Time is of the Essence

There are structural things in place in the NFL which will retard the progress of the Washington NFL franchise as they construct a new era of football. 

The primary retardant is Time. Time is against them. I would be surprised to learn the New Owners didn't maximize their opportunities to pursue front office personnel. They have had time for research. It is not unreasonable to expect a New GM right off the bat. If not, valuable ticks off the clock will ensue.

Yes, for you clock managers out there, if the Commanders are to do well this offseason clock management will be the thing.

The NFL, at least last I heard, doesn't allow interviews of assistant coaches still in championship contention. For an organization that claims to be a proponent of equal employment opportunity, that's a disgrace. Big name assistants like Ben Johnson may find themselves bereft of opportunities even though they are sought after. 

There are people available for consideration right off the bat for coaching duties. Bill Belichick and Jim Harbaugh being two who could also double as GM. Eric Bieniemy is in the building and should be interviewed as a matter of course. David Shaw is out there. The tempo would thus be just about the same as if you had incumbents in place. Then that would clear a path for a less rushed approach to free agency and the draft.

But before we get to all that, seems like it would be expedient to see a Jacoby Brissett advertisement against Dallas. As part of research for the new era. And as part of Brissett's pay scale elevation cultivation. And if some in the new group want to pass on Brissett, a nice sign and trade may harvest some veteran leadership, offensive or defensive, for next year.

Jacoby comes in and pounds Dallas he's a jewel. 

They pound Dallas and they increase ticket sales for next year. 

They get pounded by Dallas it doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot. Except if it ends up humiliating Sam Howell once again. He doesn't need that. Sam would be eliminated from the conversation and I don't think that would be quite fair given the fact he has had, worts and all, a fairly solid first year starting in the NFL.

To a certain extent, Josh Harris and Company have had a head start in the GM department. In everything else they are pressed for time. 

The final gun in the Dallas game is the starting pistol in a race against Time.

In Theaters January 6th. Rated G for everyone.

Finding Out Too Late

I think the Washington Commanders have found out too late what starting Jacoby Brissett would mean for the football team. It has been a trait of Ron Rivera's run. They find out too late about things.

I grant you it might have been hard to detect when precisely Sam Howell was going to have one of his bounce backs. I am afraid he is out of bounce backs for the year. For a variety of reasons. Sophomore slump. His physical style of play. His relentless studying. He seems to have a fried CNS. Unless he rests, that's Uh-Oh territory both for performance and for injuries.

Brissett ignited the ball team on Christmas Eve bringing the Commanders all the way back from twenty points down to take the lead in the final two minutes. He did so unceremoniously, decisively, and consecutively in a way that left no doubt that EB's offense could cut a defense into chicken nuggets given the right leadership.

That's important to know. It benchmarks the offense. The organic components of the offense begin to resurface and function. While Jacoby Brissett was in the football game, the Washington Commanders blocked well, they passed well, and they ran well. And the Defense took note. Sensing impending victory, the Commander defense woke up and smelled some coffee or was it blood?

Had Brissett been starting from the fifth game of the season onward would the Washington Commanders be in this year's playoffs? I think the answer is Yes. Jack Del Rio would not have been fired and the Commanders would not be out Chase Young and Montez Sweat.

There are fans who wanted those three gone for various reasons. I didn't. But it was bound to happen because the organization typically finds out too late what needs to be done. Strategy wise. Personnel wise. Long game wise. The whole organizational ball of wax.

They have to make their discoveries quicker. 

I vote for Brissett finishing the season as the Starter. Using the 49er and Cowboy games as notecards on whether you keep him AS THE STARTER going into next year. It also gives Jacoby the chance to up the Ante on his services because it is obvious the Commanders WILL have significant if not heated competition for his services. To the point of maybe getting Magic Johnson involved in the contract talks.

There won't be the "develop the QB", "lose to win" brain fog with teams courting Jacoby. They will pay him and play him. They will win with him.

I imagine that is what Robert Saleh told Jacoby as they came off the field yesterday. 

I knew we should have signed you.

Because the Jets would be in the playoffs RIGHT NOW if they had done so.

Five of My Favorite Xmas Tunes

While I am wondering if Santa somehow has the magic in his satchell to gift Sam Howell with three 500 yard passing games to end the 2023 Football Season with a team record 5,000 yards, a little Christmas Cheer might be in order.

1. Favorite Things by John Coltrane

2. In Dulci Jubilo by Mike Oldfield

3. Donde Esta Santa Claus by Augie Rios

4. Linus and Lucy by Vince Guaraldi

5. Feliz Navidad by Happy kyazze featuring Rosco

Merry Christmas one and all.

 

New Team Starts Up in January

Seems like the Washington Commanders don't really do anything substantive until January when most observers believe current head coach Ron Rivera will be relieved of his duties.

That is when the fun begins. The fun ended, if we are to believe Montez Sweat, and I don't see why not, with the Chicago Bears decapitation of the Rivera Regime a while back.

There are a few games left to be played during the which I expect the Commanders to be the exhibition team otherwise known as the Washington Generals. Old timers may recall that the Generals were the team the Harlem Globetrotters always whipped in their sports entertainment exhibition games.

In basketball, the Generals were the equivalent of the Three Stooges. Some Globetrotter tricks were performed off their foreheads. Slapstick basketball.

With the Washington NFL franchise, a routine transformation takes place around this time of the football year when their pretense of being a professional football team is entirely shed in favor of becoming the league's practice dummies. 

The Football version of the Washington Generals.

