As we always do, we played the Eagles closely in what was a very high scoring game. We had a few moments go our way where the score could’ve gotten out of hand. But it didn’t and we ended up pushing with Vegas. At this point in the week and after what has happened, it doesn’t even really feel worth it to go into what actually happened in the game. We lost. Never did I expect us to win this game at any point.
I will cover the game briefly with some of the things that I jotted down, but we definitely have some bigger fish to fry with the contents of this blog. First of all, Sam looked phenomenal once again. He is the quarterback of the future and I have been holding back some twitter fingers as of lately with some of our fellow fans who seem to disagree. You know it’s legit when the Field Yates fantasy rundown video header is of Sam Howell. Darrell Green was in the building for the first time in 20 years. Just goes to show how hated the Snyder regime was. It will be awesome to see some more old heads coming back to the stadium now that Josh and Magic are running the show. We got to see Ron’s emotion for the second time this year after Joey made that 61 yarder. I will be honest and say that I had zero expectations to watch that ball go through the uprights.
My favorite stat of the game was limiting the Eagles to 6 first half rushing yards which was their lowest total since 2015. I mean that alone has to be the best stat we’ve created this year. With their offensive line, like c’mon that effort deserves more credit. Watching us actually stop the tush push was remarkable. 90 something percent my ass. Another opinion I have comes from when reporters quote Ron from mid-game interviews. It seems like we never see him getting interviewed and I have a very hard time believing that he is actually speaking words to these reporters. Just because every time he is shown on the jumbotron, he is doing absolutely nothing. So yeah, that’s my take. Ron not throwing the flag on the Devonta drop was an ugh moment. The Terry drops at the end of the game are whatever. He’s a dog and he’ll catch 15 more this Sunday.
Something that I had been talking about in past articles was the discussion of trading Chase Young. We traded not only Chase but Montez too. I did not see this coming. I had seen tweets about us being sellers. I had a feeling that at least one of them was going to go, but I never thought we would actually deal both of them away. Trading away our two all-pro caliber defensive ends definitely put a dent in my Tuesday. It absolutely sucks to lose the privilege of watching these two dogs go and ball in the burgundy and gold. However, given the reality of the situation and the state of our team, this was absolutely a trade that was bound to happen eventually. We have been stuck in the land of mediocrity for years. Honestly, after seeing the two trades, I completely expected a full blown fire sale to go down in the last hour before the deadline hit.
It’s hard to put to words the emotions that I felt when seeing Montez and then Chase get traded. I was and still am very upset about losing them. It’s just tough looking back on the past few years and think about the memories they gave us. My favorite Chase moment comes from the San Francisco game during his rookie year. It was the most dominant game I have seen a Redskins player on the defensive side of the ball have in my whole lifetime. It was easily a top three feeling of my Redskin’s fan career, watching him run the ball into the end zone. He was literally our whole team that day. My favorite Montez memory was his pick six against the Cowboys on Thanksgiving. It was the second biggest fuck you to Dallas I had seen. The first being RG3 tearing them apart on Thanksgiving back in 2012. It is crazy to me how Terry is now the only player left from that draft class (Rest in Peace, Dwayne Haskins) on our team. Goes to show how bad Ron is at drafting.
A second for Sweat and a third for Young was easy to overreact to. It is just so crazy to think about the 49ers fleecing us for Trent and Chase in exchange for two 3rd rounders and a 5th. The injury-risk argument made the most sense as to why Montez was dealt for a better draft pick than Chase. I mean it felt like Chase hardly even played for us, but when he did damn was he fun to watch. The 49ers literally gave us a compensatory pick. For regulars, these are draft picks you are given when your coaches are poached by other teams. Chase Young in exchange for an OC or something leaving the team. Could never be us. At least we got returns for them instead of just watching them walk in free agency for nothing. Seeing our 2nd overall pick turn into a 3rd rounder is just depressing. It sums up the entire Rivera regime in one move. I’ve started beating a dead horse with the Ron and JDR comments every week. After Tuesday, it is very obvious that Ron, JDR, and a whole lot more people in the building are on a finite timeline with this organization.
A text I sent after seeing the Chase trade was “We’re gonna over spend on some average ass players and then draft a bunch of busts and suck forever.” It was an overreaction, but for good reason. A mediocre football team can drive a man insane. After hearing the news and some more positive perspectives, I’ve become more hopeful with the change. JP Finlay definitely made the best point I’ve heard. The Ron Regime will 100% be out of town before the next draft process starts. We will likely have a new front office and pretty much everyone will be replaced. I can affirmatively say that I hope everyone goes except Bieniemy.
It took new ownership 8 games to say it’s time to burn it down and build from the ground up. I mean our “elite unit” was bottom 5 in points and yards allowed per game. Our “defensive minded” head coach used 6 of our last 7 first rounders on defense just for the unit to be an absolute piece of shit. It was time for a hard reset. It didn’t make sense paying our defensive line around $100 million annually for them to go out there and not absolutely dominate every game.
Whoever takes on the challenge of being our GM and turning this ship around will be handed a plethora of assets from the second they get in the building. We are hopefully going to have 3 picks in the top 45 draft spots. That’s three shots at getting a franchise talent who can change the trajectory of our franchise. Regardless of who we pick, I just pray that we don’t draft reactionary like we have in the past. For example, Forbes to guard AJ/Ceedee or Jamin to stop Saquon. This logic has done nothing but disappoint. Maybe we could start drafting some offensive guys in the first round? I think that would be a pretty handy idea – I wonder what Brock Bowers would have to say about being a Washington Redskin. Joey Alt or Olu? Just give me someone in the first round who is going to be a dog. Like how the hell did Jalen Carter end up on the Eagles with the 9th pick. Everyone and their mother knew the player he was going to be.
