The lessons of 2025

[Discobob]

Well.... I learned that the Key and Peele skit was crap apparently



This was one of my lessons from 2025, so it's related!

 

[Conn]

That's one of my biggest fears with the bromance Quinn and peters developed.

Will peters have the balls to force changes that Quinn doesnt want?

Yeah, I get it’s a weird idea but I’ve been posting a lot about the potential concept of “over-collaboration” in our current structure. AP was the Prince That Was Promised GM candidate who waited for the perfect opportunity and then pounced to come here. Take the reins, buy the groceries YOU believe in, and create the expectation that the staff will scheme around the talent provided, period. Remake this roster in your image, not in the image of coordinators and assistants who may fail and leave. They’re coaches. There’s no reason to believe they can evaluate college talent like scouts can. Take their input on desired traits and skill-sets, but this whole thing where over half our draft consists of guys the coaches pounded the table for…kill it. It’s not working.

And I suspect it leads to us overvaluing these ST’s-focused guys. Coaches love a young guy who contributes on teams, there’s nothing inherently wrong about that. But we’re consistently using valuable mid-round picks on guys who primarily project as ST’s studs who could possibly develop at their position. Instead of just taking potential starters who may be harder to activate on game day until they develop. Feels like it lowers our ceiling. And that feels like a possible result of over-weighting what coaches want and are comfortable taking a risk on, just as an example.

 

[Faithful Fan]

Lessons learned from 2025?

Don’t get your hopes up because of one lucky season?

Should have taken Drake Maye over Jayden Daniels?

Don’t pass this misery on to your kids?

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Prince That Was Promised

He thought he was the Prince who was promised.

He was wrong.

 

[DazedSkinsFan]

I certainly don't want Harris to be that meddling owner that causes more harm than good, but I certainly hope he tells AP that if we have cap money then don't be afraid to go spend it. Spend some damn money in 2026 and bring some talent in here!!! Im not saying stupid deals that handcuff us, but spend more money than we did in 2025. We can't build a super bowl roster in one off season, but if we spend some money and hit on a few draft picks we can definitely improve this roster.

 

[burgold]

Maybe this is a 2024 lesson, but it bears repeating.

Don't trade for injured players.

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

I would be beside myself if Harris involves himself in the management of the team before his third season ends. We just escaped an overbearing owner who inserted himself into the management of the team. I'd have to think long and hard about whether I'd want to waste more time being a fan of the team going back into the 30 years of madness we were praying to be rid of.

This A thousand times this. You don't clean house of even fire the head coach after 2 seasons.

All this talk about the receivers not getting separation but I'd to introduce another possibility. Jayden is not seeing open receivers or for whatever reason not throwing to them. Aikman said he had Layne but took off instead. Fans at the stadium insist Luke was getting open. Any thoughts here?

 

[Chris]

At least Whitt will be able to smell the stink of his defense from close up this week. 🤣

 

[formerly4skins]

Looking back on the 2025 season so far, I think i’ve got two big takeaways...

First, it's pretty clear that Jayden Daniels health is going to be a career-long storyline. The dude can obviously play, but he’ll always have that lean frame and we’ve seen it struggle to stand up to the violence of the NFL...upper body injuries, lower body injuries, and just the general wear and tear are already causing him to miss time in year 2. That ain't a good.

Second, the NFL is still all about speed...and if you don’t have it, you’re toast. We've learned the hard way that having a slow, plodding linebacker...like Bobby Wagner has become...in the middle is just asking to get eaten alive. And if your edge rushers can’t scare anybody or get around the corner, you’re basically bringing a knife to a gunfight. Whitt certainly hasn't done his side of the ball right with his coaching, but I kind of feel like the horses just aren't there no matter what he does with the scheme.

 

[Discobob]

Looking back on the 2025 season so far, I think i’ve got two big takeaways...

First, it's pretty clear that Jayden Daniels health is going to be a career-long storyline. The dude can obviously play, but he’ll always have that lean frame and we’ve seen it struggle to stand up to the violence of the NFL...upper body injuries, lower body injuries, and just the general wear and tear are already causing him to miss time in year 2. That ain't a good.

To your first point.... I'd like to address the folks that would counter that argument by saying...

- He needs to learn to throw it away
- He needs to learn to slide
- He has to protect himself better

Those are all great ideas, but it's very likely that he isn't going to be able to meaningfully change the way he has learned to play football. He has years of training that says, "F-it, I'll do it myself!" That's very difficult to turn off.

I think the front office has to just assume that he's gonna play this way for the next 3-4 years - whether you like it or not. As such, we need to build around that fact... solid investment in viable weapons (WR, RB, and TE), Oline, and offensive coaching. All of these things will cut down on the likelihood that he injures himself. I understand that our defense is a laughing-stock.... but we are going ABSOLUTELY nowhere without Daniels.

