Who Knows Where They Are Going With This

The Washington Commanders are getting down to Preseason Winning Time.

The time when rosters are phased into regular season form.

Who is going to be here?

Who is not?

 

Feels like Terry McLaurin is not going to be here.

Brian Robinson is not going to be here.

There seems to be a plan in place for Robinson's exit.

McLaurin leaving feels awful.

Who is stepping in?

I don't like these unknowns. 

They say the Kingsbury Offense doesn't require the star wide receiver.

Last year's offense? Pretty potent. With guys like Noah Brown. OZ. Jamison Crowder.

Anchored by Zach Ertz. 

But it also had Terry. Do we have anyone who can do to Dallas what he did?

I think we will miss that. It would be a loss for sure. It is a step back the team is taking here.

I like the young running backs. C-Rod and BCM.

I like Luke McCaffrey and Jaylin Lane. I hope Jacory Brooks makes the team.

Hopefully, Noah Brown is healthy.

Enough there to compensate? I don't know. 

The preseason has been all about B-Rob and Terry.

We haven't seen anything else to judge.

One way or another.

Josh Conerly got plenty of work. 

That's it.

 

The Defense hasn't been on the field enough to tell if it can stop the run.

There are a lot of veterans on defense.

George Allen would love it.

Allen's defenses were good. But you guessed it.

At times they couldn't stop the run. 

They have Ifs on Offense. And Ifs on Defense.

Ifs on special teams. 

I hope they know something we don't.

I don't like it all being on JD5.  

Musical Spheres of the Championship Years and 1942

December 14th, 1942.

With the memory of 73-0 deeply fixed in their minds, the Washington Redskins captured the 1942 NFL Title, defeating the Monsters of the Midway, 14-6.

Smash hits musically at the time:

Every Night About this Time by The Ink Spots

Travlin Light by Billie Holiday and Paul Whiteman

Tangerine by Jimmy Dorsey, Bob Eberly, Helen O'Connell

A glimpse of some '42 hits by Hot Sounds.

Forty-two was Ray Flaherty's last year in D.C. When you say Washington's Hall of Fame Coach, people think Joe Gibbs. No, we had another one. Ray Flaherty. He gave George Preston Marshall what for. It was the braggart Marshall who was responsible for lighting a fire under those "crybaby" 1940 Chicago Bears goading George Halas and the Bears into knocking hell out the Redskins. When Marshall poked his nose into team business, Flaherty would bust his chops. Threaten to walk.

One wonders what Flaherty would have done to Dan Snyder.

Some flicks people went to: The Black Swan, Pride of the Yankees, and something called Casablanca. See Operation Torch.

Yes, it seems Casablanca was a propaganda film. To drum up fervor for service. It is probably the best propaganda film. Though Mrs. Miniver would give it a run for the money. Mrs. Miniver was also 1942.

Nineteen Forty-Two was a time for choosing. A few months after the release of Casablanca and the detonation of Operation Torch, Ray Flaherty chose to leave the Washington Redskins for the war. 

Welcome back to the fight, Ray.

It was the first real punch America threw at the Bully, 1942 was.

The Head Coach

Everybody, pretty much, loves the hiring of Adam Peters as General Manager of the Washington Commanders.

Getting a Head Coach on board is a little trickier. I guess you can glean a little bit of the style you can expect from the Commanders under Peters by reviewing the 49ers. One would hope Peters brings a running game over from the West Coast. And a tough defense. You want to just say copy San Francisco. 

But really it starts getting a little clearer the minute they hire a Head Coach and keeps getting clarified as that Coach picks his staff. That's not the end of the intrigue about what exactly Peters is going to do. Free Agency and the Draft will be here before you know it. By September, we should know the general direction Peters wants to take the team. It will be his first roster and maybe not the definitive Adam Peters Roster but it should have a leaning one way or the other.

There is not long to wait. Soon the Super Bowl will be done. And the fun for Washington fans will begin in earnest. It already has for roster geeks. The problem is, though there is not long to wait, a lot can happen during that short time, up to and including the bottom falling out in the Ben Johnson/Mike Macdonald quest.

The young coach motif seems a sure bet since having a GM in the first place usually indicates the Head Coach doesn't have the experience to be the GM. The structure seems to disallow the veteran coach.

It makes a sort of new car sense. You don't get the mechanical problems of the used car. Jim Harbaugh and Bill Belichick would seem a little high maintenance. Although both those guys have a lot of influence in the football world. Harbaugh could still impact the Washington job if Macdonald ascends to the post. Macdonald was his D-Coordinator in Michigan.

I like Jim Harbaugh. I think Belichick is looking for his retirement home. I think Eric Bieniemy is a very strong candidate. I know the talk. His good cop/bad cop doesn't set well with everybody. Neither did Lombardi's. Nor Parcells. The only question I'd have is what he would do on defense. Knowing EB, he probably has some ideas.

If it had been me, I'd have hired Harbaugh right off the bat. But it's not. 

Let's see what Peters has in mind.

Wish Upon a Star Hasn't Won Thus Far

Here we are again. Football limbo in Washington.

It is good we have a new owner in town. It is also apparent it was going to be bad for the football team. It threw things up in the air. There was nothing to hold onto.

Worse, lights went out with the players. There was no reason to "take coaching" from a lame duck staff. 

Now you are left wondering about a few things. If losing is something we all agree should stop in Washington, how can you play to lose for draft picks? It is like trying to stop drinking by pouring one bottle of vodka after another down your throat. Aren't you casting your losing in behavioral cement by keeping on doing it?

And I don't see how that makes things better for Josh Harris. It would be better if the team was "ready to win". If the team gets stripped to the core, how likely is it that it wins next year or the year after? We're perpetually "ready to lose". A lot of guys who want to be head coaches aren't going to like anybody on this roster. Including the Quarterback.

