they play Thursday and you haven't played since Sunday?
04:36The commanders, fourth best in the NFL.
04:38That is a sneaky, great thing about this schedule.
04:41I didn't have that specific amount of data, but that's where I was going to go,
04:45and that's the thing that I love, is there aren't too many crazy things, right?
04:50Where you play Sunday night into a Thursday, and then the following week,
04:55it's Monday night football into the early game on Saturday on the road.
04:58There's none of those really horrendous.
05:00You already mentioned the one travel hot mess.
05:03That's just inevitable.
05:04Everyone's got to wear one, right?
05:06Everyone's got to have one bad situation.
05:08That's international travel, Colts, home, then across the country to San Francisco.
05:12To me, I care just as much about the opponent in that regard.
05:15If you're going out west to play Arizona right then, let's do that then.
05:18But it's not. It's in San Fran, really in Santa Clara, a quality opponent there.
05:22But I think you touched on it.
05:24I didn't have the rest of the data, but that stands to reason,
05:26because I'm going, this doesn't look too arduous in terms of those heavy expectations.
05:31Here's another thing I really like about their schedule.
05:34So we've talked a lot in the past about where you want the bye week positioned.
05:39Their bye week is week seven.
05:42That's a little earlier than what would be idealistic or perfect.
05:46But they also have a week 10 semi-bye.
05:51This is my old Mike Shanahan, let me play on Thursday, Thanksgiving time frame,
05:56so that I get the week and a half after that going into the stretch run.
06:00When Shanee was in Denver, as an example, he used to request this, right?
06:04With Washington, I remember 10 through 13, those four seasons, when I covered him,
06:08he said he would go to the league and say,
06:09hey, if you need someone to play a Thursday game, we'll take it.
06:12Because what he really liked was, if you can get a bye in that week six through nine range,
06:17and then a Thursday game in the stretch run around Thanksgiving,
06:21it lets you load up with what he thought was like a mini-bye to rest everybody up over a
06:26weekend
06:26and get back after it for the stretch run.
06:28They kind of have that here.
06:29A week seven bye, and then in week 10, they play Thursday night football against the Giants,
06:35and they have a break from Thursday night, November 12th, against the Giants,
06:39all the way to Monday night football, November 23rd.
06:43So after that Thursday night game, it's not even the normal all the way to the following Sunday.
06:47It's all the way to Monday night football the following week for Washington in that 11-day break,
06:54which just, that does not happen.
06:56I mean, you're not going to find that on their schedule.
06:59There's a couple oddities like that.
07:00They have not played two Saturday games since 1990, and they haven't had that kind of a stretch.
07:06The first time that they have had the 11 days off in well over a decade.
07:11So I thought that was a big win for them as well.
07:14So something I hate is the number of primetime games.
07:17The yard isn't clean.
07:19The house isn't clean.
07:20I don't want anybody over there.
07:21I'll never like it.
07:22If we come off back-to-back 13-win-plus seasons that are in conference championship games
07:27and compete for Super Bowls, then I'll invite those primetime things.
07:30This always feels like the addition isn't done and the house is a mess
07:33whenever we get these big primetime showcases.
07:36I know we have Jaden Daniels, but I'm not ready for it.
07:38You know my preference.
07:39Sunday at 1, that's when I want their games.
07:41Is primetime different for you than standalone?
07:44Yes.
07:44Or is that all the same?
07:46I do separate it.
07:47I probably shouldn't because there's the 9.30 of the morning games that makes it 5.
07:49I feel like if your argument is I don't want everybody in the country watching,
07:52I don't know how different the TV numbers are between that and the 9.30 a.m.
07:57London game or something.
07:58Yeah.
07:58And that one's a little quirky because of the start time.
08:00I was going to say, more people watch primetime than morning, but people watch it.
08:03Okay, but Saturday games.
08:04Again, they play two Saturday games at the end of the year.
08:07Now, we don't yet know if they'll be in primetime or at 4 o'clock,
08:10but what's different about primetime and the 4.25 p.m.
08:14national TV opener against the Eagles?
08:16That'll be your biggest rating game anyway.