I'm sure the Rams have sent Ron Rivera a honey-do list detailing the schemes they'd like to test their guys against. Maybe they have a play they want to bounce off the forehead of Casey Toohill. Maybe they want to fine tune their double moves versus Forbes.

Maybe a circus performance would be sufficient motivation for the Commanders but I doubt it. I was hoping EB had some entertaining trick plays. Maybe The Green Bay Sweep. The Statue of Liberty play. The Richard Nixon Play. The Swinging Gate.

I was thinking a return to 1966 might be fun. With Sam Howell doing his best Jurgy and McLaurin making like Bobby Mitchell.

But nothing fun is about to happen because, as Sweat pointed out, they are just waiting for the end of the season. 

There is no reason to watch them then. It is garbage yards, garbage points, and garbage games from this point forward. It brings back memories of Bill Callahan and Terry Robiskie. 

Got to find something else to occupy my time with on Sundays . . . again.

The End of an Era But Obligatory Losing Still Entrenched

It is over for the 2023 Washington Franchise. With so much up in the air, there just is no stable footing for the players.

People talking about leaving. No one knows who the coaches will be. The ETA on winning has been postponed for God knows how long. Some say the team nickname will change again.

They were closer to winning at the start of this year. Now, with an anticipated roster purge, how much of the "core group of guys" will be left? If your leaders are talking about leaving where are your leaders going to come from? 

They are now farther away from winning. If only for the probability they will be asking a boatload of first-timers to play like seasoned veterans next year and maybe beyond.

The New Coach will have some recruiting to do. If he or she can't convince Payne, Allen, and McLaurin to stick around, that'll probably mean winning will be out of the question in 2024.

If the New Coach has a roster of system guys, vets who have played the incoming schemes, to do some leading and player coaching, and Sam Howell is kept, maybe they surprise people.

Joe Gibbs had a core group leftover from Jack Pardee. He had Theismann and Riggins and Butz. He had George Starke, Doc Walker, Neal Olkewicz, and Monte Coleman. Young Art Monk was a rookie on the 1980 team. Gibbs kept a few coaches.

The team has needs pretty much everywhere on defense and on the offensive line. That list of needs could expand if players who don't want to stick around for more obligatory losing are granted their wishes to seek deals elsewhere.

It's a shame. It really is a no-win scenario. It will take a great amount of skill at Lego to put a winning team together in time to keep the old Redskin fan base. I think that's a losing proposition, if you pardon the pun. 

It makes sense to try to start from scratch with a new fan base.

And that's what it looks like. They will be building a new fan base AND a new franchise. That's why I'm not ruling out the owners moving the team. The Prime NFL Viewing Age Group in Washington knows nothing but habitual losing. Somewhere fresh does not have that mental handicap.

For that, a good model would be the Carolina Panthers 1995 expansion team.

They were truly starting from scratch.

The Panthers stole a bit from George Allen's script. That 95 team brought in some wiley veterans. They went 7-9 their first year and 12-4 the next. 

Maybe something similar can happen with this Washington Franchise.

Origin Stories: Whomp Butt Carry Water

You know how when the Hollywood Gordon Geckoes want to milk more money from a tired old movie franchise they reboot it with an origin story?

This is something the NFL has no clue about. They just play out the scripts the sportswriters compose for them. Anybody who forgets their lines gets verbally abused by the media until they "execute". 

We cast you as a bum, stick to the script.

So far, the Commanders haven't forgotten their lines. They're following the media's instructions even though the writers of the script are headed for a world-historical harvest of Razzies. 

The Commanders are now tanking. Even though the franchise has tanked so much in the past thirty years a Titanic level failure is possible. This is where it is unimportant how well the movie is doing. They're shutting down the theatres.

If they keep writing this script, they are going to shut down Washington as a "theatre of operations" for the NFL. I don't care what they say. The people who talk about tanking have something against football in Washington. Deep down they don't want it here. Perhaps it's the haute couture they look to replace football with. Maybe they'd settle for Madden Tournaments. Hosted by Kate Upton. Played to Mozart Concertos. Vaping allowed.

This particular limbo situation the Washington Commanders are in lends itself nicely to media poopstorms of outrageous proportions. Ron Rivera is an already fired Zombie Coach, dead in the water, as is Eric Bieniemy, the foul-mouthed genius. The players are not "elite" and the search for a Flash Gordon Quarterback, like Quixote's search for the Windmill, goes on.  

We've seen that movie so many times before in Washington. It is the same people leading the way. Carrying torches. Looking for the Frankenstein monster. 

Their football model doesn't work. It never has. It is a vision problem. They can't see anything but sewage. 

The only reason to write about media instigated crap is somehow it gets into a locker room. The players start hallucinating the same sewage the media is tripping over.

I'm talking about a self-imaging system. Where do you see yourself in five years type of thing. Poor self-image contributes to poor performance in life and in football. To put it differently, your mental reps, in a poor imaging system, are mainly nightmares. Not visions of touchdowns. Precise execution. Dates with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Hefting the Lombardi Trophy.

Those horror movies are written by scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! 

Maybe the Commanders don't know they can write their own scripts. Some of these young guys on the team may not know it but they are writing their origin story. My legend began that fateful day against the Miami Dolphins when I knocked the ball out and took it in for the Touch. And the Fans went wild. Both of them!

I mean the two who knew my name. Now there will be more of them.

I'm enamored with the Many Worlds Theory as of late. Each of these Washington Commander Players, afflicted by bad writing from outside the locker room, is creating his world minute by minute. He wants a world that takes care of him and his family. The story of that world has to be an autobiography. Or else you're living in somebody else's house playing by somebody else's rules. And most of them don't like you.

