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The Commanders plagued themselves last year with a super slow start. With a tough schedule to open the season, do the Commanders need to handle the preseason differently.
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00:00coming you back. Thanks much for making the show part of your day. So I was thinking about it.
00:05We're giving the commanders a hard time about their slow start last year, not being ready,
00:09but they did start two and one. I think that has more to do with their opponents though,
00:13the giants and the Raiders, the week schedule, they played one varsity team in the first couple
00:18of weeks and they got annihilated by the green Bay Packers in prime time. But what would you
00:23do differently in the process to ramp up for this season than last knowing what we know about this
00:29schedule? That maybe your toughest quarter, your toughest stretch happens right out of the shoot.
00:35You think back to the Tampa Bay game with Dan Quinn in week one, they eventually would rattle off four
00:39straight wins in his first season, weeks two through five. And that was the big Monday night
00:44game against Cincinnati, the coming out party, blowing out Arizona, you know, handling their
00:48business against Cleveland. But that week one game, they gave up almost 40. They almost got doubled up.
00:53It looked like Ron Rivera 2.0 and we were going, oh my God, this is going to be a
00:57long season.
00:57Now a month later, they were four and one, but they just weren't ready for the bright lights.
01:01And remember Packers game last year was the same thing in week two, the jump in in 2004,
01:06they eked by a giants team that would go three and 14 Malik neighbors dropped a pass. They didn't
01:13have a field goal kicker in the game. Otherwise they probably lose it. Are you talking about
01:1820, 20, 20, 24? So when they start week two, yeah, in week two. So they lost a point.
01:22They lost to Tampa and skin to their teeth before finally, as you said, breaking out in
01:27week three. And, but no one cared cause they were off to the races and won a bunch of games
01:30and it was fun. But my point is they have not played well to start the season two straight
01:35years under Dan Quinn. Yeah. Last year when they beat the giants, the score ended up being
01:39pretty decisive 21 to six and their defense was actually fantastic in that game. And it turned
01:45out like Russell Wilson would soon get benched. And there was some, probably some external
01:49factors there that weren't just that their defense was about to be really good. As we
01:52found out. I remember the conversation we had after that first game was how good can
01:57they be? They're top blank in the league. And then we go, could they be top 10? Could
02:01they be top 15? No. The answer was top 30. Hopefully they really regressed after that, but
02:09their offense did not play that well. Jaden Daniels did not come out hot. Just generally in
02:14the first week of last season, Danny, it was very pedestrian and it's not crazy to trace
02:19it back to camp in the preseason. Jaden Daniels threw zero passes in the, in the preseason
02:25last year. Remember he dropped back and ran in for a touchdown against the Bengals. And
02:30like his only quote unquote drop back pass attempt of the preseason that would have been
02:34a pass. He left the pocket, ran, scored a touchdown. He was off the field. And that
02:38was his only drive. He handed off to Chris Rodriguez a couple of times who ran all over the
02:42place and then ran in from about 15 yards out. He's got to get more work this August.
02:47As far as I'm concerned, like there's no ifs, ands or buts about it. To me, it's more the,
02:51the, the luxury training camps and the preseason stuff. So you think the camp is a bigger deal
02:57than the preseason? I do. I, I, again, I see too many teams that don't play guys for three
03:02quarters that still are able to come out and have legitimate first weeks. Although I will
03:05say week one and week two are generally not great samples for what the rest of the season
03:08is going to be. And it speaks kind of to your point more than it does mine. Remember last
03:11year they wanted to have a, a, a, a co scrimmage lead up joint practice, whatever, Baltimore
03:17who canceled it. I think that was a big negative, but they're also doing, you know, the, you
03:22know, club bed, my feet is the kind of a training camp for a lot of their veterans. Every other
03:26day was a day off for guys like one practice day off, one practice day off for, for a lot
03:30of these vets. And yeah, a lot of it was cause they were coming in banged up, but it's
03:34like enough of that. You don't have 38 year olds anymore. You're not majoring in that
03:38anyway. This needs to be a far harder hitting from the get go, you know, damn the torpedoes
03:44here. They need to be ready to go way sooner.