We are going to have a boat load of cash to spend in upcoming free agency. There are some high profile names that we could go after. However, my honest opinion is that we should go after offensive linemen and make the goal of this offseason to create the Hogs 3.0. Sam is the guy and we need to protect him at all costs. We already have the skill positions. We just need some dogs in the trenches. Then we need to take care of our big boys so we never have to endure another Trent Williams situation. I would also like to see us go after a stud MLB who can make big plays next to Jamin in the middle of the field. After this season, I hope to never see Cody Barton in a Washington jersey again.
To sprinkle in some more optimism. I will say that I am excited to see what Toohill and JSW can do with starter reps for the rest of the season. Sure, they aren’t as glamourous and high profile as the guys we shipped out, but we can’t just act like they’re some bums. The Chase vs. Casey tweet I saw was the most reassuring thing I’d seen. In 182 more snaps, Chase put up .5 more sacks, 3 more tackles for loss, and 3 less QB hits. When you play the numbers game, it really doesn’t sound like that big of a downgrade to me. Now, with the spotlight on him, there is a chance we will see him blossom into a talent that we will want to keep around for the next few years.
I know I have definitely missed so many points regarding the trade and everything that happened this week. I did my best to sprinkle in all of my opinions on the situation. At the moment it sucks, but hopefully in the long run it turns out to be a smart move. I genuinely do hope Chase and Montez go on to be all pro guys. I will always be rooting for them unless they are trying to sack Sam. It’s very obvious that there should no longer be any expectations for this season. I didn’t want to watch us play for the 7th seed just to get bounced in the first round. It feels like we’ve been playing for the 7th seed since Kirk left and I am done with it. It was a move that needed to happen if we ever wanted to join the likes of the elite teams.
Now, to give some opinions on the upcoming game this week. For starters, I was supposed to attend the game in Foxborough but plans fell through. I still have tickets that I have yet to sell on ticketmaster. Since buying these tickets, the Patriots have gone on to win one fucking game. It is very safe to say that I will be selling these tickets at a massive loss. I will no longer be buying sports tickets (unless it’s a huge game) months in advance because I don’t want to be put in this situation again.
I was appalled to see that we are underdogs in this game. We were underdogs even before the trades went down. I don’t understand how. The Patriots are so bad. The line has officially moved to 3. I’m 100% taking our money line no matter what so I am very okay with the line pushing as far in the Patriots direction as possible. It won’t scare me. After all of the bullshit that went down in the locker room this week, I think the team is ready to come out firing. Nobody likes getting written off by the whole league. But for the guys suiting up, I would like to assume this is fueling their motivation to go out there and dominate so everyone around the league shuts up. Mac Jones is a very shitty quarterback and I cannot believe he almost won the Heisman one year. I can’t say that I have watched much Patriots football this year, but I have heard rumblings about their offense being absolute garbage. I like the sound of that because our garbage defense and their garbage offense has potential to be a lights camera action can’t miss moment.
In terms of gambling, this week is another great occasion to hammer Terry’s overs. He’s in form. Sam is slinging it. He’s gotta make up for some drops last week. It’s a perfect storm to watch him get 62 yards, 5 receptions, and another touchdown. I can’t even name a single Patriots DB other than JC Jackson because he was just traded. I love the Terps, but Terry is gonna have a field day with whoever is guarding him. That man just hates doing dishes. The more touchdowns Terry catches means the less dishes he’s gotta do. Say less about betting his overs. I will also be taking BRob anytime. He didn’t get in last week, so that means he is 100% getting in this week.
I’m not expecting the most exciting game up in Foxborough this weekend. It really does have the potential to be an extremely painful game to watch. A fear I have about how this team will perform is that we may have scored too many points last week and used up some of the points we should’ve been scoring this week. After putting up 31 on the Eagles against a very talented defense, you just know we are due to have another dud performance like the Giants. Whenever we play the teams that we are supposed to blow out, we never end up doing so. However, after the trades. We might now be the team that everyone expects to blow out. We probably already were before the trades but I was blinded by my bias and love for this franchise. Now, that some of my subjectivity has been put aside, it’s easier to have more realistic expectations entering Sunday.
These changes aren’t hindering my expectations to the point where I don’t think we’ll beat the Patriots. I think we are gonna kick the shit out of them. Patriots fans wouldn’t hesitate for a second if we offered Sam for Mac straight up. Their franchise is way further down the shitter than we are because Belichick refuses to tank. I hope we can take advantage of the situation. Recency bias still has me thinking that our draft place doesn’t matter because our picks are gonna bust anyways, so I am still hoping for us to go out and win as many football games as possible. I hope I am not in the minority of people with this opinion. At least for the rest of the season, I won’t be letting this team control my mood after they lose. It should be an interesting game and I am pumped to see how this team responds after losing Chase and Montez. At the end of the day, I think we are going to end up being alright. Hopefully, we look back on this week in the future and remember it as the time when everything turned around. I would like to wish everyone good luck to everyone out there this weekend. They let us get to Friday and now we have to celebrate it. See everyone for the next blog. Skins by 90.
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