Yes they're worlds unto themselves. How does that fit playing as a team? How can many worlds lead to One World Government?

First of all, what team? There is no team. The coach is gone. The owner is doing research in the library. The end of the season seems to be the point at which the Washington Whatsamahcallits come into existence. Nothing of much importance will happen before then.

Well, if it's all the same to you, and it really isn't important to you until 2025 or 2026, you shouldn't mind much if these guys rewrote their lines to the point where the story is all about their having the times of their lives WHOMPING BUTTS?!?!

I mean, you are quantum-jumping to the end anyway, right?

 

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. 

Losing is a Being

I detest losing to the Dallas Cowboys. They are hands down the most disrespectful, entitled group of horse hockey jocks ever to damn a football field with their excrescences. They have egos like swole dog ticks that explode when you pick them off.

Losing to them means we are corpses.

Ergo, we in Commanders Land are less than exploding dog ticks.

Losing is a being. It has a life of its own. It is like a flash mob created by an internet lie. It is a living parasite. It is an egregore. An esprit de corps. A mass delusion. A mass hysteria. A group hallucination. It is expectorated by a culture of talking heads who leverage their victims into no-win scenarios. It is a tautology. Beings of losing are the children of no-win scenarios. 

It is a bad case of situational football. And the situation was bad to begin with. Lame duck coaches. Players who work like temps with "I'm just a temp" attitudes.

How can you sell a football team to a fanbase that knows the players and coaches are all from the Temp Agency? They are like guest stars in a bad movie.

This is how the team playing football in Washington, perhaps inevitably, becomes annually the official practice dummies of the National Football League. 

Which in a sense is good because the Dallas Cowboy Community is now gilding its own lilly by bragging about beating a team of practice dummies and are about to suggest its turkey leg chomping sashay through the Washington Commanders indicates they are Super Bowl Bound. 

No. It indicates the onset of a viral case of self-love that does not relent until the annual first round playoff bubble burst the Cowpokes routinely suffer. It is their karma. It is what they get when they brag they are the football Gods now. Like the Queen in Clash of the Titans.

 Source: MovieAndGameClips

That's funny. In Ten Days, Hades releases the Kraken.

That's exactly how much time the Commanders have to release their Kraken.

Do they have a Kraken to release?

Beats me. It seems they have been hypnotized by the Losing Being. The Team seems to have been demonically possessed by the narrative the Sports Moutheratis have composed for them. Guest stars in bad movies always get the worst lines. The Commanders could all be up for Golden Raspberries. NFL Officiating is up for Worst Actor in a Drama Series.

But its all on the NFL and its Media. They're the script writers. And its all depressing BS. It is way past time Washington tore up those scripts. They're stupid. Tedious. Annoying. WRONG. Little better than bathroom wall writing. We get it, slicks. They're not supposed to win. They haven't been supposed to win for years. We understand. It's a damn show. You want the Stars to win big ratings. The Pretty Boys Rule.

We Commanders fans don't think it's a damn show. We think it's a damn fight.

The NFL sticks to its storylines. Only Pro Wrestling does it better. 

Sometimes though you got to be like Bret Hart. You got to hate the Pretty Boy. Tear up the stinkin script and lay waste to everything that stands.  

The scripts written by the NFL and its cognoscenti are toilet paper. You've heard the old saying I wipe my hands of the situation? 

I recommend the Commanders wipe their butts of the situation in the best sense of situational football. In demonstrative appreciation of the literary value of NFL scripts. 

Just tear up the stinkin scripts every swinging guy every swinging play.

The Team Wins You Win

The Big Blue Bugaboo is coming to Washington again. And the Commanders, despite the historical record, are ten point favorites.

I hate to bring this up but Norv Turner was fired one really bleak Sunday after losing to the New York Football Giants. With all the clamoring for Ron Rivera's head in Washington, it is hard not to get flashbacks to the time when Rivera's friend and mentor, who he coached with in San Diego, was axed by the football equivalent of Emperor Nero.

We don't want a repeat. Not even on December 3, the precise anniversary of that dark day for football.

Washington has tended to get stuck in development hell. Rivera's tenure in D.C. mirrors in some respects the careers of Turner, Shanahan, and Gruden in that he's gotten stuck in neutral, guns the motor, and goes nowhere.

What got lost in all those regimes was the fact that winning is part of development. Some might say it is the final phase. Nothing is final in the NFL. But there are things that winning does to the psychology of a football team that spurs growth and improves performance. 

It beats me what is retarding the progression to winning in Washington. If I had to guess, it would be the veritable lame-duck status of Ron Rivera and his staff. That it is stultifying things on a subconscious level. That is a hard level to clear out. 

The players they say are going to check out. The theory of money motivation implies they SHOULD not check out. Winning tends to improve salaries as well as performances. Winning, to put it another way, takes your game to another level and takes your salary along with it. Theoretically, this idea should keep you motivated.

It isn't just individual greed we're talking about. Winning is a team concept. The team wins you win. Smart selfishness behooves one to contribute to Team Harmony. Sometimes this means relenting on your preconceived notions. And Coaches need to play as a team as well as players. Offense, Defense, Special Teams are a mutual aid society. Or they aren't a team.

To some extent, recognition is needed. Recognize you don't have all the time in the world. This staff to this point has lacked recognition. From the actual football game, what needs to be done when, to the status of the roster, in the areas of the offensive line and linebacking, to the feasibility of certain schemes in relation to who it is you actually have on your roster. 

Do you have a defense that can stay on the field for 70 plus plays? Do you have an offense that can do nothing but pass? How do the answers to these questions impact the two? How is it related to playing as a team?

