Grant and Danny
Have Your Expectations Changed For The Commanders?
Does that Monday night win, whether it's Daniels's performance, the offense going to second straight game without punting the fact that in a hostile environment, the commanders put on a clinic with the football, just how they handled themselves. Does any part of it change how you feel about this season, your prediction for what they're capable of win total wise this season? Absolutely. 100%. I didn't think they had that offensive performance in them at any point in time. I didn't think you could take advantage of a bad defense. I thought they were the get right week for everybody. It's to the point where, you know, in some big money fantasy leagues that I'm in that I come in with one of my good buddies, they were one of the teams that we had listed as let's stream a defense against them. Let's treat them the way we would treat the Giants or the Jaguars now or the Panthers when Bryce Young was quarterback, et cetera, because they're not going to score very much because they're so limited. That's not the case. This offense has gotten steadily better each week. The week before was a great sort of, you know, a kind of harbinger for this where they didn't punt. They moved up and down the field and red zone sabotaging, but their own of their own doing prevented touchdowns. Well, you take away some of those sabotages and you score a bunch of touchdowns. You never stop scoring touchdowns, apparently, if you're this offense. Now, it's not, they're not getting 38 points a week. This isn't the greatest show on turf Rams, but I didn't think they had that ceiling. I thought their ceiling was a lot, lot, lot, lot, lot lower. So egg on my face. So yeah, I have certainly upped kind of what I view as their offensive ceiling because I've just seen it. That was tremendous. And I didn't think they'd get there all year. I would be lying if I said Monday night has not changed how I feel about this season and what they're capable of this season. Jaden Daniels in week one and week two was basically exactly what I thought he was going to be early this year. Jaden Daniels in week three blew me away, which isn't to say that I didn't think you would make the throws that he made. Although those are low percentage throws and they were amazing. I've always kind of like everybody else. You watch him in college. You see the arm talent is there. You go out to one training camp practice. You can see he's immensely accurate. He's got that. It's never been a question of can he do it in terms of standing in the pocket and making throws. It's does he want to do that? What does he want to be? Does he want to be a throw first quarterback or does he want to take off and run 16 times like he did in his first game ever? And that's kind of what I was and still to some extent I'm curious about, but he can obviously do everything you need him to do with his arm. But I think week one and week two Jaden Daniels and week three Jaden Daniels are two very, very different guys in terms of the decision making running versus throwing, leaving the pocket to reset to throw versus just head down, taking off, trying to go get yards with my feet. Just a different guy. That performance coming this early in his career, maybe it ends up being an outlier in a month and it was just a fun thing. I think it has to change how you feel. That was a really special quarterbacking performance. Similarly, I was skeptical of Cliff Kingsbury. I still have questions about Kingsbury, but through a couple of weeks now, week one again, notwithstanding, but the majority two of their three games, they've had all the answers offensively. They've moved the ball up and down the field. Now, the Bengals defense is terrible. The Giants defense is not particularly good. The one good defense they've played they really struggled with, but you're going to play a lot of defenses that aren't that good. You get to play Dallas twice as an example, a terrible matchup on paper for Washington, meaning from their perspective. I think it's a great matchup for the commanders when they've got the football. That's two games that are going to be on your schedule, just top of my head. There are plenty more like that, right? I think you're going to be able to move the ball on the Eagles who aren't particularly good defensively. Those are the top two teams in your division. I worry about Washington's defense because I don't think it's going to get a whole lot better. I just don't think they have the personnel and the secondary to be very good. The more we watch this thing, the more it becomes evident. That's going to be a year-long problem. I hope they'll improve. I don't know how they couldn't. Yeah. One is more than zero. They are the eighth worst defense in terms of DVOA, which basically like takes a lot of basically stuff out of the equation to level the playing field for how you're performing. Eighth worst in the DVOA stat era ever. It's just been ugly. They're the worst cover team by far in terms of EPA per play allowed in the league. So that worries me. It's not going to come as easily as it did this past week. They're going to commit penalties like they were able to avoid that they're going to turn the ball over more than zero. Yeah. The fumble that you recover on a miraculous play by Allegretti isn't recovered. And