Official Game Thread - Week 13 - SNF - Broncos @ Commanders

[Faithful Fan]

This team learned how to win last season . . .

Evidently not.

 

[Commander Wraith]

Evidently not.

Knowing how and executing are two different things.

 

[CuredFromBatteredFanSyndrome]

I'm not dying on this hill, as I said I will never be critical of supporting winning. But yeah there is a reason teams trade big draft capital to move up in the draft, the 5th pick is clearly more valuable than the 12th pick. If for no other reason than it can used in a trade back to 12 while getting other picks. You are cherry picking examples, I can do the same the other way. The higher the pick the better chance you will have a better player. History has shown this to be the case.

I’ll add this to make it even more real, think about if we ended the 2023 season in a place where we ended up with Penix or McCarthy.

There will always be examples of high picks that bust, but I’m taking the highest I can.

 

[Faithful Fan]

I’ll add this to make it even more real, think about if we ended the 2023 season in a place where we ended up with Penix or McCarthy.

Why not Drake Maye or Bo Nix? Or what if we signed a free agent QB like Baker Mayfield and drafted a Brock Bowers or Malik Nabers? I’m not entirely sure we would be worse off in either of those cases than we are now, but time will tell. The point is you don’t have to lose on purpose (or be horrible) in order to build a good roster.

I think fans have developed this odd mentality of rooting to lose in order to cope with us being a lousy team. I guess it sort of made sense when we didn’t have a quarterback, now it’s just ridiculous. I want to win, and I sincerely hope every coach, player, and decision maker on this team feels the same.

 

[Dlts20]

I don't see anyone talking much about the field much. I moved away a decade ago so I'm not always up to date on everything but can anyone school me on why we've never been able to get a better field?

It seems like we have the worst field in the league by far. How can all of these years go by and they have all of this money but can't get a safer and better field? It always looks like they are running in the mud.

 

[Neophyte]

A couple more thoughts:

This is a different offense with McLaurin.

I think this is a different defense with Will Harris.

I'm lowkey excited about Moody. Don't want to jinx anything.

Mariota needs to come back next year.

 

[Conn]

It isn’t obvious to me that the 5th pick is so much better than the 12th. We all remember drafting bums like Chase Young in the top 5. And these are the 12th overall picks in the last three drafts: Micah Parsons, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Bo Nix. Is that group really worse than their 5th overall counterparts Devon Witherspoon, Joe Alt, and Mason Graham?

What is obvious to me is that winning is better than losing. Not only is that the whole object of the game, otherwise why draft good players? But also it is good for the team to learn how to win and develop winning habits.

Where are all our winning habits we learned last year?

Listen, when we draft high this offseason and are able to draft whoever your new favorite player ends up being, when you buy the jersey try not to think about the fact that if we’d won some of these games we wouldn’t have them.

You can cherry pick all you want. It is inarguable that getting your top choice of MORE players is better than getting your top choice of LESS players, over a large sample size, even if the best players at premium positions don’t always go earlier, they generally do.

Pretty silly to even be having this discussion (which isn’t about your right to ROOT for wins, but about the idea that in a vacuum a higher pick somehow isn’t better). Somehow I suspect if we were trying to build this franchise around Penix instead of Daniels because Rivera had some useless victories at the end of his tenure, you’d be less happy.

 

[Conn]

Why not Drake Maye or Bo Nix? Or what if we signed a free agent QB like Baker Mayfield and drafted a Brock Bowers or Malik Nabers? I’m not entirely sure we would be worse off in either of those cases than we are now, but time will tell. The point is you don’t have to lose on purpose (or be horrible) in order to build a good roster.

I think fans have developed this odd mentality of rooting to lose in order to cope with us being a lousy team. I guess it sort of made sense when we didn’t have a quarterback, now it’s just ridiculous. I want to win, and I sincerely hope every coach, player, and decision maker on this team feels the same.

I’m sorry, in most of the sports world a fan “wanting to win” when you have 3 wins in December is considered extremely old school outdated thinking. It’s fine, that’s anyone’s right to feel that way. But when you’re posting about it on a message board as if it’s gospel, you’re going to get pushback. Feels like reading a post from 2005.

The organization always wants to and tries to win. That isn’t what this is about, it’s about fan sentiment. And your opinion that higher picks are objectively better than lower picks. Which has nothing to do with the concept of “tanking” in itself.

 

[Conn]

I don't see anyone talking much about the field much. I moved away a decade ago so I'm not always up to date on everything but can anyone school me on why we've never been able to get a better field?

It seems like we have the worst field in the league by far. How can all of these years go by and they have all of this money but can't get a safer and better field? It always looks like they are running in the mud.

Our field hasn’t been an issue in years, we got a new one ages ago. The sod was bad last night, not sure why. It happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s a cleat issue.