There's the idea that we need to pass the ball to develop the Quarterback. Are we ready to recognize that there is little else the Quarterback can do in the regular season to prove his mettle? The Playoffs are the only venue where we can learn anything more this year about the Quarterback. Or anybody else. Coach or player.

Waiting until next year isn't going to help the Quarterback develop. The Team winning will. Is it smart selfishness to pass the ball relentlessly and lose pretty or run the ball a little and win, sometimes ugly, sometimes going away?

Can we afford to fail to recognize the physical facts of football? Offenses benefit from lots of plays. Defenses benefit from less plays. Shootouts require lots of plays from the Defense. To some extent shootouts are inevitable and reguire performances above and beyond the norm from the defense. But shootouts should not be artificially induced. You end up wearing your defense out mentally and physically.

These coaches have won before. They've been to and won Super Bowls. Jack Del Rio was on that Cowboy team that turned the corner in 1991. Ron Rivera was the defensive coordinator of Norv Turner's 13-3 San Diego Squad. Teams can and do emerge from development hell into football heaven.

Somebody is telling these players they have all the time in the world. That's not true. Now is the time. 

Now is ALWAYS the time.

 

Play Playoff Football

Two things the Commanders are missing are defense and the running game. 

Those two things weigh pretty heavy when playoffs roll around. Washington has seven games left to develop some semblance of a running game and a defense to mount a playoff push. It isn't impossible to do. I know some probably think it is useless to try. Some are way too eager to pitch the coaching staff into the trash. 

It is the best thing for the team to make a playoff run. There will be guys from this year's team who will be retained. They need the experience. How big for Sam Howell's career would a playoff appearance be in his first year starting? 

Sam has performed well in tough situations and in difficult NFL venues. It all bodes well for the future. But being in the playoffs would jack his progress up even further. 

The ball circulation was good against Seattle. The passing game was effective. That was good and bad. The Seahawks ran 74 plays. They can't run 74 plays if they don't have the ball. The Defense is responsible for keeping them off the field. But there are teams we play that can beat ANY defense. 

So for this team I'm going to say TEAM DEFENSE is most effective and part of team defense is RUNNING THE FOOTBALL. 

I don't want to get blue in the face with this. It is hard to run when the passing game is working so well. You can't in some respects be in rythym in the passing game if you don't pass. Yet, you also want to get your team into the winnability zone. Recognize when your defense is having issues. Give them time to freshen up, cogitate, adjust, and restore.

Keeping in mind that big plays in the passing game often come when the defense respects your running game. If you don't run at all the likelihood of taking the top off the defense is not very good. Long pass plays to McLaurin, Dotson, and Brown become possible when the blocked artery to the running game is opened up. They should be making shocking TD grabs on top of the defense post running game effectiveness. So shocking it makes you sneeze and spill the popcorn all over your wife. Fifty plus yard plays. Surprise Jack in the Box TDs.

Another defensive quality to the running game is its propensity to make the opposing offense "antsy". You are asking your opponent to hurry their big plays. Here is where the turnovers come. Patience is a highly valuable skill in football and on offense in particular. Hurried, forced throws, panic to make a play. Picked off! Fumble! That's when it happens. You make your opponent impatient on offense. It's mental play action. The offense overpursues. That's good defense. And you turn that screw, you lobotomize your opponent's patience, at least in part, with the running game.

That sense of futility so heavy in losing football sets in with each passing first down. We need to get the ball back. We're two scores down. We're three scores down. The clock is running out. Damn, that's ball game. I didn't touch the ball the whole third quarter. Frustrating as hell.

Like Mark Schlereth was saying this past week: That's on the inside of guys. You are beating them in their guts. 

It's not something you force. You feel your way. Maybe you run off a boot. Find a way to turn circulatory passing into circulatory running. Maybe a draw that was looking like a screen. If you have to put whip cream on it to get you thinking about it do it. It helps with marriages and with running the ball.

Dollars to donuts, if the Commanders develop the run, they will develop their defense. 

I thought at the beginning of the year, the Commander Defense might have trouble playing with a scoring offense. It is not like playing with a ball control offense. When you have plenty time off to restore and strategize. It is plain they weren't ready for their own offense being this competent.

They were ready scheme wise. The 4-2-5? Suggests they were expecting some shoot-outs. But as Shakespeare once said: The play is the thing. And the play is a living, corpuscular, muscle memory type deal. Like swimming in the ocean, you don't know what you are in for until the Captain throws you overboard. 

It is ironic. To make the playoffs, the Commanders will have to learn to run the ball and play defense. Which to my mind is perfect.

That is what EVERYBODY will have to do to win in the playoffs. 

It's a tautology, I'm sorry. But to make the playoffs you have to play playoff football.

To ask them not to play playoff football just to get rid of the coaches is asking them to suck and get into the habit of sucking. As a carryover to next year. So Josh Harris can suck.

The habit of sucking is an intergenerational curse just as the habit of making the playoffs is an intergenerational blessing.

Scheming the Seattle-Washington Game

This Seahawks-Commanders game figures to be a bare-knuckle bout interesting only to football is a game of inches type fans. I'm one of those type guys. 

It's Sumo Wrestling with a medicine ball. Boring. Watching paint dry. Taking bets on which needs a sports bra.

I really would like to see the Commanders make a run at the Playoffs and if they make the Playoffs make a run at the Super Bowl. I don't like all this Ron Rivera is gone talk. I mean, if Rivera and Del Rio are going, I'd like to see them go out as close to on-top as possible. Like Dick Vermeil did in St. Louis when he also had a crackerjack Offensive Coordinator.

