OT: 2024 Washington Commanders thread: change we can believe in!

[Jags]

The Commanders should be desperate for seasons approaching that.

Them acting desperate is the last thing they should want. We're in a fantastic position right now. Lightyears from desperate.

Like... you are focusing way hard on the wrong details of this

I think you'll be shocked to read that I think it's the other way around.

Moss helped them get exactly one game further than they did the year before, during the year that he signed with them for peanuts. Not his fault, but they did worse his other 2 years there than they did in 2006.

We absolutely agree that if there's a Randy Moss out there that wants to sign with us for $2.5m like he did with the Pats, that's the king of no-brainers. But that's not what we're talking about. People here said, "Let's give up two 3rds to rent and then sign Tee Higgins."

wasn't TJ Oshie a struggling borderline "star" that found a new role and flourished in another organization?

Yes, acquired in a smart move. We gave up a guy that was kinda blah and got back a guy with promise. We did not give up 2 valuable draft picks to rent a guy we could get for free a couple months later.

I thought the discussion here was about adding another quality weapon like a Higgins or other, just, like... better guy?

It is. I'm all for upgrading the Zacchaeus spot. I would just like to do it without surrendering important assets. We're doing fine right now with what we have. This, to me, does not feel like a time to "go all in." Your mileage may vary.

Look, I hate the Patriots and doing this but Wes Welker is easily better than anyone on roster not named Terry McLaurin even as a Dolphin before going to New England.

Well yeah, but if he'd stayed in Miami or went just about anywhere else, he'd have been Wayne Chrebet.

Nothing to sneeze at by any means. But if your point is let's get the equivalent of a $3.6m Welker instead of a $9m Moss, then we're 100% on the same page, cuz that's exactly what I've been talking about this whole time. Let's keep our draft picks and make smarter, cheaper decisions, then spend the big chunk of money we saved on something else we need more.

I don't know how this conversation became "flashy acquisition" vs. "stay the course" but it should be abundantly clear that this team would be better with two bonafide threats to win routes that don't always have to be schemed on most downs.

Every team would be better with two great things instead of one. No one is offering us a Randy Moss for 2.5m, so there's really no comparison there. I'm saying that if there's any comparison to the Pats' heyday that I identify with, it's that we should build our team the way they built theirs. They did the opposite of trading away valuable picks to acquire talent at a time when acquiring talent other ways was insanely easy and not expensive for them.

I think free agents are going to want to play for a well-coached DC team that builds well around Daniels and balances it with a capable defense. We don't need to make trades like the one suggested here yesterday.

New England's depth WRs in 2006 are definitely worse than the 2023 Commanders, both because they sucked and because they weren't buffered by another Dotson/Samuel level talent, but here's the kicker: as a result they had to chew clock and run to win, had two RBs with 750+ yards, and the number 2 defense in points allowed. Despite his arm talent Brady was relegated to a top-tier game manager, an ineffective use of his overall talent.

That team got to the conference title game and lost by 4. Moss' best Pats team got one game further and lost. Fun year, brutal loss. Yay? Daniels isn't relegated to being any kind of game manager and his talent is being leveraged plenty with exactly the receivers he has right now. Why the rush to give up assets to add another immediately?

I personally prefer to draft more good players with our draft picks and then ALSO sign the best 2WR we can get our hands on. Giving up two valuable picks to get this one guy in particular seems really shortsighted to me.

 

[g00n]

Outside of Terry... why not? I don't think they need a "Moss" for the sake of this discussion (although obviously if someone that good was really on the market I think this whole board would be a little itchy) but I thought the discussion here was about adding another quality weapon like a Higgins or other, just, like... better guy?

Look, I hate the Patriots and doing this but Wes Welker is easily better than anyone on roster not named Terry McLaurin even as a Dolphin before going to New England. Then a great QB and gameplan saw him crack 1,000 yards and become a staple.... I don't know how this conversation became "flashy acquisition" vs. "stay the course" but it should be abundantly clear that this team would be better with two bonafide threats to win routes that don't always have to be schemed on most downs.

New England's depth WRs in 2006 are definitely worse than the 2023 Commanders, both because they sucked and because they weren't buffered by another Dotson/Samuel level talent, but here's the kicker: as a result they had to chew clock and run to win, had two RBs with 750+ yards, and the number 2 defense in points allowed. Despite his arm talent Brady was relegated to a top-tier game manager, an ineffective use of his overall talent. In 2007, on top of adding the 4 wins, Brady and the Patriots added about 1,300 passing yards, only lost about 100 rushing on the year, and went from 24 to 36 points per game.... Washington doesn't have a lot of those luxuries yet but one thing they can do is take a moderate risk to expand the offense (which has suited them well) and see how it works.

The overall point here is that they knew they could win other ways, but they had a supercharged QB and went out and got him weapons to allow him to play his best game. They learned lessons and refined over time, sure, but the one thing that could almost always be said about the Patriots model is that they were open to adapting to their strengths and weaknesses from season to season and leaning into their strongest identity to win games, and that's what this would be just as they leaned into Brady.

This all started because I made the point/observation/opinion that the emergence of JD as an accurate passer makes the need to cut off our arm to buy a "safety net" big splash type WR unnecessary, so long as you have guys who are good at catching balls dropped in their laps and running accurate routes. That's 99.9% of it.

I can see you dove deep into the Patriots stats but really the Brady thing was just a reference point for that TYPE of effect, and never meant as a direct 100% comparison that requires some huge stat analysis. But this is the internet so this always happens whenever someone mentions a HOF player in any sort of comparative comment...

Point #2 is injuries/depth. Which I've already gone through.

Not mad or being an ass to another member of the 4AM Internet Argument Club, but it's going off the rails a little. At least wrt my points. If people want to have a debate about Moss for several pages that's up to them.

I guess another way of putting it is "I like JD's chances of making WRs better than preseason when the idea was WRs making JD better".