The Washington Redskins have plenty of reason to walk into the off-season with their heads up high. Even after losing to the Green Bay Packers in Sunday’s Wild Card round, Washington should take pride in their accomplishments this season.
The Redskins finished the season with a winning record and a division title for the first time since 2012. QB Kirk Cousins showed enough to warrant handing him the car keys again next season. Not to mention, GM Scot McCloughan has provided this organization with true structure for the first time in over a decade. There’s finally an adult, who knows football, building the roster. This team now has an identity, thanks to McCloughan. They also have some young talent to build upon in the coming years. This team is headed in the right direction.
“I didn’t think twice about losing this game,” said Washington LB Will Compton — who may have explained it best. “It [the game] got away from us. No, it doesn’t make me not think about the progress we’ve made. That’s going to be what everybody else says or tries to hide or show differently, but I mean, we had a [heckuva] of a year. We fought through a lot of adversity. I don’t give a [darn] about what people say about our schedule or anything like that. This is the NFL. It’s good players, it’s good football, period.”
Compton went on to say that the team is just scratching the surface of their potential. “We had a lot of new faces out there this year,” he said. “We fought through a lot of injuries but again that’s no excuse, it’s the NFL. It’s the ‘next man up’. People want to talk about us beating weak opponents and things like that, but you look at what happened to our roster. Again, it’s the NFL. Everybody is great. Everybody is good. We’re just scratching the surface. We had a lot of guys, a lot of new faces, working together for the first time, putting together a [heckuva] of a year, coming back from 24-0 against Tampa then going on the run we did the last half of the year against a quarterback like Drew Brees and all the teams, man. Nothing to hang our heads about on the year. It just sucks that we’re not continuing to play because we definitely were confident about this game. We thought we could have won this game but they made more plays than we did.”
Compton makes some valid points, because the Redskins did face a lot of adversity this year. Some of it was self-inflicted and some of it was typical NFL drama. But they overcame and took advantage of an extremely weak division. The skeptics will tell you that the Redskins failed to beat a team with a winning record, or that Kirk Cousins has never defeated a winning team in any of his starts. But the reality is, Washington hasn’t been very good, yet they were able to dig and scratch their way to a division title.
The Redskins have made significant progress. It doesn’t take three years to build a contender anymore. As Scot McCloughan said early in his tenure with the team, it’s more so about the back-end of the roster than the front end. That was evident this past season. The Redskins, for the most part, became division champions thanks to great production from rookies and depth. Just imagine another draft class and continued progress from the foundation already set on this team. The Redskins are built for sustained success, thanks to their physical, “next-man-up” mentality. You can thank Scot McCloughan for that structure.
Moving forward, the Redskins will continue evolving into McCloughan’s team. That being, a team built through the draft and highlighted by low-end free agents. Washington is in good hands.
It’ll be interesting to watch what moves the team makes this off-season. They have until March to make a decision on Robert Griffin III, who appears to be on his way out the door. Not to mention, a decision on impending free agent QB Kirk Cousins. I think a smart solution for both sides is to just hand Cousins the franchise tag. He’ll get a big pay day and the Redskins will have another year to evaluate. I think he’s shown progress and signs of possibly being a franchise QB. But I think there’s still more to be seen. I don’t think there’s enough, yet, to fully commit long term. Many treated this season as a rookie-type year for Cousins. With most rookie QBs, their second season can often times be a very telling year. Defenses now have an off-season to evaluate and prepare for his game. It’ll be up to Cousins, just like every other young QB, to adjust. Being able to adjust and patch up weaknesses are what separates the good-enough from great.
In all, Washington has a lot to build upon as they head into the off-season. They have a talented rookie class heading into their second year as professional football players. They also have consistent pieces in Trent Williams and Bashaud Breeland to build around this off-season. Not to mention, they may have stumbled across a couple good inside linebackers in Will Compton and Mason Foster. There’s much to be excited about and I don’t think there’s any doubt that the team is in quality hands.
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