now all of a sudden the game is different. They've caught a couple of breaks here and there. So yeah, things are going to equalize. I'm 100% with you. But I think I'm actually answering two questions here. The question is, has your season thought on this team changed? What do you think they're capable of your prediction for the year? And to that, I have to say yes, it has because they are better offensively. The Kingsbury thing is working better than I thought. And Daniel's playing the game. He just did. I did not expect this early. The other question I started answering when I got off track there is, could they be really good? And I think that's a whole different thing. You see what I'm saying? Of course I do. Yeah. Here's why they're not going to win 11 games or whatever. That's different than, hey, you thought they'd go seven and 10. Uh huh. Or do they have a higher ceiling than that now? And I just don't know how you could have watched Monday. Maybe it's unsustainable to some extent. I get that the Bengals are over the season and they're just not as good as everyone thought. Still people think that they're better than they are and I don't really get it. But it's not about the Bengals. It's about Washington. They are Luke McCaffrey made plays. The Ami Brown made plays. Terry McClorin looked like he was 25 again. It was a really eye-openingly impressive performance where we saw the best of a lot of guys. So here's this. This is how I'm viewing it. I know it's sort of answering ancillary questions based on the on the main question, but I think it's instructive. So before the season started, I go, I think their offense is going to be a two and a half or a three. And the games that they win are, you know, Jaden Daniels, miracle work, scramble, 80 yards like Griffin against Minnesota or, you know, something kind of, you win a slug fest like they did against the Giants beat another bad team who can't do anything on offense. And I thought their defense would be also like a three or four that out of 10, not good, but also not atrocious. Well, I was wrong on both counts. Their offense is a higher number than that TBD where they finished, but ain't it two or three, and their defense probably that good, their defense is probably worse. It's probably a one or one and a half, even to sort of not even opponent dependent. So how we get to the record, how that affects things, that'll be kind of fun to find out. But to me, I'm going, my evaluation of their offense for the season now looks to be so completely dead wrong because I didn't think they had that in them. That's the part that I'm stressing here. Week one, week two, okay, you know, we sort of, you could excuse each one. Okay. It's the first time they're spoon-fooding Jaden Daniels trying to bring him long slow. Week two, okay, the Giants stink. Week three, I'm not saying the Bengals are good, but you don't do 38 points and you don't punt even against crappy defenses. There are plenty of bad defenses that force a punt here or there that get, you're more than two incompletions. There are more, there are plenty defenses that over the last several seasons where Daniels would have had more incompletions than total touchdowns in that game. That offensive performance was so great. I'm going, okay, I was wrong about what I thought their offense was or could do. Yeah, for me, it's actually two weeks to, you know, not just the one. It's the Giants game and the Bengals game from an offensive standpoint that have me ready to reassess a little bit through three weeks. So for myself, I never thought they were as bad offensively as you did and I've never hated their personnel to the same extent that you do. Having said that, I didn't, I wasn't high on it. I didn't love it. This was not the greatest show on turf, but I really, really liked the Echler edition. He's been outstanding. I think Noah Brown is a decent enough wide receiver to type the fact that he was available as a godsend. I actually think Zacchaeus, who's been very limitedly involved, the Ami Brown can serve roles. It's not to say they're going to be good or scare anybody. But the way they use receivers, I just don't think it's going to be what they major in or care a whole lot about. It's a lot of stuff at and behind the line of scrimmage for the most part. It's going to work out. The way they've run the ball, Brian Robinson going for a buck 30 against the Giants. The Bengals then said, okay, guess what? Brian Robinson's not going to beat us and Washington said, cool. No problem. They threw it outside. So you saw them do the thing they want to do. Then a week later, a team bow up and say, you're not going to do the thing you want to do and Washington said, no problem. We've got another way to move the football. The fact that they've been able to zig and then zag and then zig again gives me some hope as well. So yeah, for me, the sight line has changed. How good are they? Probably a different conversation we can have, but it would be hard pressed. I think to find people who shouldn't be optimistic about them, maybe out kicking their coverage a little bit after a game like that Bengals game. This is the ultimate scene as a football fan. We all know it, right? The one week big reaction, but that's why to me, I go back now over what is a three week sample and the growth that we've seen.