Hogs Haven
Survey results!!
I want to talk about three feelings — confidence, pride and faith — in the context of the past, present and future of the Washington Commanders.
Every week, we ask Hogs Haven readers the same question: Are you confident in the direction of the Commanders?
The question is deliberately vague. It doesn’t define what ‘direction’ means. It doesn’t specify whether the question relates to the team’s play, the organizational strategy, both of them, or something else entirely.
So far in 2024, the confidence of Washington fans has been steadily high, with only two relatively shallow dips.
This week, 96% of survey respondents said that they are confident in the direction of the Commanders, which is right where we started in our first (pre-season) confidence poll ahead of the season opener. The confidence figure has dipped below 92% only twice this year — following the opening week loss to the Buccaneers, and after the brutal Week 12 loss to a struggling Cowboys team.
I think that this consistently high level of confidence comes from fans comparing the present to the past. The former owner, who bought the team in 1999 and sold it in 2023, used up his goodwill fairly early in his tenure, as he turned the once-great Washington franchise into a seemingly perennial failure. The final years of his tenure as owner were particularly brutal as newspaper headlines about the team focused increasingly on exposing a “toxic work environment”, sex discrimination, financial shenanigans, and government & league investigations into shady practices. A botched effort at re-branding and a number of badly-executed front-office initiatives simply added to the clear dysfunction in the Ashburn team headquarters.
Many fans who have remained confident even in the midst of a 3-game losing streak and the other vagaries of an NFL season seem to persist in their optimism because the 2024 team leadership, from ownership to coaches, is so different from what we had under the previous owner. For too many years, the feeling was that ‘we couldn’t have nice things’. The team could hire a great coach or draft a great player, but it wouldn’t break the cycle of dysfunction because the guy at the top was the worst owner in sports.
If you look, today, at the approach of owner Josh Harris, and the differences from his predecessor are stark. Pay attention to the results of the work done by General Manager Adam Peters, and it’s easy to feel like we struck gold with that hire. Listen to Dan Quinn talk and see how his players respond to his leadership, and it’s not hard to feel optimistic about the head coach and his staff. Read and listen to what respected voices from around the NFL have to say about the owner, GM and coaching staff, and it’s easy to sense the respect that these men garner from their peers and competitors.
In short, the steady confidence of the Washington fan base reflects a growing sense of calm experienced...
