Hogs Haven
At the Week 12 bye, the Commanders sit at 3-8, with 6 games remaining to salvage something from a disappointing season. The remaining schedule features two games against the 8-3 Eagles and one against the 9-2 Broncos.
It remains mathematically possible for the Commanders to finish the season with a winning record and even sneak into the Wild Card round. To do that, they just need to win all their remaining games and benefit from a miraculous combination of help from other teams. But the reality is, the probability of that occurring is vanishingly small, in the absence of the team’s star QB, as well as starters and key contributors at multiple other positions.
So what are fans to do for the remainder of the regular season? Some might take the opportunity to vent their frustrations at the weakly failures of the injury-ravaged Commanders to field a competitive team. Personally, I find that pointless and tedious. But after what we’ve been through for the past 30+ years, I can’t really fault fans for doing whatever they need to do to get through another losing season.
Others will look for a bright side. Some glimmer of hope, flickering among the ashes of failure and disappointment, that next season will be better and see the franchise get back on track to becoming perennial playoff contenders once again.
And that, dear reader, is what the Tank Watch is all about. The most tangible benefit of tanking a season is what it does for a team’s draft position. For the remainder of the season, I will be checking in periodically on the Commanders’ progress up the draft order, and exploring the opportunities that improved draft position creates for the ongoing roster rebuild.
One of the chief concerns expressed by frustrated fans, including yours truly, is that the need to completely overhaul the roster has driven Adam Peters to load up on affordable veterans, mostly on short-term contracts. This has resulted in the Commanders having the oldest roster in the NFL. The team has a pressing need to get back to Peters’ stated intention of building through the draft. But that has become more challenging since Peters traded multiple Day 2 picks for LT Laremy Tunsil and CB Marshon Lattimore.
While it’s far from the perfect storm, this year’s draft is shaping up to potentially create the opportunity that AP needs to recoup some of the draft capital he traded away, and possibly even add another Day 1 or Day 2 pick. In this week’s edition of the Tank Watch, I will explore one possibility for accelerated roster rejuvenation via trading back from a high first round pick, which could become reality if the Commanders’ losing streak continues.
Here is how the draft order would shape up if the season ended today, courtesy of Tankathon.
The Commanders currently occupy the 7th position in the draft order, due to their win-loss record and strength of schedule (SOS) tiebreaker. It is...