 

[RedWolf]

Our field hasn’t been an issue in years, we got a new one ages ago. The sod was bad last night, not sure why. It happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s a cleat issue.

Sunday morning and it's time to go
Been raining all night so everybody knows
Over to the field for tackle football
Big hits, big hats, yeah give me the ball
Rain is pouring, touchdown scoring
Keep on rolling, never boring
Karma, karma, karma chameleon
We're talking kinda funny from helium

 

[Chris]

The field last night was re-sodded during the past 2 weeks.

 

[RedWolf]

The field last night was re-sodded during the past 2 weeks.

Who youse callin' a sod mate?

🤣

 

[Faithful Fan]

Where are all our winning habits we learned last year?

I wish I knew. Maybe we broke the habit by phoning in the preseason, or maybe we didn’t sustain success long enough to really ingrain the habit.

I suspect the best explanation of last season is that it was dumb luck. That 12-5 record is a huge outlier between 4-13 and 3-9 seasons, moreso in the context of a team that has only won 40% of its games over the last 20+ years. Given that history, it’s more likely that 2024 was a fluke and 3-9 losers is who we really are. Maybe if we win some games to close out the season I’ll change my mind.

People like to talk like success doesn’t carry over, but how would history be different if Gibbs didn’t finish the 1981 season 8-3 after an 0-5 start, or if Marty was given another year after doing the same in 2001?

Listen, when we draft high this offseason and are able to draft whoever your new favorite player ends up being, when you buy the jersey try not to think about the fact that if we’d won some of these games we wouldn’t have them.

Most of my favorite players were not top-5 picks.

You can cherry pick all you want.

I was responding to a specific claim that a 5th pick is better than a 12th pick by comparing those exact picks over the last three drafts, but call it cherry picking if you want.

It is inarguable that getting your top choice of MORE players is better than getting your top choice of LESS players, over a large sample size, even if the best players at premium positions don’t always go earlier, they generally do.

Of course high picks are worth more than low picks, I don’t deny it, I just don’t think the difference is so significant that it’s worth losing on purpose to move up a few spots.

Somehow I suspect if we were trying to build this franchise around Penix instead of Daniels because Rivera had some useless victories at the end of his tenure, you’d be less happy.

Given the importance of the QB position, tanking sort of made sense if you needed one and doing so would help you acquire a good one, but we are not in that situation now. (Although the jury is still out on which of the 2024 QB class will have the best career).

 

[Faithful Fan]

I’m sorry, in most of the sports world a fan “wanting to win” when you have 3 wins in December is considered extremely old school outdated thinking. It’s fine, that’s anyone’s right to feel that way. But when you’re posting about it on a message board as if it’s gospel, you’re going to get pushback.

Pushback doesn’t bother me, losing does.

The organization always wants to and tries to win.

I would hope so.

And your opinion that higher picks are objectively better than lower picks.

That’s not my opinion. My opinion is that winning is better than losing even if losing bumps you up a few draft spots.

 

[Chris]

Where are all our winning habits we learned last year?

Sitting on the sidelines?

 

[prodigy]

That’s not my opinion. My opinion is that winning is better than losing even if losing bumps you up a few draft spots.

I agree with you only to the extent that you have your qb (even if it's just for a couple years) and your head coach/front office will stay the same. if we knew we were getting a new coach and/or GM the following year and our QB was not settled, winning means nothing.

 

[Conn]

I agree with you only to the extent that you have your qb (even if it's just for a couple years) and your head coach/front office will stay the same. if we knew we were getting a new coach and/or GM the following year and our QB was not settled, winning means nothing.

I promise you that the difference between 3 and 6 wins this year also means nothing, since we know AP/Quinn aren’t on the hot seat. As long as we put up a real fight and do our best to develop the young guys we currently have, outcomes like last night’s are no different than pulling out the wins imo

 

[prodigy]

I promise you that the difference between 3 and 6 wins this year also means nothing, since we know AP/Quinn aren’t on the hot seat. As long as we put up a real fight and do our best to develop the young guys we currently have, outcomes like last night’s are no different than pulling out the wins imo

yeah I'm agreeing with you. i'm just saying that a blanket "wins matter" isn't true if there is no continuity in the subsequent year.

 

[Faithful Fan]

I agree with you only to the extent that you have your qb (even if it's just for a couple years) and your head coach/front office will stay the same. if we knew we were getting a new coach and/or GM the following year and our QB was not settled, winning means nothing.

That’s fair, tanking made a lot more sense in 2023 with no QB and regime change on the horizon than it does in 2025 two years into the new regime with our franchise QB in place.

 

[Faithful Fan]

Sad video about the game:



It’s kinda tragic for the team to battle like that and come up short. I just cannot understand being happy about this result.