Because if any of that happens, Sam Howell is almost certainly having a great second half of the season. Sam playing great is a good omen for the future heading into full Josh Harris mode.

Look at the defenses he will have faced. Philadelphia, New England, Dallas, Seattle, San Francisco. That's the best the League has to offer. And to get to the playoffs, Sam will have had to beat a few of them.

I don't know what his chances are against Seattle. Noisy place to play. Historically good defense, especially against the pass. Eric Bieniemy's last encounter with Pete Carroll and the Hawks was last year in K.C., a 24-10 Chiefs Win. It wasn't the typical Chiefs explosion on offense. Seattle had time of possession in their favor. 

That was the way to beat the Chiefs. Dominate time of possession and run the football. Limit Mahomes' touches. The Hawks did that but still lost. Might Pete Carroll attempt the same against Eric Bieniemy again? Keep Sam off the field? Keep the no-name Washington defense on the field? Or is it once bitten, twice shy?

The Hawks may try to pass more given Washington's recent loss of semi-superstars Chase Young and Montez Sweat. Geno Smith no doubt is looking to match D.K. Metcalf up against Emmanuel Forbes. Metcalf has a 233 pound advantage. If Washington does not generate pressure, Geno should have time to wait for Metcalf to finish bullying Forbes, get open, and make the play.

Just kidding. Forbes should busy himself with Tyler Lockett. Lockett only outweighs him by 182 pounds. Which gives Forbes the advantage. It is Lockett's first game against lighter-than-air aircraft.

Ordinarily I'd recommend running against the Hawks. There are two problems with that. They were massacred on the ground against the Ravens. That probably means they were overtrained on run fits this past week. Number Two, EB doesn't run the ball that much. It would be good. It would help take that decibel level down a bit in that raucous Seahawk stadium. But I would not expect the Commanders to duplicate the Ravens numbers on the ground this week.

The best scenario for Washington is to continue to excel at ball-circulation and sprinkle in enough running game to keep the defense honest. On defense, they will have to stop the run. If the Hawks get that going, the play action to Metcalf would just be devastating. It is a good breakout game opportunity for Washington's new pass rushers.

And I'd say rush Jon Allen at end on occasion.

I'd say the key to a win for the Hawks is run the ball, control the clock, try to regress Sam in the sack department and force three and outs. Keep the crowd in the game with fantastical celebrations.

The Commanders should continue the progress they made toward integrating the running game from last week. They need to stop Walker. They need tight coverage in the secondary and some coverage sacks at least from the defense. A few unmitigated blow up sacks by the D-Line would help. 

The Seahawks really have a lot of their destiny in their own hands. They soon play the Rams and two Niner games and could lock up their division if they sweep those games. They wouldn't have to beat Washington. 

The Marquee items for this game are: Can Sam Howell have a third consecutive good game? Can the Defense rush the passer? Can E.B. tolerate adding a run ingredient to his stew? 

And does Joey Slye kick a 62-yarder?

 

Howell Facing Another NFL Defensive Genius in Seattle

Sam Howell did well in his chess game against Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. He suffered an attack of Captain Jack Sparrow greed in the Red Zone that one time where he threw the stupid pick. But he survived the indignity and led the team to a Vic. 

He's now beaten New England and Denver on the road. Two places that are usually all hell on away teams.

There is another guy who likes to make Quarterbacks look stupid in Seattle, home of the Washington Commanders' next opponent, the Seahawks. He is the winner of both the College Football National Championship and the Super Bowl. Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll. The man who sculpted the Legion of Boom defense.

Needless to say, Seattle is another difficult place for away teams. Commanders fans may hope Seattle is looking ahead to division games against the Rams and 49ers. Everybody's darlings, the 49ers, were earmarked for an unobstructed waltz to the Super Bowl, but at present they are tied with, you guessed it, the Seattle Seahawks for first place in the NFC West.

The Hawks have had a little trouble stopping the run these last three games. They've won two and lost one but the loss, this past week's bad day at the office against the Ravens, they gave up two long runs and 298 yards rushing. Lamar Jackson, the Ravens Flash Gordon QB, only had 60 of those yards. Ravens RBs were over 200 on the day. 

Here's a look at those last three games:

Seattle versus Baltimore, Stats

Seattle versus Cleveland, Stats 

Seattle versus Arizona, Stats

Washington is a 6-point dog to the Seahawks. 

The Trading Post

Halloween was a big day for the Washington Commanders. 

They went to the trading post and swapped Montez Sweat to Chicago and Chase Young to Frisco for second and third round picks. 

It is likely Chase Young will take off like a rocket in Frisco. I did not get the impression Chase wanted to be here. Some of the complaints about him letting up at the end of plays suggests that. I think he will put much different film on record in San Francisco and set personal records in sacks and pressures. 

He certainly is much closer to the Super Bowl now. And so are the Niners.

Fans of the Chicago Bears seem disappointed they didn't get Chase Young but you could argue they got the more productive player in Montez Sweat. He is the consummate professional. If he doesn't produce, it is on the Bears.

So what now for the Commanders?

From recent history, we know that with James Smith-Williams and Casey Toohill Jack Del Rio's defense played better ball when Young and Sweat were not available.

You get the feeling the story of Chase Young in D.C. is the old cliche story of the Superstar versus the System. The Trophy Wife who tells her husband "You don't understand me". That Chase wasn't a lunchpail type dude and Smith-Williams and Toohill are lunchpail dudes. 

A lunchpail dude follows instructions. The Superstar freelances. And both Ron Rivera and Del Rio were lunchpail dudes when they were players. 

