Official Game Thread - Week 10 - Lions @ Commanders

Digesting all the narratives yesterday including noticing the sideline exchange between Quinn and Whitt and Quinn's press conferences.

A. If they get run over by the Dolphins I think Whitt is fired and Quinn runs the defense

B. If the defense looks ok against the Dolphins, Whitt survives to the off season.
It's hard to see Whittt surviving unless DQ takes over defensive play calling, there is improvement and he doesn't have the balls to can him. If that occurs DQ could be jepordizing his position.
 
I know nobody wants to crush the guy everyone likes, but my god - the media should start every question with the statement about how long it’s been since a team got smashed 4 times in a row like this one.

It’s one thing to lose, it’s entirely another to not even compete. The big fix was that Whitt needed to be closer to the field. Was this his punishment, having to see this shitshow up close?

I know he doesn’t want to embarrass his friend with a mid season firing, and sure deep down he knows firing him won’t make the defense good. But being in charge of a unit this god awful, week after week, it should just be a given that you get fired.
 
They say 'act like you've been there before' - but I guess we can forgive Sinnott because so far in 2025 he hadn't been there (and only saw the endzone once in 2024). It was dumb but he's young and youngsters do stupid things sometimes.
 
Something I forgot about, which is easy to do, when there are so many things to hate in a single game.

Sinnott celebrating down 19.

Dan’s got Payne out here swinging on folks, and offense celebrating cutting a 25 point lead late in the fourth.
The kid is glued to the line blocking so far in his career and his OC sends him out in a pattern once every 7 games. He scores a TD and you're gonna give him crap about being excited about it?
 
They really need to give him some opportunities now. I think if they thought he could be a consistent receiving weapon, they would already have made a much greater attempt to give him balls. The only other explanation is that they for some reason have decided to bring him on slowly.

I just don't think he is going to be a difference maker or even major contributor as a receiving TE but I would love to be wrong.
 
The kid is glued to the line blocking so far in his career and his OC sends him out in a pattern once every 7 games. He scores a TD and you're gonna give him crap about being excited about it?
It’s very far down on the list of things to complain about, but it’s still a bad look. Not just him those guys celebrating it with him.
 
Something I forgot about, which is easy to do, when there are so many things to hate in a single game.

Sinnott celebrating down 19.

Dan’s got Payne out here swinging on folks, and offense celebrating cutting a 25 point lead late in the fourth.
Yeah I noticed that (Sinnott) and cringed also
 
Digesting all the narratives yesterday including noticing the sideline exchange between Quinn and Whitt and Quinn's press conferences.

A. If they get run over by the Dolphins I think Whitt is fired and Quinn runs the defense

B. If the defense looks ok against the Dolphins, Whitt survives to the off season.
Can you enlighten me on DQ's press conference comments? Did DQ and Whitt appear to be having harsh words on the sideline?
 
It’s very far down on the list of things to complain about, but it’s still a bad look. Not just him those guys celebrating it with him.
I used to feel the way you do about this until one day I watched the Belichick documentary "Do your job".
There's a scene where he addressing the team in a film session and he's mad because they scored but didn't celebrate like he thought they should.
He said something to the effect : You guys put in so much time and effort and work so hard to get there, you should be excited/celebrate a scoring play.

I had never looked at it from that perspective before.

EDIT: Found it.

 
I used to feel the way you do about this until one day I watched the Belichick documentary "Do your job".
There's a scene where he addressing the team in a film session and he's mad because they scored but didn't celebrate like he thought they should.
He said something to the effect : You guys put in so much time and effort and work so hard to get there, you should be excited/celebrate a scoring play.

I had never looked at it from that perspective before.

EDIT: Found it.
In a sense, I get it.

But in this case, if anyone deserved to celebrate it was Kliff because of the play design. Even then, the competitive part of the game is over. Nobody should be fulfilled in any way.
 
I used to feel the way you do about this until one day I watched the Belichick documentary "Do your job".
There's a scene where he addressing the team in a film session and he's mad because they scored but didn't celebrate like he thought they should.
He said something to the effect : You guys put in so much time and effort and work so hard to get there, you should be excited/celebrate a scoring play.

I had never looked at it from that perspective before.

EDIT: Found it.


yeah I didn’t see the bb video but I had the same progression. Used to annoy me but then realized, psychologically that can be where comebacks start. For the same reason, I didn’t have a problem with JD’s celebration last year in the NFCCG. Those are small victories that you celebrate. It doesn’t mean you aren’t disappointed in the game. But you won that moment, and for that to maybe spur something? Maybe it takes a little celebration to ignite it.
 
Fans are pissed when their team is getting manhandled or making crucial mistakes in a loss. The reason we get angry when a player celebrates what is ultimately a meaningless play is because it infringes on our pissed off mood. If we are pissed, everyone should be pissed. At it's base level, it's sort of a childish mindset. But most of us have those feelings in those moments.

One thing that was a bit shocking for me when I was covering the team, the realization that the players don't care as much as the fans do. I know that sounds outlandish to say out loud, but at least during the time I was up close and personal with the team, it was clearly the case. For players, it is first and foremost a job. And you don't have your soul crushed when you have a bad day at work occasionally. It's on to the next next play, game, week, etc...
 
He's not wrong. But injuries are what happens when you have the oldest roster in the league. This team is inexcusably old. Period.

Ironically our oldest players, the ones that skew the average age the most (Wagner, Ertz, Way, now Smith) are all healthy. We’ve only really lost Ekeler (immediately and playing a replaceable position) and Lattimore (only recently) from the old guy crowd. Jones at CB was out for a while, but he was only supposed to be veteran depth, I guess?

The whole oldest “average age” in the NFL thing was always dumb, replace the oldest 5-6 vets we have with UDFA’s or even 25-year old FA signings who play just as poorly and all of a sudden we’re one of the youngest rosters in the league. Our few old guys are just REALLY OLD. Until a few weeks ago when a ton of them got hurt, Quinn had the most draft pick snaps in the NFL between last year and this year. Yes, even with Newton + Sinnott + the young LB’s playing partial snaps, we still were seeing the most snaps played by draft picks in the league over about a 20-game period since AP and Quinn got here.

The problem is the quality and ability of the players, not their age.

The main thing is we’re lacking talent and speed, not just youth. The youth we’ve been playing isn’t good enough or athletic enough and the vets we have skewing the roster age are washed up and slower than ever.

It can be fixed, clearly this roster build was a bust and the injuries have exacerbated it. But other than Ekeler and Lattimore the old = injured thing hasn’t really panned out specifically, that’s not our real problem even though it feels rational to complain about. Our young guys who were supposed to carry this roster are injured and out at a much higher clip, and didn’t look very good before the injuries.

We need better players. We need to raise the speed on the roster as a whole and get playmakers and game breakers. Most likely that will come via adding more talented youth. But it’s not as simple as “get younger” when you dig into the details.
 
All I can say after reading through the comments in this thread is that I am glad the game wasn't televised in my area. Not sure I could handle what sounds like a massive turd.
 
Nice post Conn. Yeah, I think what we showed last season is that a really dynamic and talented QB hides a lot of deficits elsewhere on the roster. And even though we may not have had top tier talent even when healthy, decent talent when your young franchise QB is healthy is enough to be competitive. With injuries, and Jayden banged up, that reality changes in a hurry.
 

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