They get to a new place. They bring their own guys. 

Going 1-16 after going 4-13 is not going to please the Fanbase who once again are being asked to wish upon a star and face bipolar moodswings of dangerous proportions when Camelot does not return.

It would be better if they won a few games down the stretch. It would be better if the players played to win, healthwise, traditionwise, careerwise. Players who slack off have no business playing against players who give a crap. They get hurt. Winning is something where you create a tradition on every play. We live in a surveillance based authoritarian society where people are routinely pidgeonholed into repressive stereotypes and identities. If they catch you eating twinkies on a play, your career is over. 

They see everything you do. By they I mean future employers. If you have film showing you didn't make plays, how are your future bosses going to be able to trust you to make plays?

So I think our guys are going to have to fend for themselves. Build a tradition of playmaking for themselves. On an individual basis. The team objectives right now are so amorphous and ill-defined the players will be lost. Especially in the bozoism of lose now win later. That is a career threatening attitude, my brothers. You are pro ball players not clowns.

Take pride in yourself and your families. Take pride in your work. Make plays. The fans say to you be a clown for us so we can get somebody better than you in the draft--let it go in one ear and swiftly out the other. To my mind, there is a special place in Hades for that attitude. It is the primary reason we lose in Washington. The grass is always greener, they say, in five years.

Five years has come and gone four times over.

This team could benefit from a hefty dose of George Allen. 

In football, the Future is always NOW. 

What you do NOW creates your future. On every level of the Washington Commanders organization, NOW IS THE TIME to create the future. 

New Owner's Nothing-to-Do-List

There are two teams whose football zeitgeist reminds me of the spirit of the 2023 Washington Commanders. One is the 1999 St. Louis Rams. The other is the 1984 Miami Dolphins. On both of those teams, second year Quarterbacks took their teams to the Super Bowl.

The 1998 Rams were abyssmal. The franchise was like Washington's in trouble. They had a veteran Head Coach in Dick Vermeil who would go 4-12. Vermeil, once George Allen's special teams coach, changed his offensive coordinator, appointing Mike Martz, formerly Quarterbacks coach for the Washington Redskins, to that position.

Former Redskin Trent Green had been the plan at QB. He would quarterback one of Vermeil's Kansas City teams to a 13-3 record. But he was injured. And in strode gunslinger Kurt Warner in only his second year in the League. He tossed 41 touchdowns. Five of those TDs were collected by Marshall Faulk who caught 87 passes and rushed for nearly 1,400 yards. Faulk had changed the rules of football, according to Vermeil.

Martz became Rams Head Coach and for three years torched the league with his offense. Does Eric Bieniemy have the same career track? EB has talented receivers. Like the Rams did. And a pass catching running back. And a second year Quarterback. 

The great Jim Hanifan, coach of the Best Offensive Line in History, the 1991 Washington Redskins, coached the Rams Offensive Line. The jury is still out on this Commanders Offensive line.

Dan Marino tossed 48 TDs in his second year. Led the Dolphins to a 14-2 mark before losing to a 49ers Team people were already calling the Team of the Decade in the Super Bowl. 

Is Sam Howell Dan Marino? Is Sam Howell Kurt Warner? No. But he doesn't have to be. In today's NFL, Sam Howell could toss 48 TDs and still not come close to Marino or Warner. They were sackable pocket passers. Howell is of the RPO Age. But he could put up similar numbers to relatively similar effect.

He's potentially that explosive. I'm saying the NFL may be walking into a minefield with Howell. And Howell has a comparatively better defense.

Yes, he could be a bust. But it doesn't take a lot of guts to make that prediction for any NFL Player. Just as an aside, better football times are going to take some getting used to by the negative Nancies.

This is why I anticipate a soft landing for the New Owner.

He can do a few fan friendly things. But from a football standpoint, for the time being, the Owner has a Nothing to Do List.

Old Coaches Never Die They Just Whip Your Butt

Some people out there are advocating hiring a bambino as the new Commanders Offensive Coordinator. It's the trend in the league. Hiring guys from Kindegarten. 

I remember a silver-haired coach who used to head special teams in Washington. He went on to coach four AFC Champions in the latter half of his sixties.

It isn't as if he was the only one. 

If fire in the belly counts, as Bambino Advocates allege, then surely Dante Scarnecchia, even now, could ignite a playoff run and perhaps can attest to age discrimination as a possible reason he never got a job as Head Coach.

Proponents of youth proclaim neurological decline as a key reason to avoid hiring an older gentleman as coach. Dementia leads to stagnant playcalling.

It is funny. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Happens at any age. I'm reminded of one young Jay Gruden who, according to the immortal Bruce Allen, possessed the "fire in the belly" to be an NFL Head Coach. 

And yet it was Jay who froze himself into the passing game and could not thaw himself out. He was a Bambino. He now thaws considerably as commentator on matters of the gridiron.

Gruden may well yet reverse Dick Vermeil. Vermeil came out of retirement at the youthful age of 61. He was converted to the "Greatest Show on Turf" Cult by passing game Bambino Michael Martz, then prepubescent in his 40s. 

It's a small gridiron. Vermeil, like Marv Levy, coached special teams for the youth-obsessed George Allen. Both of them went to Super Bowls. I knew we should have hired Danny Smith to be head man.

Applying the flip, I could forsee Gruden becoming a championship coach by hiring a Bambino Offensive Coordinator looking to start a running game cult.

Well, I'm obviously not anti-bambino. I'm simply saying there are older coaches who function excellently in the assistant and head coach roles.  

The decisive element is not age. It is competence.