Will the Commanders find more success after last year's breakout season?

Yahoo

07-05-2025

Will the Commanders find more success after last year's breakout season? | Inside Coverage
Jason Fitz, Jori Epstein, and Frank Schwab break down all the offseason moves of the Washington Commanders and where they stand in comparison to this time last year.
Hear the full conversation on 'Inside Coverage' - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
Look, I've all love in the world for Jay Daniels.
I think he's awesome.
I think he's great.
And let's not forget, a year ago, there was nobody more optimistic about the Washington Commanders than me.
I was telling everybody this is a playoff team.
This team could go big time places.
But I look back now and I have to say I think this team is going to retreat.
There were so many things about their season that are just unrepeatable.
Now some of these things from Warren Sharpe does a great job over at SharpFootball.com.
The analysis, you know, listening to him and a lot of stuff, he says, I'm going to repeat some of his talking points that I had already seen doing some work on my previews.
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Last year, the Washington Commanders on 4th down were 87%, the highest rate in NFL history.
That is not going to repeat.
Last year they played 12 teams that didn't make the playoffs, the most in the NFL.
They won 11 of those games.
And think about some of those wins, the Hail Mary over the Bears and the win they had against the Eagles, very impressive, but Devonte Smith drops a 3rd down pass that basically allows Jayden Daniels to win the game in the final 15 seconds.
Games like that, they played all year, but they were just winning right at the end of games, the Atlanta game and overtime.
Just time after time, the commanders were winning these awesome games and that's not repeatable.
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It's just not.
They are going to take a step back from where they were a year ago.
Jane Daniels, look, we were saying the same thing about CJ Stroud last year.
Well, the, the Texans aren't going to retreat because CJ Stroud's so awesome.
CJ Stroud.
Still awesome, just a lot of things around him kind of crumbled a little bit because we like to think of improvement as linear.
We like to think, wow, the commanders were this good of Jayden Daniel's rookie year, so they're going to be even better in his 2nd year, and they might be because Jay Daniels is just that dude, that usually doesn't happen.
There's something called the Plexiglass principle, where a team improves so much in one year that it's almost inevitable that they take a step back the year after, because it's just, that's the way it goes, and there's so many luck-based.
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Things of the commander's profile that just can't repeat in 2025.
I think this team is on the right path.
I think they're going to be very, very good, but they are going to take a step back this year.
I don't know that they're going to make the playoffs this year.
9.5 wins.
I'd go under that.
This is nothing against Jay Daniels, Dan Quinn, or anything, but I think this was always a multi-year thing with the Commanders, and it would not surprise me whatsoever to see them take a step back from what was a very awesome, exciting, but at the same time, fortunate 2024 season.
See, Frank, I think what's interesting about what you're saying is when you start talking about these teams who overperform in that first year with the head coach and also are winning all these close games at the end, I think back to Brian Dael's first year with the New York Giants and what a leap they took in 2022 and then how they backslid and have yet to get back to where they were that one year when they won a playoff game.
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To me, the difference is our question is not, will they win more games?
Do you feel better about the commanders than a year ago?
I definitely feel better about them than a year ago because I was concerned, hey, do they have the right vibes?
I visited OTAs last year.
I kind of felt like they were almost too chilled to have success.
Turns out it worked for everyone involved.
To me, the question is not, they might lose more games because like you said, they're probably not going to have Hail Marys to win and they're not going to have cornerbacks to turn to the crowd while they're throwing that ball.
All of those different things.
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But do I feel like if you put them against the Eagles in the playoffs this year, maybe they could be better than last year?
Yes.
And so, I'd be surprised if they don't make the playoffs at all.
I think maybe it's not quite as a lock, and maybe they're not securing their bid in November in the way they were last year.
But I do think that they have a foundation they didn't have last year.
And I don't think the magic has totally run out.
I think that they'll lose some more games, but I think that the foundation will be sturdier.