Fifth Down

September 11, 2019

By Jay Evans

There was real football this week. The scores count. Every year some teams are expected to accrue double digit wins and many will fall flat of projections, while hopeless wastelands come from the cellar a season before to win their division and make the playoffs.

Bottom feeders and Super Bowl hopefuls alike represent the extremes of the NFL. The remaining franchises comprise the immense parity. The league lives within two games of an even record. Eighteen teams finished with records between 10-6 and 6-10 last season.

If the 2019 Redskins win more than six games this season it will be the most successful five year run that Dan Snyder has overseen. That’s definitely not the outcome any fan wants to hear, but if the Redskins finish with a record of 7-9 or better it will represent the best five year stretch the team has experienced since 1992.

The Redskins dropped the first game of the season to a deep Eagles team in disappointing fashion after failing to protect a 17-0 lead. The preseason predictions were dastardly and the first five games on the schedule are onerous. Can the Redskins buck the fifth-year curse that has plagued this franchise for the past 20 years?

A modest record this season would be a monumental achievement for the organization. Washington is a game and half below a .500 winning percentage over the past four seasons.

They have bested this feat only twice before during the Dan Snyder era and no streak has extended “positively” further than four seasons. The existential fifth year has been the line of demarcation to demise and each manifestation has created a registry of wholesale changes.

The seasons preceding the modest four year stretches all included a fourth-place finish in the division and double-digit losses. The Redskins went 6-10 in both 1998 and 2004 and in Jay Gruden’s first season the team limped to a 4-12 record.

Modest successful runs were ushered in by miraculously playoffs runs. The humble streaks all began with an invitation to the playoffs and withered five years later with double digit losses.

The cyclical oddity began in Dan Snyder’s first four years as owner of the Washington Redskins. Reminiscent of a teething puppy with a chew toy, he gnawed on the furniture and tore up coaches like knockoff rawhides. Surprisingly, after his first sixty-four games as owner, Dan was two games above .500, but the new sheen was fading quickly.

However, by the time Steve Spurrier entered his second season, the afterglow was fading for Dan as the Redskins spiraled under a college offense and subpar talent. Turmoil was prevalent in the early years of the Snyder regime.

Spurrier’s nasally pitched salty drawl announced, “Ok, we wound up five and eleven, not very good,” at the conclusion of his second and final season in the NFL and the lifeless franchise was back into purgatory by the end of 2003.

After Spurrier retired from a golf course, Joe Gibbs returned to the NFL in 2004. Gibbs was exposed after having been absent in the evolution of the league and finished his initial Gibbs 2.0 season at 6-10. Gibbs’ second season in 2005 was the beginning of “respectable mediocrity 2.0.” The team, full of grit, rebounded and reached the playoffs with Al Saunders’ seven hundred page playbook.

The three seasons that followed saw the Redskins amass an even win to loss ratio after rebuilding the front office structure and accruing professional grade talent that had been depleted during the Spurrier regime.

The abrupt retirement of Gibbs was the worst thing to happen to this franchise for the entire time Snyder has owned the team. Tragedy struck the Redskins in late November 2007, eventually culminating in a miraculous playoff appearance, and with Gibbs’ retirement. There was no succession plan and Gibbs was irreplaceable.

Jim Zorn took over as head coach in 2008 and earnes a 6-2 record before finishing 8-8 on the season, capping off a four year stretch that saw the Redskins make two playoff appearances in the four-year span and finish exactly 32-32 in the ’05-08’ era.

Unfortunately, 2009 was a complete disaster as Zorn was fully past the honeymoon phase and completely exposed as a fraud. In his second season Zorn, who publicly admitted to feeling “like the worst coach in America”, was removed from play calling and went 4-12. Zorn ultimately finished his final twenty-four games with a 6-18 record.

The Redskin teams that preceded those four year stretches all have eerie similarities. Spurrier, Zorn, and Gruden succeeded football icons only to inherit a talent base lacking in potential and full of over-the-hill athletes. The rosters were bloated with veteran contracts and quarterbacks that were a party sized bag of stale popcorn, limburger, and lutefisk.

This “fifth” season is starkly different to those previous inceptions. Gruden enters his sixth season and needs to win to preserve his job, but is the only coach to ever receive an extension from Snyder.

The average age of the 2019 Redskins roster is 26.1 and down from 26.3 last season. It is significantly younger than the 2009 roster which was 27.6 or the 2004 team at 27.2 years of age. An extra year and a half might not seem like a lot, but it is an additional 79.5 cumulative years of age added to the roster. Each of those teams would have been the oldest in the league this season.

Furthermore, the team’s drafting strategy has drastically changed. The Redskins have heavily invested in the offensive and defensive lines during this most recent stretch. Kenard Lang was selected in the first round in 1997 and the Redskins opted not to choose another down defensive lineman (in the first three rounds of the draft) for the next fifteen years!

Offensive guard Brandon Scherff and defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne were all selected in the first round during Jay Gruden’s tenancy. Later round selections Matt Ioannidis, Morgan Moses, and Chase Roullier have been groomed during this time, unlike previous administrations.

Preseason predictions are as firm as the burning incense in Georgetown. The majority of the prognostications are biased and the origin of discontent is motivated by their perceived sterility of Case Keenum, a general malaise to Colt McCoy, and uncertainty as to Dwayne Haskins.

There will be instances of brilliance, followed by periods of infuriating dissatisfaction, certainly never predictable. Under Gruden, the team has victories over Green Bay and Seattle, yet tied Cincinnati and lost to the New York Jets over that span.

During Gruden’s term, the Redskins have earned the rare accomplishment of four consecutive years of stable mediocrity. This team isn’t ready for the weight of championship expectations, but they are closer to competing than they are to collapsing. That being said, the Redskins did not lose to the Eagles because of the quarterback and it was Keenum’s play in the first half that propelled the Redskins to an early lead.

The first half of the Eagles game established hope that the Redskins were prepared to break the tragic cycle. The second half reassured that those predictions will come true. The truth lies somewhere in between.

The remainder of the season will play out a lot like the game against the Eagles and if they win seven of the remaining 15 games this will be the best five-year period in 30 years. That is truly saying something.