Washington Commanders 2025 Season: Expectations

Wow, that’s an unbelievable and impressive amount of research!

He’s wrong though, we will win at least 12 games. Here is my research…


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I think the East looks a lot like the North did last year. All 4 teams are better, except the Eagles who are still the SB favorite.

I think we're better offensively and definitely defensively. Our Dline is fucking heavy af and our CBs are going to be way better than last year
 
Outside of Wagner, our LBs have wheels--Magee and Medrano can move. If Medrano can fix his tackling issues, he is going to be a steal
 
I’ve been seeing some talk about how Washington overachieved last year and will regress this year. Here are some of the common themes:

1. Sophmore slump for Jayden as teams get tape on him.
2. Aging roster including guys like Wagner and Ertz slowing down.
3. Most 2024 wins were in one possession games including many lucky breaks (e.g. the Hail Mary against Chicago and lucky fumble recovery and doink in the Wild Card).
4. Philly dominated us in games their starting QB played, and the rest of our division appears to be improved.
5. Strength of schedule in 2024 was very easy, in 2025 it is very hard.
6. Our run defense was abysmal and there is no reason to think it improved, Kinlaw in particular is known to be weak in that area, and Allen is gone.
7. There is a history of teams that improve by eight wins in a season regressing to the mean the following season.

I am trying to remain optimistic, but the more I think about it the more I worry we are in for a letdown. I would be surprised to see us come close to the success of last season.

I hope I’m wrong; maybe you guys can set me straight.
 
Faithful Fan said:
I’ve been seeing some talk about how Washington overachieved last year and will regress this year. Here are some of the common themes:

1. Sophmore slump for Jayden as teams get tape on him.
2. Aging roster including guys like Wagner and Ertz slowing down.
3. Most 2024 wins were in one possession games including many lucky breaks (e.g. the Hail Mary against Chicago and lucky fumble recovery and doink in the Wild Card).
4. Philly dominated us in games their starting QB played, and the rest of our division appears to be improved.
5. Strength of schedule in 2024 was very easy, in 2025 it is very hard.
6. Our run defense was abysmal and there is no reason to think it improved, Kinlaw in particular is known to be weak in that area, and Allen is gone.
7. There is a history of teams that improve by eight wins in a season regressing to the mean the following season.

I am trying to remain optimistic, but the more I think about it the more I worry we are in for a letdown. I would be surprised to see us come close to the success of last season.

I hope I’m wrong; maybe you guys can set me straight.
Click to expand...
Here's the flip side.

1. First year install of the offense by Kingsbury. He now knows what we do well better and the players know the offense better.
2. First year in the NFL for Daniels. He now has experience with NFL speed.
3. First year as a DC for Whitt. He went though some growing pains and should improve.
4. First year install of defense by Quinn/Whitt. Players had to change a ton of their approach from the Rivera years.
5. Philly dominated us mainly becuase of "unlucky" turnovers. Just a ton of fumbles. We didn't have the same fumbling problems in any other games. So, if we can handle the nerves we'll be in the games.
6. We changed our D line and secondary significantly so there's every reason to hope that will impact our run defense.
7, Gibbs started 0-5 had a strong end to the season. In his second year, he won the Superbowl. Regression happens if the team is average. If Daniels has magic and Quinn/Kingsbury are good at their jobs... if Peters is a top GM, then we're at the beginning of an ascendent period.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I still really like the direction we’re headed with Jayden, DQ, and Peters at the helm. Jayden is special and gives us a chance in every game. DQ is a great leader and has built a strong culture. Peters appears to be very good at roster building. I believe we are set up to be a good team for the foreseeable future, and I’m so glad to see it after decades of misery. That Lions game in particular showed how great we can be.

I just think last year was a bit lucky and expect a letdown versus expectations this year, maybe 9 or 10 wins. Of course calling any winning season a letdown says a lot about how far we’ve come.

If we do better I’ll be elated, and it certainly could happen, I was repeatedly proven wrong in my pessimism last season.
 
Faithful Fan said:
Don’t get me wrong, I still really like the direction we’re headed with Jayden, DQ, and Peters at the helm. Jayden is special and gives us a chance in every game. DQ is a great leader and has built a strong culture. Peters appears to be very good at roster building. I believe we are set up to be a good team for the foreseeable future, and I’m so glad to see it after decades of misery. That Lions game in particular showed how great we can be.