Sweat was a lunchpail dude. He was a self-starter. Self-starting is often missing in the Superstar. Unless and until the Superstar feels "understood" which for Chase is probably going to happen in Frisco. He's going to be a six-million dollar man. Bigger, stronger, faster. Hustling to the end. 

But the question remains where is the pressure going to come from in JDR's defense? Well, as an aside, where was the pressure going to come from prior to this? It was nowhere near what it should have been.

I think people will like Toohill. The idea of "pursuit" used to be key when you talked defense. Toohill pursues to the end. He has caught dudes you wouldn't think he could catch. Toohill and Smith-Williams are both smart players and should satiate whatever desire the Coaches have for players who "do their jobs".

Playing Jon Allen some at End I would argue would be as effective as playing Sweat or Young. They have Ridgeway and Mathis at tackle to work with Daron Payne. They could have a D-Line that is three-quarters Crimson Tide.

My guess is the pressure will be much improved. But we will see.

New York Giants Part Two: Eagles to Shut Out Commanders

It does not appear much has changed in the approach of the Washington Commanders coaching staff with regard to their sack infested offensive performances. They may start a new center. That's it.

No talk of screens. Running game. Extra blockers. Change at Quarterback.

Meaning the Procrustean Bed Pass-Only commitment to braining Sam Howell appears permanent, making this Eagles game a replica of the previous week's debacle versus the New York Football Giants.

Pass-only is an anti-competitive stance for this Commander team to take. It makes it easy on the opposing defense, especially with a QB mired in one of the deadliest syndromes for an NFL Quarterback to get into: Not getting rid of the ball quick enough.

It defies logic to the point of clown-level absurdity to pass the football with a slow-release QB. Actually, I would go so far as to say the Washington Commanders are forfeiting their season, if not Sam Howell's career, by being a pass only offense.

They are quitting.

If that's not bad enough, there is way too much rumor-milling swirling about this team. No doubt a bizarre motion sickness is settling in. 

And yet even more bizarre than the Washington Commanders' limbo type situation is the state of the National Football League in general where every team on occasion plays like a collection of sterno bums, awash in alcohol induced incompetence, getting yelled at by Pauly, Rocky Balboa's brother in law.

Based on that Halloweenish High Strangeness infecting the league this year, one might expect the Eagles, as the visiting drunken sterno bums from Rocky Balboa's home town, to cough up the ball game in a startling display of delirium tremens. 

Afterall, Philadelphia is also the hometown of one M. Night Shyamalan. Strange things happen in Night Shyamalan's Philadelphia. 

One might surmise that Sam Howell is this game's David Dunn, an unbreakable football hero, ready to tear his team out of a wrecked car. Who with the Eagles would be Mr. Glass? Jalen Hurts? Nick SIrianni? Reuben Frank?

It is Sam's unbreakability that has deluded the Commanders into thinking he can take the pounding. But the thing is he is taking a mental pounding. The fog of war is sludging up his decisionmaking. And he has no option but to conclude it is all on him because it is. There is no running game. There is just Unbreakable Sam. 

The only guy the Eagles have to worry about. Everybody else has been benched by the playcalling.

Did the Commanders make enough adjustments this week on the offensive line? Did Sam study pre-snap film? Is the defense too distracted by trade rumors to bother caring about coming to play against the Eagles?

It just seems a lot to overcome. 

Eagles over Commanders.

35-0.

Unless . . . something strange happens.

Whamsical Thoughts: How to Run the Football

Both the existence of the running game as an aspect of Pro Football and the question of whether the Washington Football Commanders CAN run the football are reviewed in these Whammy Videos preparing the Magic Mojo for the upcoming Philadelphia Eagles football contest. 

From an archaeological standpoint, this bibliography features proof of the existence of the running game in the game of American Football and proof that members of the 2023 Washington Commanders squad are aware of and have indeed dared to show their faces in running the football at the NFL Level:

2005: Washington at Philadelphia, Box, featuring Clinton Portis

1983: Philadelphia at Washington, Box, featuring John Riggins and Joe Washington. 

1985: Washington at Philadelphia, Box, featuring George Rogers

1996: Eric Bieniemy verus Pittsburgh featuring Eric Bieniemy

2022: B-Rob versus the Schedule, featuring Brian Robinson Jr.

2022-2023: Antonio Gibson, featuring Antonio Gibson

Running the Ball, featuring A.P. and E.B.

After checking with the League Office in New York, replay confirms it is still LEGAL to run the football in the NFL.

The Self-Realization of the Washington Commanders: Time for Jacoby and the Running Game

It is time for the Washington Commanders to start Jacoby Brissett at Quarterback. He should remain the starter for the rest of the year.

The Commanders have to run the ball, control the clock, and play defense. There has been enough development of Sam Howell. He is developing into a ruined Quarterback. That development has to be arrested. The only way he stops getting sacked is by sitting him, preferably for the remainder of the year. It may be the only way to avoid breaking him permanently. He's starting to look like Carson Wentz.

This is not a pass only team. It is not even a pass first team. It hasn't been built that way. This is not Kansas City.

There is no choice. If you want to honor the Jon Allens, the Daron Paynes, the Terry McLaurins of the world, you play to win, not develop. These guys have been here too long for you to tell them we're developing. They need coaches that play to win and design gameplans that give them the best chance to win.

The best chance for this team to win is running the ball and playing defense. It is easier to run block than pass block. The Offensive Line is struggling in the pass block department AND Howell is struggling getting the ball out. 

This is not Brisset's first rodeo. He won't be "seeing things for the first time". He will likely make a better presnap read than Howell. That may make him a second or two faster.