03:46Well, I actually love that point. I haven't thought about that specifically, but there's
03:50less taking care of old guys to be done here. A year ago, if you want to give 15 guys
03:57a
03:57day because you've hit it pretty hard for two or three days in a row, when it's Bobby
04:03Wagner and it's, you know, fill in the blank of the oldest roster in 12 years of NFL football
04:09last year, it kind of made some sense. You've put your roster together with both old guys
04:16as accurate, Bobby Wagner types, and then injury riddled guys. And some of those are still
04:20here. I think Laramie Tunsell or whatever, who you're going to be extra careful with and
04:23not demand a ton out of on the practice field. And sometimes with a guy like Tunsell, that's
04:27fine because you're going to try him out there on game day and he's going to be really,
04:30really good. But I think you're probably right. Camp, because there's more days, there's just
04:38more to it than the preseason is where you've got to make bigger strides and more tweaks.
04:45But I would look long and hard about how seriously I take the preseason if I was them. Just because
04:50it works for another team doesn't mean it can work or will work everywhere. You're saying
04:56correctly, I think there's plenty of teams I see like the Rams that don't care about the
05:00preseason and they're fine. Yeah. Is Matt Stafford here? I mean, are we going to have
05:04the entire Rams walk through that door? It's just it's a stars and scrubs thing. It's a different
05:09roster. It's a more talented roster. It's a better coaching staff. They probably need less
05:14time on task. That doesn't mean that's what's right for Washington. I want you only got three
05:20preseason games now. I want starters playing in all three of those games. I'm not saying you got
05:25to play three quarters. I'm not going crazy here and turning it back to 1978. But the idea of
05:30basically red shirting and taking off the preseason for the majority of your young guys and guys that
05:36matter, that needs to end, man. You need to make sure that you have your best bullet to fire against
05:44the Philadelphia Eagles. Because if you start 0-2 in the division in those two games, you are climbing a
05:49gigantic battle. It's not just the numbers historically of going 0-2 and what it means
05:54for the playoffs. It's 0-2 against the two teams that are at the top of your division on paper
05:58going
05:58into the season. It's like double the 0-2. You're basically might as well be 0-4 at that point.
06:04Those games are worth more. Yeah, it's a double whammy. And again, both those teams are going to be
06:08good. If you're going to get to where you want to get to, you got to win one at least.
06:12Now, obviously,
06:13I'd love to be greedy and win both, but I'm also, you know, realistic. I'm not a crazy person. A
06:17couple of
06:17divisional road games to start things off when they've not gotten off to good starts for two
06:21straight years versus, you know, Philadelphia, I believe. I think I said this yesterday. I think,
06:25what is it? They're 6-2 in their opening weeks over the last couple of seasons. You know,
06:30a couple or even better than that, honestly. It was like 10-2 over the last few years to start
06:35off
06:36their years. They're better at it coming out the gate fast. So maybe try to emulate them. But
06:41yeah, I just think with this really challenging first nine weeks with a bye weekend, there's the first
06:46eight games are eight of your 10 most challenging games. Just what it feels like on paper. You'll
06:51be underdogs in a lot of them, justifiably so. You don't have time to win a round. I just don't
06:55think, I mean, you could be eliminated by the time you're in the middle of, by the time Thanksgiving
06:59rolls around, you could be pretty much out of it. We could be eliminated. We can be eliminated.
07:03I can't hear anyone talk about elimination and not think about that Ron Rivera answer for
07:08discovering in real time from a question from Grant Paulson. They're only going to be favored
07:13five times all season. You were just talking about how often they're, they're dogs early
07:16in the season. I mean, for the duration of the year, they're only going to be favored
07:19five times. Now that fairly irrelevant because it's going to change as soon as the year starts.
