Once your team has essentially been eliminated from playoff contention, then you can start declaring the blowouts and bad losses like the ones we’ve had the past two weeks as moral victories. JDR has finally been fired and that is enough of a win for me to make me happy as a fan. While the Skins are not mathematically eliminated from the playoff race, I still think it is pretty safe to say that we will not be making it this year. And if we somehow do, then it will be a very short lived and underwhelming run at the title.
I said in the last blog that my expectations for Dallas were very low. I had three thoughts that were almost spot on. I said Dallas was going to single-handedly hit the over. They are only three points shy of doing so. I mentioned how a blowout loss would most likely be enough to get some people fired. Got that one right. JDR is gone, but Ron would be here to stick around. I still think we are going to hold on to Ron for the remainder of the season and then he is going to “retire“ sometime in the off-season. I would honestly be shocked if they fired Ron sometime during these last weeks of the season. There’s no way Josh and Magic are expecting us to win a lot of these games down the road. I would like to think they understand that bringing in a new coach just for us to get killed would not be the best idea. However, it would be objectively funny if we hired Urban Meyer to come in and we just lose every game by 50. This would be electric for the memes, but buyouts nowadays make this impossible. Makes me wonder why I never got into a business where I get paid millions of dollars because I sucked at my job.
The team once again created a record breaking statistic that nobody had not been able to accomplish in the past 25 years. I’m sure everyone saw the tweet, but just to reiterate how bad it was. The team compiled 100+ rushing yards, 250+ passing, 35+ minutes of time of possession, less than 25 penalty yards, and less than 2 turnovers. When putting together numbers like these, teams are 57 and 0. We really managed to do all of that and still lose the game by 35 points. It genuinely makes zero sense and is way too fitting with this franchise. While it’s easier to point out all of the bad, this stat actually can be looked at from an optimistic standpoint. We were offensively competent against one of the best defensives in the league. Sam’s pick 6 throw was really bad and EB wasn’t able to draw things up to get us in the end zone. But, there isn’t much reason to go into the bad anymore.
My favorite release from the firings came from Josh Harris himself when he said that he and Ron had a meeting and that Ron was the one who proposed the idea of firing some people that morning. I thought it was pretty comical, but also concerning how Josh didn’t have the balls himself just own up to it and say yeah they needed to get the fuck out. It would have been more noble instead making Ron his personal scapegoat for the firings of JDR and Vieselmeyer.
Another tidbit on how incompetent this organization is comes from our recently fired DB coach. I had no idea about this until the firings and would assume many of the fans didn’t know it either. Before coming to be our DBs coach, Brent Vieselmeyer was the head coach of a highschool football team.
He coached with Del Rio in Oakland, JDR came to Washington, then he did some time killing before his buddy found another way to get him in the door. I will give props to JDR because let’s be real, everyone tells that one friend who they expect to be successful to one day give them a high paying job. JDR actually did this for his boy. I actually would like to learn how they initially got connected. From a guys being dudes standpoint, this does kinda rock; however, for a football fan like myself it’s just not ideal. To make it even more ridiculous, our first round pick this year was a cornerback, and we thought it was a good idea to trust a dude who came from coaching highschoolers before the NFL to develop him to his full potential. Whoever’s idea that was, they should’ve been the first person fired. I’m gonna go out on a whim here and say that our defense of backs coach wasn’t the one making that first pick. Either way, just another example of how we are the epitome of a poverty franchise whose coaches literally couldn’t add one plus one together on their fingers.
When you use six of your last seven first rounders on defense, you would think it actually is somewhat difficult to create a product this bad. We spent years loading that side of the ball with talent and prospects and have probably the worst defense in the NFL to show for it. We tried to fight fire with water, and now we know the only way that you can fight fire is with fire of your own. I don’t think JDR really deserves a thank you. At least, from this blog, he will not be getting one. I would like to think the public shares a pretty mutual opinion. If it was for the uberly talented 2020 defense, then his time would be looked at as a complete failure. It really just doesn’t make sense to me how that defense fell apart so quickly.
Another moral victory coming out of this one is the fact that we now have the fifth overall pick and we are probably going to move up a spot or maybe two. I honestly don’t see us grabbing a single other win for the rest of the season. I still have my weird hunch however, this is not a realistic thought that we are going to somehow beat the Dolphins. There is absolutely no explanation behind that one other than the fact that it would just be fitting for our franchise. However, at this point in the season, I am not upset at all about us losing games and even losing out. This draft class has two offensive tackles and a wide receiver that could be franchise changing.
As of now we are in a position to draft either Joey all or Olu Fashanu both of which would be massive upgrades at left tackle for us. We are, however, getting into the ballpark of being able to draft Marvin Harrison who if I think is available when we are drafting, then it would be a massive mistake to pass on him. I saw the graphic showing the same argument for Ja’Marr Chase or Penei with the Bengals. We all know how that one worked out. Regardless of who the pick is, we have unfortunately put ourselves in a position where no matter who we pick I will have a high level of confidence in them. I just hope we don’t draft defense in the early rounds.
With the game we have coming up, since watching the Dolpings hang 70 on the Broncos, I have just had a weird feeling that we are going to win. It would be this year’s Eagles or Steelers-esque win. A W that comes out of nowhere and then we won’t see that level of play for the rest of the year. One that just makes no sense but gives us some hope for the rest of the season. Realistically, we are in for a long one coming up at 1pm. Our defense is terrible. We have arguably the most explosive offense in the league coming into the building. I have decided to not make the trip down to Landover to watch us get ran off the field. It would have been cool to watch Tyreek and Terry play but not in this weather. I will be watching from the comfort of my couch.
While I did think about betting our moneyline, I might as well be better off burning the $5. I hope I am wrong, but honestly the only way I see this game staying competitive is if it is pouring down rain or somehow all of the Dolphins starters magically come down with some sort of illness. It’s been raining all weekend so that option seems more likely but weather is predicting overcast with no rain unfortunately. My favorite bet of the day is the over. I have a similar feeling to last week where I think the Dolphins have the chance to hit it by themselves. We know Sam is going to sling it and put us in position to score. As long as we don’t fumble every time we get into the redzone, we are going to produce points. Tyreek has 6 more games to get 640 more yards for the record. I think it’s pretty obvious that they are going to try to pad the lights out of his stats. BRob anytime touchdown is plus money. That is a hammer every time you see it. Pretty safe to say we’ll be playing from behind. This means I like Sam’s throwing for over 264 because we will throw the ball 40+ times. Antonio Gibson’s rushing over at 11.5 seems way too low.
These are my favorite picks for the day. Moral victories is the theme for the rest of the season. While the wins may not come our way, we still have a lot to look forward to. Steps have been taken in the right direction to reconcile the disaster that has been built over the years. We are going to have new people running the team, new players, a boatload of cash to spend in free agency, draft capital, possibly a new stadium, and hopefully a new name. On paper, we are putting ourselves in position to actually turn this ship around which is something that hasn’t been put in place since I can remember.
Photo Credit: Emilee Fails (Team Photographer) — Twitter / X – emfails