I'm not saying do not pass. I'm saying don't pass every stinking play. Especially when you're not good enough at QB or O-Line to do that. I'm saying a good run game is good for the passing game. No running game means the defense can blitz like hell. 

The Offensive Gameplan the Commanders played against the New York Football Giants won't win one single game left on the schedule. There is a symbiotic relationship between elevated sacks and lack of running game. 

The O-Line needs help. Two-tight ends. Two backs. A running game. Screen game. A veteran QB. Maybe playing young hungry guys. These are not space cadet things only parting the Red Sea can accomplish. They're grounded concrete things you can do to address the problems facing the Commanders Offense.   

This particular team was just not built to be the Kansas City Chiefs. It was built to run the ball and play defense. 

That's closer to who they are than what we see now.

Does the Yo-Yo Stop in New York?

The Washington Commander New York Giant contest is a difficult game to pick. I want the Commanders to win, but I'm inclined to pick New York.

Because . . . I look at what the Commanders should do and ask myself "what is the likelihood they will do these things?"

I never seem to get a good answer to that question. 

They need to run the ball against the Giants BY DESIGN. As part of the Game Plan. I don't have faith they will do that. I hope I'm surprised. I have low expectations in that regard. My impression is the Giants will be grateful for the one-dimensional aspect to Washington's offense. It would be like Christmas Morning.

They'll be able to tee off on Sam Howell. Kayvon Thibodeaux may come up big.

I'd be interested to know what the receivers do in scramble drills for the Commanders. Maybe the only script they have is come back to the QB. 

Conversely, the defense needs to stop the run. They did not stop the Giants running game last year. Saquon Barkley is back. The Commanders need to muck up his running lanes. Get the Giants off the field and use the running game to keep them off. 

How likely are they to do that? If they are serious about winning, my feeling is they better run the ball and that pretty quickly. You run the ball to win in the playoffs. They're not in the playoffs? Look at the schedule. They are in the playoffs right now.

Two of the most perplexing mysteries in Washington this year: No running game and poor defensive performances.

We often heard the refrain, "the players have been in this defense for four years". They need to play like an experienced defense. They showed some knowledge in the Falcons game. Did they forget what they know this week?

They need to play different fronts and different coverages. Bring the blitz on occasion. Play smart. This means using your experienced guys. People who've been here and know the score. They're less likely to forget how to play football. They are a LOT LESS likely to forget their roles in the "system". As a result, there are less mistakes.

A little bit of George Allen goes a long way.

Part of the reason this has been a Yo-Yo team in the Rivera era is that they never seem to find and make use of what they do well, running, passing, defense, and instead focus mostly on the "sociological development" of the players. 

The effect is that they give off the impression they are a developmental league team. Stuck in Pop Warner. Practice dummies for "developed" football teams.

The reality is, for this team, the FUTURE IS NOW. Whether they know it or not.

So last week, I picked them to lose and they won. Maybe that's the way to go.

New York over Washington, 39-38.

 

 

Falcons Upchuck Game Mentally, Commanders Face Giant Nemesis

The Atlanta Falcons had opportunities to win their Commanders contest, but blew each individual opportunity in turn. But for the mental incongruity of the Falcons, the Washington Commanders would be 2-4 today.

Fiesty Jack Del Rio haunted the Falcon Offense into a dysfunctional neurosis with his Wile E. Coyote Gameplan. Demonically shifting fronts. Bringing blitzes. Playing unsung heroes. Confining young Desmond Ridder to anemic garbage yards and mucking the Falcon running game up enough to keep them out of sync.

JDR was the cause of the Falcon mental dyspepsia. Special commendations to Casey Toohill and Khaleke Hudson. Both should be awarded a start against the Giants as a reward.

The Commander Offense gave the comeback kid Falcons the ball back too many times. It is essential this young offense learns to run the football and WHEN to run it. Up 24-10 is a good time to run the football. Instead they pass.

I'm not saying ONLY run the football. Knowing when to run it is an art. Knowing the benefits it brings is on the coaching staff. Desmond Ridder threw for over 300. The Falcons lost the ball game. They ran 29 times. They should have run it 40.

It is a league wide addiction to the pass we're talking about here.

The New York Football Giants present a spiritual threat to the existence of the Washington Commanders. They know no shame in destroying Redskin-Commander seasons. It is for them something of a "speciality". 

A quick glance at their season thus far suggests the Commanders might want to try "running the football". However, I'm not expecting the Commanders to attempt the obvious. 

On the other hand, the Giants might want to attempt the obvious against the Commanders, whatwith the shifty mercurial presence of Saquon Barkley and the Staubach-like irritants Jones and Taylor. 

No it isn't Staubach's Coffee. Nor was Roger Staubach Roger Starback as we pronounced it as kids when we played Cowboys and Redskins in the old schoolyard. Blocking punts into the road, the ball getting stuck in Old Man Blankenship's undercarriage.

The Giants knew enough to run the ball against the Buffalo Bills, who run a similar defensive scheme to Washington's and nearly beat the Bills in the waning moments of their contest yesterday. 

The Commanders need to include Madman Nick Gates in the D-Line meetings this week so he can infuse the defense with his vaunted wisdom regarding the blocking schemes of the New York Football Giants. Maybe plug Gates in at the Nose in the Cinco formation. Washington will have to play even better run defense against the G-Men than they did against the Falcons. 

Once again, Jack Del RIo will have to gum up an NFL Offense's engine.