07:25A couple injuries happen. Quarterback goes down, whatever. But you're not the Cardinals 17
07:30times. You're an underdog, but 12 times. I mean, the projection based on the odds makers
07:35is five and 12 based on my quick math. Right. What did I see? Somebody had their over under
07:41six and a half wins. That's about where it's been. Yeah. So again, our perception is last
07:47year was weird. 2024. That's real. Well, we had Sheehan on the show earlier today and he
07:53basically said, look, you could tell that the league's banking on Washington to bounce
07:56back seven standalone games, five primetime games or whatever it is. And I think that's
08:00probably true. But he said last year was an aberration. I'm not sold on that yet. I think
08:06that's very possible. I certainly hope that's the case, but I'm not really to work in pen
08:11on that just yet. I want to, I got some things I still got to sort out. Yes. If you
08:15do the
08:15average of the last two seasons, just again, kind of based on what we saw, it's a pretty
08:20good offense of still below average defense. And that's kind of what Nate wind team we're
08:25talking about. I mean, that's the bucket. I think a lot of people have them in where the
08:28end, the thing that I've long argued on this show and any other I've ever been on is we
08:34consider this huge difference between someone that goes back in the day was nine and seven
08:37and seven and nine. Now, obviously the numbers are different with 17 games, but my whole point
08:42all along was there is so little difference. If you're in that middle bucket, it's the ball
08:46that hits the upright or doesn't the fumble you recover or don't the call that goes against
08:50you or doesn't. And we consider these dramatic successes or failures based on a couple of
08:54small bounces, the tackle that you break and score a 57 yard touchdown on instead of it being
08:59fourth and one. Cause you didn't break the tackle. Exactly. In the teams that are immune
09:03to it in both directions, the three and 14 teams, you're immune to good breaks and bounces.
09:09You suck. The teams that are excellent are above that. You might drop one of those games,
09:13but by and large, they'll be standing at the end. And for the most part, the whole point
09:16is to be in that group. That's immune to it in a good way. The Superbowl champions, the
09:20teams that win it all or the get there, there are a couple aberrations. There are a couple
09:24teams that stand out over the last couple of decades. It's the Ravens in 2012, those weird
09:29nine and seven giants teams that would get really hot with great defensive lines.
09:32Other than that, it's the best teams this league has to offer going at it in the heavyweight bout.
09:37The five times they're favored in case people are curious, just driving around, uh, two actually
09:43are early enough, believe it or not in weeks four and five, they are minus one and a half
09:50and minus two and a half. Um, so you pull up the schedule then, and you tell me where those
09:55matchups are. One of those is Colts giants. So that's London Colts. And then the New York giants,
10:00then their favorite in week 12 by four and a half points, which should be the Cardinals.
10:03That's Cardinals. Then it's a one and a half point game that, by the way, being favored
10:07by a point and a half is not far from a pick them. I mean, that's almost like a toss
10:12up
10:13game. It's not like you're favored by three and a half or four, but anyway, week 13, one
10:16and a half, that's the Titans. Yep. It's a little tighter than I would have thought
10:19there. And then week 15, a three and a half point favorite.
10:23That was week, what was the last one you said? Week 15, Falcons.
10:27Those are the teams. When you, we went through the schedule where we, those were your harvest
10:30your nut games. I mean, it's, it's that simple. Like you have to beat those teams. If you win
10:36those games, you have a chance to have a season, the teams that you're in the same bucket as
10:41you've got to run rough shot through them. You've got to have a wreck. You have to be at the
10:44top
10:44of that bucket for me. Cause again, I don't think anybody, you know, outside of the, the rose
10:49colored or burgundy colored in this case glasses is going. Yep. They're every bit as good as the
10:54defending Superbowl champion Seahawks who beat the brakes off of them last year and could
10:58have scored a hundred if they felt like it. They're not, they're not the Rams. They're
11:01not even the Eagles. And you know, the Cowboys had a better off season. If you are having
11:05a year, so to speak, everybody that's in kind of your same, I'm not really sure. They're
11:10kind of flawed. That's Minnesota. That's Atlanta. That's the, you got to win the beat the giants
11:15twice probably to have a season because again, there's so few opportunities to, to, you know,
11:19to tap in birdies. This'll change. So it's not worth spending much time on, but they're five and
11:24a half point underdogs against the Eagles in week one, which is tied for the biggest spread as an
11:29underdog of the season with week six against San Francisco, Washington and points in that game
11:34makes a lot of sense to me. Eagles unveiling a new offense week one, weird things happen as it is
11:40divisional game. Five and a half points is the third biggest line of the day in the entire NFL
11:45based on look ahead lines on draft Kings right now. I just think that's strange. That week one
11:50game with the Eagles, which I feel like is winnable that is tied for the most lopsided
11:56line where they're an underdog all season long with that Monday night game against San Francisco.
12:00Huh? That's, that's surprising on, on a couple of fronts, but for the, again,
12:04it may be taking into account that Washington just has not started well over the last couple of
12:08years with this regime. And they've got new stuff to two new coordinators in their own, right?
12:11I was mentioning earlier, the pro football networks simulation they did on the percentage
12:16chances of teams making the playoffs. We'll look at where they've got Washington in the NFC.
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