A Double Dose of Plan B
September 28, 2019
By Jay Evans
The season is off to an abysmal start for the Redskins. They are winless after three games and have won one game since November of 2018. By the time the clock strikes zeroes against the Patriots at Fed Ex in two weeks the Redskins will be on the verge of large-scale changes.
Before the season, it wasn’t unforeseeable to begin the season 0-3. “Hope is a dangerous thing, hope can drive a man crazy.” The Redskins produced enough in the first two games to crush optimism with early leads and to spoil the riches with ineptitude.
After sleep walking through most of the Bears game, there was a moment before the fourth down leap of stupidity at point which people began contemplating the “what if” – and then Redskins nation hurtled back down to reality long before Case Keenum.
The Redskins are 1-9 in their past ten games. They aren’t a good team. They aren’t a bad team. They are a beaten team. Defeated on and off the field.
In the past ten games, the matchups have been brutal: Texans, Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, Jacksonville, Titans, Eagles, Eagles, Cowboys, and Bears. Seven of those games were against playoff teams and the combined record of the teams with winning records was 79-49.
On Sunday, the Redskins face one of the two non-playoff teams from that list, the New York Giants, who racked up a 40-to-nothing lead in their last meeting in Landover, and then the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots travel south to Fed Ex Field.
Five different quarterbacks have played for the Washington Redskins in the recent ten games. The plan to see a sixth signal caller, only if necessary, was after the Patriots game and certainly not in the overwhelming opening stretch of the season. I love it when a plan comes together.
The plan, however, is stalled in neutral. Since 1980, six teams have made the playoffs after an 0-3 start, but has occurred only once in the past two decades. The 1992 San Diego Chargers are the only team to make the playoffs after beginning 0-4.
With a winnable matchup against the Giants, there is a chance to restore some hope that the season isn’t a complete loss. However, the “reasonable” scenario for the Redskins after the week 5 game against the Patriots is 1-4.
Nine teams have made the playoffs after a 1-4 start to the season, but none have made the Super Bowl and the 2002 Tennessee Titans are the only team to make it to a division championship game.
Clouding the Delphic premonitions from the preseason plan is the fact that the 49ers, Bills and Lions are all undefeated after a combined record of 16-32 last season. Road trips to Minnesota, Carolina, and Green Bay remain on the schedule and the Redskins will be considered favorites in only two of their final twelve games.
According to Playoffstatus.com the Redskins are currently the least likely team to make the playoffs in the 2019 season. With just a 5% chance at making the playoffs, they are dead last in the NFL and a baffling seven percentage points behind the Miami Dolphins. So, you are telling me there’s a chance!
Like one in a million.
The playoffs will remain elusive for a fifth straight season. The Redskins had a set goal of scrappily fighting through this first five-week slog to stay somewhat relevant and then enter the core of the schedule ready to feast in the next six games against the 49ers, Bills, Jets, Lions, and the aforementioned Dolphins.
Problematic is the fact that the Redskins have stumbled in executing the first step in the script of 2019. The Skins didn’t steal a win against either division opponent and all three losses were in the NFC.
The Miami Dolphins have embraced a plan. They have shipped off every available piece to the highest bidder. After trading LT Laremy Tunsil and DB Minkah Fitzpatrick, they now own three first-round picks, two second-round picks, and likely two third-round picks in the upcoming April draft.
Miami is intent on losing. The difference between the Dolphins and the Skins is they are executing their plan flawlessly. The time for altering the Redskins’ originally scheduled program is rapidly approaching.
An acceptable course of action is needed because Plan A didn’t succeed. In normal and reasonable schemes, the notion that a plan failed is acceptable. Redskins fans are all too familiar with failed intentions, but the indignation of the fanbase is fueled by an organization that never appears to have any predetermined contingencies or hints at a Plan B.
The perception is that this organization believes its initial implemented course of action is always going to be successful, and therefore reticently denies alternatives, leaving no flexibility for unintentional errors. This institutional unawareness permeates every level of the Redskins organization from the tops of the owner’s ephemeral intentions down to the withering blades of grass in Landover.
Leads were built in both games against the Eagles and the Cowboys, but once the opposition countered there is an obliviousness to alternate endings. The playcalling, the Kirk Cousins contract negotiation, the Trent Williams holdout, the stadium relocation – preliminary failures are never addressed with appropriate respect.
Embarrassed by sirens of weakness, the Redskins are ever reluctant to admit failure. Heed the bells or they will eternally go silent.
There is no shame in taking an altered route, but there is humiliation in ignorance. Has it occurred to the organization that they could lose to the Giants? If so, then what? If they win, can they sell to the public they remain in contention on their way to the undefeated New England Patriots who have yet yield a touchdown?
The Redskins should embrace a full transition mode. Become as fluid as the Anacostia. Washington should be preparing to shop every player, contract, coach, and management official associated with the franchise.
Fleece any team willing to part with picks for any of the current organization’s players approaching free agency or who are in a precarious contract status. Trent Williams needs to be gone. Josh Norman for a 6th and a bag of doughnuts, done. Let Adrian Peterson walk to another team willing to not hand him the ball. Jay Gruden and Manusky, enjoy the long holiday. Tear it down.
Absolutely sell high and prepare to eat low. If the right offer presents itself for Brandon Scherff, I’d strongly consider a trade. Let another team in the hunt acquire Morgan Moses and hand him a few golden flags on the way out the door. Commit the foul, (whistle blows) “un-holding, Redskins number 2019, one-year penalty, the ball will be placed at the 2020.”
Let go and plot the end. The Redskins have been pedaling on an exercise bike and are just as close to getting to the finish line as they were when the season began. They hoped to start better and it didn’t work. Valiance has taken this regime as far as it can go. Wipe the slate.
Come in like a wrecking ball. Rumors are prayers answered for many fans, as leaks have started to project Bruce Allen on the outs after the season.
Establish the young core of the team and expose them to the NFL game. Removing the entitled personalities from the premises is addition by subtraction.
Dwayne Haskins will play this season, sooner than desired, because any trace of relevance the Redskins had for the 2019 season disappeared faster than seats in the “Party Zone” of Fed Ex Field.
Begin with the players and trickle up to the offices. Is this the Mississippi River’s ideal path of a reverse cleansing? Possibly not, but it’s a Plan B and more comprehensive than any other proposition presented to the legion of Redskins fans and a pill large enough to swallow.