Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris has let everyone know what he expects of his new hires – general manager Adam Peters and coach Dan Quinn – this season.
“The record was dismal last year, and we better be better than that,” he told reporters before the final preseason game last month.
It must have been torture to sit on his hands last year and watch Ron Rivera bury the team Harris and his partners had just bought for $6 billion.
They took over ownership from Dan Snyder just before training camp last year, so there was little they could do other than swallow the toxic remains of Snyder’s ownership and watch the 4-13 horror show play out.
But this season should offer fans a glimpse of the blueprint Harris is following to return the franchise, first, to respectability. Then, if it all goes according to plan, to the glory days of championships that Harris grew up with as a Washington football fan.
The new owner expects more than what he had to stomach last year. So do Commanders fans.
After all, the Snyder poison appears to have been flushed out of the franchise. There has been a significant turnover in the front office, a complete change in the coaching staff and more than half the players in uniform are here for the first time.
Harris and his partners are putting $75 million into fixing up the worst stadium perhaps in all of professional sports. They raised ticket prices to come to Duct Tape Field and are charging some of the highest prices in the NFL for concessions.
So, yes, when the Commanders take the field Sunday in Tampa for the season opener, “they better be better than that.”
How much better? What are the expectations?
Oddsmakers have put the Commanders over-under for wins at 6.5. The Athletic projected the team’s win total at 5.9 — worst in the NFC. Either one would be “better than that.”
Typically, when you have such a dramatic change in football operations — a whole new coaching staff and a significant roster change — it doesn’t result in better results immediately. It often takes time for all the new parts to mesh. But there are exceptions.
Quinn has been very optimistic about his team of newbies. When asked at the end of training camp if the team was where he thought it would be, he responded, “I think we’re probably further ahead in some areas. We really pushed a lot of the situations … I think we’re further along in than I probably anticipated in, in some spots.”
In Harris’ words, they better be, for the “X” factor — rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels — to be successful, because he will be the difference maker, their chance to exceed expectations.
Daniels will be the 36th different quarterback to start for Washington since Super Bowl quarterback Mark Rypien was under center in 1993. The Heisman Trophy winner has gotten rave reviews from coaches, teammates and observers in training camp. There have been predictions of stardom for the 23-year-old. If he is as advertised. But there are questions about whether or not Peters has given Daniels the tools he needs around him to be successful.
There are questions about the protection the new untested offensive line will give the young quarterback. There are questions about the receiving corps he will have available – still being assembled last week when they signed wideout Noah Brown, cut by the Houston Texans.
At LSU, where Daniels passed for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns last year, he was behind one of the best offensive lines in college football, a semifinalist for the Joe Moore Award, given annually to the best offensive line in the country. He had perhaps the best receivers in college football, with two receivers, Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas, picked in the first round of the NFL draft.
Daniels was put in a position to succeed. Now he is the one who will have to put the Commanders to succeed. Those expectations are a lot of pressure.
This was Daniels’ response to that question of pressure: “Just go out there and be myself, who God made me. Stay grounded. Don’t get too high, don’t get too low. Because at the end of the day, it takes a team to help people out. Can’t go out there and think I’m the savior. When the plays are out there to be made, make the plays, but got to get to 10 other guys. And in the whole organization, moving forward in one direction.”
He may not go out there and think he is the savior. But that is what this franchise may need to be “better than that.”
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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