I just think last year was a bit lucky and expect a letdown versus expectations this year, maybe 9 or 10 wins. Of course calling any winning season a letdown says a lot about how far we’ve come.

If we do better I’ll be elated, and it certainly could happen, I was repeatedly proven wrong in my pessimism last season.
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Meh. What was so lucky? The Hail Mary? Don’t forget we dominated most of that game and had plenty of bad luck in it. In fact, I’d say there was good and bad luck in every game. And I have to say neither the Pittsburgh game or the Dallas game felt very lucky at the end. Yes, we pulled a bunch out at the end, because our unicorn quarterback possesses the clutch gene. That’s not going away. It’s football and almost every game is close. A great QB can pull out more than your share of those games and make you look lucky… I mean didn’t Tom Brady just “get lucky“ for like 20 straight years??

Don’t worry my friend. Take Burgolds cue and think positive! We are on our way up, and this is going to be one of many 13+ win seasons on the horizon.
 
When I look at the NFC as a whole I still see The Eagles as the biggest obstacle in getting to the dance so let's say they end up matched against them in the divisional round instead of the NFCC and end up losing to them again. That means they technically finished in a worse spot than 2024, but big picture-wise does it mean they had a worse season? Hard to say.....

In the modern NFL era I don't think seeding for the postseason matters nearly as much as it used to, so while having 13+ wins in the regular season is definitely welcome, if 10 wins gets you in? So be it.....I could see the team's regular season wins total fluctuate up or down by a couple games based on factors we aren't even aware yet because of the league being such a week to week proposition.
 
NoCalSkins said:
When I look at the NFC as a whole I still see The Eagles as the biggest obstacle in getting to the dance so let's say they end up matched against them in the divisional round instead of the NFCC and end up losing to them again. That means they technically finished in a worse spot than 2024, but big picture-wise does it mean they had a worse season? Hard to say.....

In the modern NFL era I don't think seeding for the postseason matters nearly as much as it used to, so while having 13+ wins in the regular season is definitely welcome, if 10 wins gets you in? So be it.....I could see the team's regular season wins total fluctuate up or down by a couple games based on factors we aren't even aware yet because of the league being such a week to week proposition.
Click to expand...
I don’t see any reason why the Eagles are immune to regression. They play the same theoretically tougher schedule that we do. And they had plenty of good luck themselves last year. It’s almost unimaginable that they went through the playoffs without missing a single key contributor due to injury. They had a fairytale season that history says is extremely unlikely to recur. And we all know their annoying fans will quickly turn on them the minute they even get a sniff of things going sideways.
 
Faithful Fan said:
Don’t get me wrong, I still really like the direction we’re headed with Jayden, DQ, and Peters at the helm. Jayden is special and gives us a chance in every game. DQ is a great leader and has built a strong culture. Peters appears to be very good at roster building. I believe we are set up to be a good team for the foreseeable future, and I’m so glad to see it after decades of misery. That Lions game in particular showed how great we can be.

I just think last year was a bit lucky and expect a letdown versus expectations this year, maybe 9 or 10 wins. Of course calling any winning season a letdown says a lot about how far we’ve come.

If we do better I’ll be elated, and it certainly could happen, I was repeatedly proven wrong in my pessimism last season.
Click to expand...
Oh, I'm not saying that we will be even better I just wanted to provide some of the reasons why it's not unrealistic to be optimistic. It's easy to be "cynical" or "realistic," but in this case there actually are plenty of reasons to realistically believe the team will take a step forward. Deebo should be better than OZ. Amos should be better than Forbes. The secondary was so bad that Whitt was afraid to play the run in 2024 and even if they're not great you have to imagine that Lattimore, Sanristil, and Amos will be better than St. Juste, Forbes, and Iggy/Sanristil.

So, I'm not afraid by the law of averages. The law of averages is subject to context. We've done a lot of work to improve our O-Line and our secondary. I also think that there's every reason to believe that in their second year that Quinn, Whitt, Kingsbuy, and Peters will have done the homework so they can be better than in their rookie campaigns.

In other words, while those reasons you posted for the team faltering may come to fruition, we can make an equal if not stronger argument for the team being better.
 
