Official Game Thread - Week 10 - Lions @ Commanders

Commander PK said:
They went for broke on this season and it has backfired in dramatic fashion.
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No they didn’t, and that’s part of the problem. They were extremely conservative with future cap allocated, didn’t use most of their space, and stuck with a couple mid-tier signings on short deals plus a bunch of lame vets on one-year deals. Actually just about the most frugal-era Bruce Allen FA periods they could have had, and after an NFCCG appearance too. Baffling. We’ve all retconned that we went “all in” because we brought back all the veteran leadership signings from last year but in reality most of us were puzzled in the moment why we weren’t signing more starters, but went with “in AP we trust”.

We did not remotely “go for broke” this season we mostly just rested on our laurels, brought in a new rookie class, and signed a couple above average vets we hoped would exceed expectations. Other than the Tunsil trade (significant) and the Deebo trade (minor in value), we didn’t treat this as a roster that needed a major talent infusion. That isn’t “all-in” at all.
 
Boone said:
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...
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There’s truth in here for sure.

But for me, it’s a competition thing. I’d feel the same way about my pop warner team. Unless it’s a kid who has historically struggled, tried hard and finally got his moment…I expect to see you hand the ball to the ref and move on, in that situation.

Maybe if it was even a tough catch or a great play made by Sinnott, I could understand more. But that was a play callers TD vs. a team that had stopped caring as much. I think it’s a bad look in a season full of bad looks, so it doesn’t mean much.
 
In a time where the league parity is the highest it’s ever been, we can’t even show up for a month in games. Dolphins managed to embarrass the Bills, Saints beat the Panthers..oh it’s divisional game..cool, we got embarrassed by the cowboys. The whole coaching staff is trash honestly. It’s still the NFL and these are paid professionals and the talent disparity isn’t that extreme to just get absolutely embarrassed 4 weeks in a row.
 
Conn said:
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.
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Disagree. The old are injured as well:

Trent Scott: 31
Terry: 30
Jalyn Holmes: 30
George Fant: 33
Lattimore: Will be 30 in May'
Noah Brown: WIll be 30 in January
WIll Harris: 30 next month'
Deatrich Wise: 31
Ekeler: 30
 
Just for a little perspective on the age thing ...

Five youngest teams:

Green Bay
Jacksonville
Indianapolis
Las Vegas
Kansas City

Five oldest:

Washington
Carolina
Minnesota
Pittsburgh
Dallas
 
AP inherited a dreadful roster, probably worst in the league. He's drafted well overall, but there were simply too many holes to fill, and he didn't start with 3 picks in every round as a mercy blessing from the league. You have to fill those gaps somehow. Short of breaking the glass, pulling the red lever and asking some of us to suit up, he basically had to go the vet route. Last season was lightning in a bottle and it spoiled us all. We are still rebuilding. That takes time. I can be patient with AP, less patient, though, with coaching issues. Keim has alluded to the Whitt deficit for two years in very subtle, gentle ways. He's been more blunt these last few weeks.
 
clskinsfan said:
Payne suspended one game. The hits keep on coming.
www.espn.com

Commanders' Daron Payne suspended for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown

The NFL has suspended Daron Payne for one game after the Commanders defensive lineman punched Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
Click to expand...


Honestly Payne deserves to be suspended for throwing a punch, but I really wonder what St Brown did or said, because several of our guys said he started it, and you could see their anger with the refs for not noticing. My wife thought it was because St Brown did the Trump dance, but the ruckus started a few plays before the touchdown. Here’s an analysis of the sequence:



The video we have leaves out a lot of the context, and in a way I’m glad our guys care enough about the game and each other to fight, but it is still embarrassing for the team to be so frustrated and undisciplined. We cannot get even by beating the other team in the game so we just pick a fight with them instead, it’s a bad look.
 
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Conn said:
No they didn’t, and that’s part of the problem. They were extremely conservative with future cap allocated, didn’t use most of their space, and stuck with a couple mid-tier signings on short deals plus a bunch of lame vets on one-year deals. Actually just about the most frugal-era Bruce Allen FA periods they could have had, and after an NFCCG appearance too. Baffling. We’ve all retconned that we went “all in” because we brought back all the veteran leadership signings from last year but in reality most of us were puzzled in the moment why we weren’t signing more starters, but went with “in AP we trust”.