So, by way of preview, let's review those two startling football games against the G-Men last year:

First Encounter, Stats

Second Encounter, Stats

And this year's evidence against the Giants:

2023 Common Opponent Cardinals

2023 Common Opponent Bills 

49ers versus Giants, Best Defense against the G-Men

Falcons Over Commanders

I would ordinarily pick the Commanders in every game. I'm a Washington fan and I want them to win. Every time. This game with the Atlanta Falcons is no exception.

But a lot has to happen. I'm having a crisis of faith that it will happen. 

This particular Washington Coaching Staff, which I love to death, has a penchant for rock slides that spoil seasons that at first blush had potential. They seemed to get past the slides last year, starting 7-5. But they helped themselves to a slide that didn't end until they beat Dallas in a meaningless game in the season finale.

This staff has up and down years. The Defense is good one year, bad the next. This 2023 Team has been a yo-yo so far this year. 

They lost horribly last week. The Yo-Yo Predilection dictates a return to glory against the Falcons. But this team is reminding me of the 2021 Washington squad that started 2-6. I think they will duplicate that start this year. 

Why? I don't see them winning in Atlanta, although they'll play better. I don't see them beating a New York Giants team they haven't figured out how to beat yet, in the Big Apple no less. That's a rout for the Giants. They'll play better against the Eagles, but the Eagles will win. That's 2-6

New England will blow them out. Seattle will win in OT. The Giants will blow them out. The Cowboys will beat them on a Hail Mary. Tua and the Dolphins will desecrate them. They will be 2-11 by the bye week.

The rest of the season is 2-2. They play better against the Rams. They get blown out by the Jets. They beat the 49ers second string. They beat Dallas in another meaningless season ender.

That's 4-13. That's where this slide is going. Unless something happens. We're not talking minor changes. There has to be a shift. They have to do something they haven't done in the Rivera era. Win consistently. This doesn't look like a different team than we've seen the past four years. This looks like a typical slide infested Washington team. 

The coaching staff looks defeated. Washington has beaten them. They look too hang dog to me to be capable of inspiring guys. I hope they prove me wrong. But we're not half way through a long season and they're still having first year coaching issues. They've erased the blackboard too many times. 

Atlanta wins 44-40. The Commanders lose the game outright and fail to beat the spread. 

I'm hoping the reverse happens. But I don't like the trends.

Whammsical Thoughts

The Falcons don't have a whammy game posted on their Channel. It doesn't look like the whammies are working much anyway.

I don't really think Thursday Night Games tell you much about NFL Teams. For too many reasons to list. They are kind of sleazy rip-offs. Like showing up to an NBA Game and they're playing three-man basketball.

In the old days, the way you ended losing streaks was you concentrated on fundamentals. Blocking. Tackling. Route running. Watching film. Going to your bread and butters. Doing plain and simple measurable hard work. 

In the old days, they didn't know how to rest. They didn't think much about CNS overload. These days you have to REST hard. The mental aspect of the game has come front and center. If you are psychologically burned out, your CNS is shot, you most likely are beaten before you take the field. 

Who wants to play football with a shot CNS? It makes you stupid. You do stupid things. You suffer what they call in therapy land "overwhelm". I'm thinking of early Kirk Cousins here. 

Cousins had a lot of brains.

And the more brains you have the more you overthink and every stinking thought weighs two tons and you carry that weight and they expect you to cover a guy who runs a 4.3 forty and outweighs you by forty pounds.

That's another thing they did in the old days. We have old guys coaching in Washington. That's why I'm talking about the old days. They would, the geezers, because they're so much smarter than you, SIMPLIFY things for YOU SIMPLETONS, so you would play faster.

It is like your potted plant when it becomes root-bound. The scheme, which is supposed to be your support structure, starts eating your brain. Paralysis sinks in.

It is also called Brainlock or Brainfreeze. Like Mitch McConnell or Joe Biden. The Brain freezes. Because there is too much in it. Too much multi-tasking. You're juggling too many things on the honey-do lists Geezer Coaches have given you.

This is the type mentality that makes you forget your drills. You forget your second nature tasks. Tackling. Blocking. Ball security. Creating turnovers. Tip drills. Mental reps. You can't imagine yourself picking off a pass, sacking the QB, or making that TD grab. So you don't.

It's mental reps where you can do some refueling of your passion for the game. This is where remedial reading comes in. Things like retrocognition, retrocausation, memory reconsolidation. The rewind technique. You give up a TD where you went for the pick and the other guy beats you for the ball. You rewind and see yourself making the play. You know what you should have done. Rewind right away and do it right. Over and over. Preferably to inspirational music.

Or put your greatest football hits on the TV and watch and rewatch. 

You study film you see a guy on the other team beating guys all over the league. See yourself while you study disrupting the guy. You take the ball away. You make the tackle. You go in for six. See yourself making something happen. Get your feel for the game back. 

Now it could be the Geezer Coaches for the Washington Commanders are past their primes. To the point even football viagra can't revive them. Old dogs who refuse to learn new tricks. They feel their past accomplishments entitles them to their positions. Even if they are not aware of it, they feel they have nothing to prove to you. In denial about whether the game has passed them by.

It could be. Jack Del Rio and Ron Rivera were great coaches and players. They have nothing to apologize for and everything to be proud of. They both look fit and healthy. But it is the mental portion of the game that becomes too much for aging coaches. 

Not coincidentally, their team seems to be suffering losses on the football field that are primarily mental in nature.

Losing to the Bears Thursday Night sure looked like a mental loss to me, even given the fact Thursday Night Games are the NFL equivalent to full frontal lobotomies.

Have Rivera and Del Rio been lobomized by CNS Overload and the aging process?

I guess we see what they do in Atlanta.