HTTR said:
I don’t see any reason why the Eagles are immune to regression. They play the same theoretically tougher schedule that we do. And they had plenty of good luck themselves last year. It’s almost unimaginable that they went through the playoffs without missing a single key contributor due to injury. They had a fairytale season that history says is extremely unlikely to recur. And we all know their annoying fans will quickly turn on them the minute they even get a sniff of things going sideways.
Click to expand...

I agree I don't think they are immune, but I still think their talent level is probably the most stacked. It reminds of the 49ers until very recently, where they had such a stacked team that they seemed to be in the Superbowl or NFC Championship every season. I think the Eagles are in a similar situation where they could regress in the regular season by a couple games but as long as they get into the playoffs they will be dangerous due to lack of holes on the team overall.
 
I’ve been seeing some talk about how Washington overachieved last year and will regress this year. Here are some of the common themes:
Faithful Fan said:
1. Sophmore slump for Jayden as teams get tape on him.
2. Aging roster including guys like Wagner and Ertz slowing down.
3. Most 2024 wins were in one possession games including many lucky breaks (e.g. the Hail Mary against Chicago and lucky fumble recovery and doink in the Wild Card).
4. Philly dominated us in games their starting QB played, and the rest of our division appears to be improved.
5. Strength of schedule in 2024 was very easy, in 2025 it is very hard.
6. Our run defense was abysmal and there is no reason to think it improved, Kinlaw in particular is known to be weak in that area, and Allen is gone.
7. There is a history of teams that improve by eight wins in a season regressing to the mean the following season.

I am trying to remain optimistic, but the more I think about it the more I worry we are in for a letdown. I would be surprised to see us come close to the success of last season.

I hope I’m wrong; maybe you guys can set me straight.
Click to expand...

If you compile a list of the QBs we beat last vs what is on the schedule this year it’s certainly understandable why someone might have some trepidation about 2025. I just look at it like this though, if Jayden is what I think we all believe him to be, then the other QBs matter significantly less outside of a small fraction. Obviously Jayden went toe to toe with Lamar in Baltimore last year and beat Burrow in the Jungle. This year we will get to see him against Mahomes.

I’m holding firm. 12-5 and a SB victory.
 
I have no prediction because last year I was like " A rookie QB and a leaky line? We'll probably win 5 games". I suspect we'll have a worse record this year because we didn't get a fluff schedule, but the team will be better, if that makes sense.
 
Ghost of Sarge said:
I have no prediction because last year I was like " A rookie QB and a leaky line? We'll probably win 5 games". I suspect we'll have a worse record this year because we didn't get a fluff schedule, but the team will be better, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...
I thought we’d win 10 games last year. Happy to report I was wrong af 🤣
 
Phantvm said:
I thought we’d win 10 games last year. Happy to report I was wrong af 🤣
Click to expand...
Heh. I thought I was optimistic in hoping for six wins.

Rookie QB
Awful Line
Terrible D
Weak receiving corps
First year install of OC and DC
 
burgold said:
Heh. I thought I was optimistic in hoping for six wins.

Rookie QB
Awful Line
Terrible D
Weak receiving corps
First year install of OC and DC
Click to expand...
All excellent points. I just had high optimism in what I thought Jayden would be and I figured we’d win 5 in the division. Of course we only won 4 (damn it go for 2 Quinn!!). I figured 5 other wins out of 11 other games seemed feasible. Especially with the extra home game.
 
It's basically impossible for me to make a real prediction for this season. I look at the crazy schedule, consider the impossible run of 4th down effectiveness last year, Daniels refused to fumble all year, almost no injuries too, and I'm thinking maybe 8-9 wins because they must regress.

Then I consider that Daniels should be better, the OL is 100x better, the WRs are much improved, so is the DL and CBs. Hey they might win 12-13 because even last year they SHOULD have beaten the Steelers and Ravens.

I mean, anything between 8-13 wins can be defended as a position so I really have no clue.

I'm going to go with 11 wins and probably going to at least make some serious noise again in the playoffs, after that anything is possible with a franchise QB. Ours is better than the ones in Philadelphia, Dallas and NY.

Hell he already has as many playoff wins than any Cowboy QB since Troy Aikman.
 
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I only have one wish every season, and that's for a winning record. With the schedule, as long as we're 9-8, I'm good.
 
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