We did not remotely “go for broke” this season we mostly just rested on our laurels, brought in a new rookie class, and signed a couple above average vets we hoped would exceed expectations. Other than the Tunsil trade (significant) and the Deebo trade (minor in value), we didn’t treat this as a roster that needed a major talent infusion. That isn’t “all-in” at all.
Click to expand...
My supposition here, and I’m probably wrong, is they wanted to save space to (have the ability to) pay Terry, Tunsil, Deebo, etc. I also wonder how they actually rated their roster - they might have seen it as a scrappy group last year that got really lucky, knew it still needed a lot of work, and so continued the bandaid veteran approach (aside from the trades) as they eased in younger guys and continued working toward building depth.
Edit: I’m not trying to defend the process, just trying to make sense of why they went that route.

Obviously this all backfired.

Aside from all of the injuries, I do think there’s maybe some element of the broken whole making the parts look worse than they are. Or maybe certain individuals either causing everyone around them to look worse, or forcing the scheme to fall apart. Or maybe poor scheming/coaching/playcalling. Or hell, maybe all 3 of those. Quan, Sainristil, Luvu, Wagner all look off. Our oline, combined with Bates/Sinnott should be performing, but they’ve struggled more than you’d think given the talent.

It’s a weird (and disastrous) season, and we’ll see how AP’s able to manage it (after evaluating it) going forward. I hope that it just looks like we’re further behind the 8 ball than we actually are, but it’s tough to be optimistic on that front.
 
On Payne, I agree 100% with Nicky. You get suspended a game for losing your cool and throwing a punch. You get suspended a second game for being stupid enough to throw a punch at a helmet.
 
ESPN:

Washington defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw said after the game that St. Brown had punched Payne.

"Yeah for sure, and they [saw it], too," Kinlaw said of the refs. "It's some bulls---. 100 percent.

"Daron retaliated. The refs literally saw the first punch. I don't blame him for the way he reacted. Tempers got to flaring."


www.espn.com

Commanders' Daron Payne suspended for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown

The NFL has suspended Daron Payne for one game after the Commanders defensive lineman punched Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
www.espn.com www.espn.com


Still stupid and unacceptable from Payne, but annoying if true that refs saw the shenanigans start and didn't also flag/eject Brown.
 
I still think his ass needs to get cut. He's on the books for $28m next year. It's been talked about a lot on this board about whether he's going to be a cost saving move in the off season that would drop that cap hit down to $11.2m. I have a hard time believing he's going to be on this roster under the current contract, so he's either released, or he's re-signed. I am not exactly feeling the warm and fuzzies about signing him to another deal, so I feel like it's time to make a point. I don't think it serves any purpose to fire Whitt mid-season, that can wait, but you want to shock the system? Cut your $26m DT who just got suspended for punching another player on the field.

FULL DISCLOSURE.... I do not know exactly how that would effect the cap number, or if an in-season release would effect the money differently... ?
 
Washington's defense even when healthy can't stop the run or prevent the big play in the passing game.

So, who is really a must have player for us?

You have a couple of younger guys in Trey Amos and Tyler Owens that seem to have quite a bit of upside. Perhaps Aho and Medrano have some upside too.

But I don't see anyone on the DL or at linebacker among the veterans that is a 'must keep' performer.

Von Miller, Bobby Wagner and all the other one year guys over 30 will be gone in the offseason.

Daron Payne only showed yesterday what we have known all along, he is no team leader. He's been overhyped and overpaid his entire career after showing up for ONE season with pro bowl stats.

Marshon Lattimore in my mind should be done here. He has one more year with little guaranteed money on his contract and with the ACL he is likely to be out until midseason of 2026.

This team should waive him with any injury settlement in the offseason. Again, he is a veteran that is like Payne a bit of a sulker and lone wolf, he doesn't provide much leadership and is way overhyped for what he delivers on the field.

I remember seeing Lattimore in his early days in New Orleans when he was a real terror. He was a cover guy that really could hit for his position, a safety mentality at cornerback. He also had catch up speed.

He's far away from that player now and it seems apparent Peters and Washington got soaked in the trade with New Orleans.
 
Dah-Dee said:
ESPN:

Washington defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw said after the game that St. Brown had punched Payne.

"Yeah for sure, and they [saw it], too," Kinlaw said of the refs. "It's some bulls---. 100 percent.

"Daron retaliated. The refs literally saw the first punch. I don't blame him for the way he reacted. Tempers got to flaring."


www.espn.com

Commanders' Daron Payne suspended for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown

The NFL has suspended Daron Payne for one game after the Commanders defensive lineman punched Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
www.espn.com www.espn.com


Still stupid and unacceptable from Payne, but annoying if true that refs saw the shenanigans start and didn't also flag/eject Brown.
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Payne lost his cool and his punishment is probably light. If Brown did punch him, the cameras will find it. There are cameras everywhere and they don’t miss anything.

