Hogs Haven
With the Commanders’ second season under new management seemingly teetering on the edge of the abyss, some perspective might be in order.
After a somewhat slow start to the 2024 season, I published a roundup of timelines recent successful franchise rebuilds. My search for successful rebuilds from similar starting points to the Quinn/Peters Commanders identified four comparable teams: 2023 Texans, 2023 Lions, 2020 Bills, 2019 49ers. The fastest any of these teams achieved their first playoff win after hiring the successful GM was 3 seasons. Only the Bills had a winning record in the first year of their rebuild.
In fact, my choice of starting point made the Bills’ and Lions’ rebuilds seem shorter than they actually were. Both teams underwent failded rebuilds, fired their front offices and started over with the eventually successful GM. If we time those rebuilds from the change of ownership which precipitated rebirth then they took 7 and 10 yrs, respectively, to win their first playoff games.
What Commanders’ fans experienced in the first year of the rebuild was actually unprecedented in the salary cap era. Since 1994, which is as far back as I’ve looked, only the 2010 Seattle Seahawks won a playoff game in the first year of a total franchise reset, and they got knocked out of the divisional round after squeaking into the playoffs with a 7-9 regular season record.
The Commanders’ unprecedented first year success had a lot to do with good decision making on hiring of front office and coaching staff, and use of the second overall pick in the draft. But there was also a lot of good fortune and overperformance involved. If last year’s NFC Championship appearance feels like a dream, that’s because it was. The reality is, it usually takes three or more years to build a roster that can consistently compete with the best teams in the league. The Commanders are still closer to the beginning than the end of that process.
The Commanders were very fortunate to avoid injuries to key players in 2024. They have not been so lucky this year. As injuries continue to expose the roster’s fragility, we could soon reach a point where there is not much the coaching staff can do to adjust. I don’t think we have reached that point yet, but I’m not sure I’m in the majority on that one.
As bad as the last two losses were, it might help to reflect on how fortunate we as fans have been to experience such a dramatic franchise turn around, featuring the emergence of a star QB and some key building blocks to set the foundation for long term success. This season might turn out to be the inevitable hangover after the party, or Dan Quinn might pull another rabbit out of the hat.
Now that I’ve hopefully got you in a more reflective frame of mind, let’s have a look at how bad the 22-44 road loss to the Dallas Cowboys really was, and whether there...