If you make me choose in the offseason.... I'm gonna go with bolstering the offense at the expense of the defense because of this dynamic.

 

[burgold]

What yesterday's ridiculous loss cemented in my mind was the notion that 2024 was not a fluke. With hour backup QB and with 3/4 of our top receivers missing we still scored 20+ points despite very limited opportunities. The bigger problem remains what we knew. The defense is horrible. It was horrible last year, too. It's worse now.

The thing is, I still contend it needn't have been this bad. Lattimore, Amos, and Sainristil should have formed at minimum a serviceable trio. Iggy had his moments last year as did Quan. It makes no sense that Luvu has become as bad as any player on the team or how badly Mikey seems to have regressed.

The Commanders should have a C defense with a couple of B games and a couple of D games. Losing Wise, Armstrong, and Harris should not have sunk the ship. This team is full of veterans who have gotten it done throughout their careers so even if they are not at the height of their powers they shouldn't be lost, confused, and completely helpless which leads me to think talent is not the chief problem. I won't argue that this defense was built incorrectly. They went all in to stop Philly's running game and sacrificed speed for bulk, but now we can't stop the run anyway. But the worse than the talent is the coaching. If Whitt's scheme requires 11 probowlers it will never work. So, I don't know how much of a rebuild the defense really needs (feels like a total rebuild right now) but the braintrust has to go.

 

[method man]

What yesterday's ridiculous loss cemented in my mind was the notion that 2024 was not a fluke. With hour backup QB and with 3/4 of our top receivers missing we still scored 20+ points despite very limited opportunities. The bigger problem remains what we knew. The defense is horrible. It was horrible last year, too. It's worse now.

The thing is, I still contend it needn't have been this bad. Lattimore, Amos, and Sainristil should have formed at minimum a serviceable trio. Iggy had his moments last year as did Quan. It makes no sense that Luvu has become as bad as any player on the team or how badly Mikey seems to have regressed.

The Commanders should have a C defense with a couple of B games and a couple of D games. Losing Wise, Armstrong, and Harris should not have sunk the ship. This team is full of veterans who have gotten it done throughout their careers so even if they are not at the height of their powers they shouldn't be lost, confused, and completely helpless which leads me to think talent is not the chief problem. I won't argue that this defense was built incorrectly. They went all in to stop Philly's running game and sacrificed speed for bulk, but now we can't stop the run anyway. But the worse than the talent is the coaching. If Whitt's scheme requires 11 probowlers it will never work. So, I don't know how much of a rebuild the defense really needs (feels like a total rebuild right now) but the braintrust has to go.

If you compare the talent in 2024 vs 2025 head to head, 2025 wins. With the injuries, it’s probably a wash. This should at least be a bottom third defense, not the worst defense in football.

What’s telling is, of the holdovers from the Ron era, who has been better in Whitt’s scheme?

Payne is neutral
Quan was way better as a rookie than he has been the past two years
BSJ had flashes in year 2 under Ron that he did not show again
Forbes sucked in both places

 

[RedWolf]

We just had bad luck this year, things will get better. Don't give up Faith

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

If you compare the talent in 2024 vs 2025 head to head, 2025 wins. With the injuries, it’s probably a wash. This should at least be a bottom third defense, not the worst defense in football.

What’s telling is, of the holdovers from the Ron era, who has been better in Whitt’s scheme?

Payne is neutral
Quan was way better as a rookie than he has been the past two years
BSJ had flashes in year 2 under Ron that he did not show again
Forbes sucked in both places

I agree - I think there is a measurable decline in the performance of our secondary.

Then, the secondary that actually took us to the playoffs last year, played the majority of last year's regular season games...
most of them were replaced.

We have regressed there this year from last year's performance, but LAST YEAR that group actually had a *down* year for them.

To me, it's a clear cut sign that Tommy Donatell needs to be looked at. I don't see any sign of that happening. I am concerned that this coaching structure has some accountability issues.

 

[NoCalSkins]

I am not as Bearish on the bigger situation overall, tbh. I think the lesson to be learned is more about the ups & downs of the early stages of roster construction.

I think it is a little inaccurate to say the team isn't as good this year because what we have seen for most of the season isn't the intended game day roster. We barely got a glimpse of what the team looked like healthy.

I think it's fair to say our record wouldn't be as good due to a more difficult schedule, but if the injuries were within normal reason, I think the team at least has a winning record right now, even with how terrible the defense has been, because I saw it happen last season, routinely.

The main lesson for me is that we should have kept in mind Adam Peter's answer/non-answer/attempt to be amicable & professional when asked what he thought of this roster in his first presser after being hired and not let the super quick success of 2024 blind us to just how below par the roster was and the undertaking it will require to not only get good players on the field, but also build the kind of depth that allows them to sustain injuries throughout the season. To have expected that kind of build, growth, & development this quickly, considering they were basically starting from scratch outside of Terry......that was our bad as fans.