The crazy thing is this wasn’t the only time the players were talking to the refs about things the Lions were doing. Not sure what was going on out there, but it seemed like things were a bit chippy. Only one team was continually losing its cool and getting penalties though. It made it worse since it was the losing team.
 
Everyone is piling on Payne and deservedly so, but I dunno - that’s the most fight our defense has shown in over a month. I realize you should beat the opposition with your play, but getting bullied around the field like they have, takes its toll. Add St. Brown and his antics into the mix and shit happened.

I think the one game the league handed out is enough. If anything it’s more punishment having to go out their and get your ass kicked.
 
clskinsfan said:
Disagree. The old are injured as well:

Trent Scott: 31
Terry: 30
Jalyn Holmes: 30
George Fant: 33
Lattimore: Will be 30 in May'
Noah Brown: WIll be 30 in January
WIll Harris: 30 next month'
Deatrich Wise: 31
Ekeler: 30
Click to expand...

Those are mostly depth guys, but sure. We have some 29 year olds (who already had injury histories) getting hurt. My point was we actually had the most minutes played by rookie contract players until a few weeks ago, our main old guys are just very visible. It’s not the main issue with our roster, it’s just one issue. The talent floor is just low and some of the guys on the depth chart are old, so the domino effect of the injuries is worse. But we have a LOT of young players playing, more than most teams, because we’re missing that crucial middle of the roster that would have come from the Rivera era pipeline if there was any to be had. So our roster ranges from very young to very old without that foundation in the middle.

The young players here are getting a lot of run compared to the rest of the league—they just also suck, or the coaching sucks so bad as to make them look sucky. Either way the issue is talent and team speed, at any age.
 
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I just saw an interview with Brown after the game. He admitted that they got in a little tussle 2 plays before and he said that after he scored the TD, he said something to Payne first. You could also tell the way he was being honest but low key was downplaying it makes me feel like he knows that he bears some responsibility and possibly got away with some stuff. Here is the clip

 
Commander Wraith said:
My supposition here, and I’m probably wrong, is they wanted to save space to (have the ability to) pay Terry, Tunsil, Deebo, etc. I also wonder how they actually rated their roster - they might have seen it as a scrappy group last year that got really lucky, knew it still needed a lot of work, and so continued the bandaid veteran approach (aside from the trades) as they eased in younger guys and continued working toward building depth.
Edit: I’m not trying to defend the process, just trying to make sense of why they went that route.

Obviously this all backfired.

Aside from all of the injuries, I do think there’s maybe some element of the broken whole making the parts look worse than they are. Or maybe certain individuals either causing everyone around them to look worse, or forcing the scheme to fall apart. Or maybe poor scheming/coaching/playcalling. Or hell, maybe all 3 of those. Quan, Sainristil, Luvu, Wagner all look off. Our oline, combined with Bates/Sinnott should be performing, but they’ve struggled more than you’d think given the talent.

It’s a weird (and disastrous) season, and we’ll see how AP’s able to manage it (after evaluating it) going forward. I hope that it just looks like we’re further behind the 8 ball than we actually are, but it’s tough to be optimistic on that front.
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I agree that this was their thought process, and that it backfired. Zoom out and think about how arrogant (no negative connotation here, just a description of the trap they fell into) it is to assume you don’t need the money or starters it could buy to be competitive now, you’ve gotten competitive enough and need to save that money for when your current (assumed adequate) players need to be paid later! There’s something to be said for preserving future cap health and being prepared for the future, but they went so extreme with it that they clearly felt the roster as constructed had mostly arrived and just needed some patches. When in reality the talent floor on this team needed a total overhaul, it needed to be raised.

We needed some of those (yes, a little overpaid) 25-28 year old FA starters that teams like the Patriots and Cards and others spent quality money on (without going goofy mode like the Jaguars years back), to make up for the mess AP inherited from Rivera. I think they just underestimated how much magic and luck and injury fortune played into our run last season. I see how it happened, but I want to see adjustments. This roster is fixable and it wouldn’t be a shortcut to sign some quality starters and playmakers on both sides of the ball to take advantage of the remainder of Jayden Daniels’ rookie contract. He’ll get an enormous, likely record-breaking contract in a couple years, we all hope for that. But to get there healthy and accomplished and be worth all that, he needs talent, speed, and brains around him now in order to earn it. Or we’re going to be watching this shit show for a few more years while we squander all his potential in agonizing slow motion.
 
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Boone said:
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.
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The tell is, with all the WRs out, they could run more 2 and 3 TE sets and send Sinnott out as a receiver if they really believed in him as one
 
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