Hogs Haven
A collection of articles, podcasts & tweets from around the web to keep you in touch with the Commanders
This is an advanced statistic provided by Pro Football Reference and measures an approximate total value of a team’s defensive performance throughout the campaign. The Commanders ranked 30th, ahead of only the Jacksonville Jaguars and Carolina Panthers, with a rating of -147.39.
Who was in first place? The Super Bowl champion Eagles.
As the saying goes, defense wins championships. Combining the No. 1 and No. 3 bullet points on this list, Washington must be better defensively in 2025 if it wants to have any significant Super Bowl aspirations. The Commanders may not be able to replicate the talent on the Eagles’ roster, but if that side of the ball can improve to even just somewhere in the top-10 range, it would do wonders in taking Washington from a good team to a great one.
As the tradition has become, most expect the 2025 NFL season will begin on Thursday night of Week 1, with the Philadelphia Eagles hosting a worthy opponent, like perhaps the Washington Commanders.
While getting the first crack at the defending Super Bowl Champions is attractive no matter the team, the Commanders’ matchups against the Eagles will be good television no matter when it happens if we’re being honest.
The fact that Washington and Philadelphia in Week 1 would be an NFC Championship Game rematch adds a bit of flavor to it, we suppose, but there’s another Week 1 matchup that could draw a crowd too.
If the Commanders and Detroit Lions were to face off, this time in Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, then the league would get a Divisional Round rematch on the books for Week 1....
Week 1 should have its fair share of fireworks when it comes time for the 2025 NFL schedule to be released.
GM philosophy + owner constraints will tell
[GM Joe Schoen] at least has to perform some amount of cap sleight of hand to make the Giants competitive. Over The Cap lets you play with the possibilities, kind of a mock draft for the financial side of things. The Giants are middle-of-the-pack among NFL teams in how much effective cap space (i.e., after signing their draft picks and getting 51 players under contract) they have ($32.1M, circle on left in figure below). They are also middle-of-the-pack in their potential to restructure contracts to increase cap space:
With “simple restructures” of existing contracts (squares in centers of lines above - converting payments into prorated...