08:18I bet you get more people that watch that game of the week on Fox with Burkhart and Tom Brady
08:26sometimes
08:26than watch primetime.
08:28Those are like 30, 40 million people sometimes.
08:30Those are big numbers.
08:30It's still part of an ensemble of games, but yes, the regional, it'll win,
08:34but the primetime is all the pregame, hours of recap, the lead-up to it,
08:40SportsCenter's live from there.
08:41Everybody's talking about that game, your team, the whole time,
08:44and then when you lay a turd, when you do the fart noise and stink and lose terribly
08:49and embarrassingly, it's doubly anguishing.
08:52You know how many standalone games they ended up with before they move anything around?
08:57What was it, six?
08:58Seven.
08:58Seven.
08:59Golly.
08:59Seven times when they're playing and nobody else is playing.
09:03Ugh.
09:04And that's not counting the at least two Eagles-Cowboys,
09:07maybe others, like 425 games where you're going to get 30 million people
09:12because you're all over the country in the national TV game of the week.
09:15But seven times, Jaden Daniels and Washington are on the field
09:19and Dan Quinn's calling the shots.
09:20Are we sending out the punt team or not?
09:22When you're the only game on at that moment.
09:25That's your nightmare.
09:26It's my nightmare.
09:27It's my least favorite thing.
09:28Again, if they happen to be awesome, which I don't expect them to be,
09:31but let's say they are, then bring them on.
09:33I'll play whenever.
09:34But I generally want to stay hidden.
09:36I want to be on the same time as the Browns.
09:38You know what I mean?
09:39So you barely catch us on red zone.
09:40That bothers me way less than a lot of other things.
09:43Like, anecdotally, I get where you're coming from
09:45because it's just the nerves and an anxiety and kind of a woe is us.
09:48We're not good on primetime.
09:49But if you're good, you're going to be good whenever you play.
09:51If you're bad, you're going to be bad then or at 1 o'clock.
09:53It's not like, oh, my gosh, we're playing in front of the whole country
09:57and now I'm nervous like I'm performing in a play in front of my school
09:59or something.
10:00It doesn't work that way for me.
10:01What I think about is things that are rare, things the league tries to avoid.
10:07There's a reason the league tries to avoid things.
10:09So in this case, the Commanders, two true home games in the first seven weeks
10:14of the season.
10:14That has not happened since 1999.
10:17You're going back 27 years and like 28 football seasons.
10:20There's a reason for that because it is so not ideal,
10:23because it is so unfair, essentially.
10:25I hate that.
10:26Now, the London game is the reason.
10:28I don't know how you get over that.
10:29But 99, the last time they only played two home games in the first seven.
10:35It's just weird because of the math.
10:37But yeah, I mean, so the way I always think of it is it's like you're eating
10:41your vegetables before you want to eat the delicious thing.
10:45You're going to have to pay the piper.
10:46So if there was a sequence where there was like a bunch of three straight home
10:50game situations because you're on the road a bunch early, I could live with
10:53that.
10:53Like you think of the capital schedule certain times where now this year wasn't the
10:57case.
10:57They were at home a bunch early.
10:58But if they were away early, you'd go, man, right now this stinks.
11:02But when your old legs are tired in March and April and there's a lot less miles
11:07to go, that West Coast trip that they always, you know, they spend a month out
11:10there, they don't have to do that.
11:12Maybe it's to their advantage.
11:13It doesn't feel like there's enough payback from that, though, where you have so
11:16few games at home to start the season.
11:18Does that make sense?
11:18Absolutely.
11:19Some of the things we really like that we don't like about the schedule to set the
11:22table.
11:23Let's open up the phones for you guys next, though.
11:25800-636-1067.
11:27We did talk quite a bit yesterday about what we perceived to have been the
11:31schedule set.
11:32We ended up being right and we had the schedule nailed down.
11:35But this is our first chance to chat with people since it's become official and we
11:38got all the start times that were TBD as well.
11:41What do you love most and what do you hate?
11:44What gives you hope and what makes you most nervous?
11:48800-636-1067.
Comments