Sixpack of the Mondays: Gold Pants, Silver Linings
- I was trying to think about past regular season games that I would have loved to get for two Sixpacks--that is to say, loved more than getting a warm 12-pack of that terrible Giants tie. Any of the wins during the seven-game winning streak in 2012 would have been great, including a 17-16 win over the New York Giants. That win took us to 6-6 on the season, hardly anything that would spark a parade, but it came on the heels of two straight wins against Philadelphia and Dallas. There was something happening, and the league was officially on notice--hard to imagine after a horrific 3-6 start to the season. It was a nine-week stretch that bottomed out when Mike Shanahan stood at the podium after our sixth loss to the Carolina Panthers and announced that we were in "evaluation mode" in a way that very much sounded like we were sending the white flag to the top of the pole. But the Redskins came out in week 11 after the bye and picked up three wins against--wait for it--an incredibly weak NFC East. We sent the Eagles and Cowboys to 3-7 and 5-6, respectively. The win put us one game back of the 7-5 NFC East-leading Giants. We raced past New York down the stretch, like RG3 galloping up the sidelines for his signature touchdown sprint against the Vikings earlier that season. What an incredible season that was...really just a "lightning strikes once" kind of thing, right?
- That season was so different from this one, right? Mike Shanahan was a well-respected veteran coach. His players liked playing for him and he had enjoyed success at multiple stops in the league. His hiring signified a measure of organizational stabilization, but the job was just so gargantuan that we fans ran out of patience much faster than a top-tier head coach deserved. We had a 31-year-old offensive coordinator that plenty of people thought very highly of--a young Kyle Shanahan. (At this point, you kind of have an idea of what I'm trying to do...but the irony that Kyle plays a part in this play is just gravy.) David Blough doesn't have the same kind of job protection that you might have working for your father, but there have been flashes of what is possible in this scheme. Dan Quinn is under fire to be sure, but there is no reason to believe we will see Josh Harris morph into the kind of owner who would fire coaches in week five--at least not under current circumstances. Battling impulsive desires and staying at the table to keep grinding is a move, too. The silence from the owner's suite over the last week has been deafening, and I love it. That's not to say Adam Peters and Josh Harris have zipped up completely, but they have made zero headlines and that is at least a little different than what we have seen in the past. Steering through "crisis" portions of the season is why you hire men like Mike Shanahan and Dan Quinn, and franchises are routinely rewarded when veteran coaches are allowed to ply their trade. (For example, I don't think either one of the Joe Gibbs' Part Deux playoff teams (2005 and 2007) would have gotten to the postseason under a lesser coach. Parentheses inside of parentheses is kind of Inception-esque.)
- We all remember that we had a Rookie of the Year candidate playing at a high level that 2012 season, and in addition to being fun to watch, it was a huge relief given the price tag we paid for the ability to add Robert Griffin III to our roster. Every fanbase knows the pain of first round busts, and we all understand the different degrees to which those busts can be measured. But I will not let us get dragged into another article about bust measurements...not again. We have a first-round rookie playing his way into the Rookie of the Year conversation in Sonny Styles. The monster linebacker has been worth the price of admission and has impacted games already. He was named Defensive Player of the Week already this season by the league, and he continues to be a force in the heart of our front seven. No offense to London Fletcher, Swaggy B, Brian Orakpo or Ryan Kerrigan, but this year's front seven is a step above that 2012 front. At least some credit belongs to McNamara Mustang Daronte Jones, our defensive coordinator, who is extremely passionate about seeing a healthy Trey Amos and Nick Cross return to the field to try and stop the bleeding in our pass defense. Sonny Styles will be an integral part of any future defensive success we have this season, and we will be counting on him to factor heavily in winning efforts. It's a very important ingredient to what is on the verge of happening.
- The other obvious tie-in to the 2012 season is the fact that the NFC East was super mediocre. It can't be said enough that the most likely route to our division title in what feels like a historically bad division is to just be marginally less terrible than our terrible divisional rivals. That job is well underway, as the NFC East could be the first division in HISTORY to have zero wins in two consecutive weeks where every divisional team played both weeks (and two teams famously played each other last week). The Cowboys are Cowboy-ing hard early this year, tumbling in losses to the Buccaneers and Packers. The Giants fell to the Saints on the heels of the Tie Heard Round the DMV. As for the Eagles, man...talk about crazy. Nick Sirianni invites all the drama you would want a divisional rival to have to handle, but the Jalen Hurts situation stinks. He is one of the best players I have ever had to put in the "I can't root for this player because he plays in my division" bucket. It sucks out loud that he is dealing with this blood clot issue. Unfortunately, I have seen this be career-ending for a close friend who was All-American in college and actually got the call from the Raiders in the third round of the draft, but ultimately the blood clot he had--in his calf--kept him from ever being signed by the league (so really career-never-starting as opposed to career-ending). It's serious, and I pray for a healthy outcome. In the meantime, the Eagles are an absolute mess. They will have to gut out defensive wins until they can figure out who is going to be their quarterback of the present and future.
- The mistake would of course be to see tonight as a must-win game (that was actually last week). Regardless of the outcome tonight (irregardless, even), our record will look ridiculous. At 2-3-1 or 1-4-1, or God help us all 1-3-2, the league ain't going on notice. But we have a bye week approaching. Coming out of the bye, we get two out of three games against the NFC East, with a chance to get back into the divisional race. We get two NFC West opponents in the Cardinals and Rams, and it bears mentioning that Dan Quinn has had his way with that division over the course of his career. We are already 1-0 against the NFC West with an improbable win over the Seattle Seahawks, and the rest of that division is like looking into a mirror for us. Had we gotten the win last week, the conversation going into tonight would be far different. It would be slightly worse after a loss, but the landscape as we see it today sets up a slog going forward. I'm talking an army-crawl to the finish. Nobody in this division comes out looking pretty, but one of us gets an invitation to the dance. A win tonight helps, but history suggests that this won't be resolved until December.
- I certainly don't want to paint this matchup with the San Francisco 49ers tonight as easily winnable, because it isn't. What matters most tonight--slightly less important than winning I suppose--is staying healthy going into the bye. The Washington Commanders have one of the best quarterbacks in the league right this very second. His other-worldly rushing performance last week couldn't help but raise memories of RG3's electric ground game--but Jayden Daniels' two touchdown runs of 25+ yards was a franchise first, and ties him with Sammy Baugh for all-time rushing touchdowns by a quarterback. Nobody left in our division has anyone as good as Jayden Daniels at quarterback--if people are still kidding themselves about Dak Prescott, that is on them. There are 12 games left in the season, and the team with the best quarterback in the division has a sizable advantage. That feeling over the last week that this tie was a season-ending event started subsiding after Jayden Daniels addressed it with the team. When something unacceptable happens, there is more than enough blame to spread around, but accountability is essential. Of course the lion's share of the responsibility falls on your franchise quarterback and our guy is looking to help us all move on from that as quickly as possible. On Monday Night Football, when literally nobody expects us to perform well, our quarterback is looking to give people something else to think about instead of his mistake last week. Our respected veteran head coach has two hands on the wheel, shielding our young coordinators from the league's harsh blame game. We have a rookie stud playing his way into the ROY picture, and nothing but opportunity ahead. If that sounds just a little familiar, look at the image on top of the Sixpack again...you'll be seeing those same jerseys tonight. Gold pants...watch out.
Ken Meringolo
is lifelong Washingtonian, covering the Commanders, WCAC and building an image of class, competence and professionalism...one LEGO at a time.