How do you feel, the season is upon us.

OK, I'd like everyone to forget about what our W-L record might be this season for a moment while I tell you why I like the future of this team.

1. This team plays hard on every down. These players are passionate about football.

2. IMO, many of the veterans on this team have shown improvement since last season.

3. We've added some key FA's who will make a difference. Jason Hatcher and DeSean Jackson are Pro Bowl quality players.

4. We had a good draft. I think I see high ceilings for several of our draftees.

5. We have much better depth at some positions. Our WR corps is about as good as it gets. I think we'll have a strong rotation in the DL.

6. One way or another, we're going to be OK at QB.

7. Special Teams will be much better.

8. We have better leadership than last season.

IMO everything you say here is true.

One positive about Bruce Allen is that he replaced players collecting paychecks with players who want to ball.

I like the job Allen/Gruden/Hasslet have done so far bringing in new blood.
Our LB depth looks better.....more physical. We are also deeper and more talented at WR, QB, RB, CB and safety.
It appears so far this preseason we have a more physical team. This hopefully will translate into our special teams not getting pushed around anymore...... or at least not as much as last season.
I like Bashaud Breeland, Ryan Grant, Silas Redd, Morgan Moses and Trent Murphy, Duke Ihenacho and Gabe Miller. Talent and youth.
The FO is doing its job.

The big unknowns:
RGIII, Gruden and OL.

I'm hopeful, but could see this season ending up very disappointing. Hopefully RG3 is back and the defense is improved! We'll see.

Excited!
TkBMAHUkibY

Also is it just me or has Jay put on some weight since coming to DC?

Praying we get the big surprise we did in 2012. Griffin didnt look that sharp in preseason then, either. But looked like a world beater that New Orleans game.

I voted for excited. I always am every season. Even if we go 0-16, I'm excited to watch how bad the trainwreck is going to be.

I'm pretty easy to please, is what I'm saying.

Voted passed out can't remember last night superbowl drunk. While not the sole reason for last years horrible record, our history worst special teams just killed us all year. Slight upgrade this year will really make a differance.

I love RG3 but at same time if Cousins was named starter at any point this year i would have no problem. We have too many weapons to not win games.

This will be another year of Redskins football. I expect around 6 wins and after watching RG3 in preseason I'm starting to think that might be a reach. The D will be better than expected and the O will be worse. RG3 wont start all 16 games.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/in-face-of-silly-criticism--rg3-primed-to-resume-where-he-left-off-after-fabulous-rookie-season-224200768.html

I think the paragraph below sums it up nicely:
Now? He's got DeSean Jackson, fresh from Philadelphia. He's got Jay Gruden, fresh from Cincinnati. He's got two seasons of experience behind him. He's got a soft-ish schedule in a weakened NFC East. And he's got a fully healed knee. There probably wasn't enough skepticism about Griffin before. Now there may be too much.

2 training camps ago, my brother and I sat counting Griffin jerseys, and the ratio was outrageous. Every group had at least 1, if not more. I didn't go this year, but I imagine the ratio dropped. I say that to go along with the note on skepticism.

New system, new coach, OL is bottom third of the leage, RG3 has a ways to go -- he strikes me as being a little immature but I don't know the guy. One thing we can all agree on is that he's not a phenomenal leader but maybe he'll get there.

That being said, the culture seems way better, more congenial compared to the tyranny of MS. Lots of offensive weapons, Jordan Reed will be a matchup nightmare game in and game out. Morris seems like the real deal and the defense might not be horrendous. I'm calling 8-8.

Can we all agree with that? I've yet to hear a credible source who spends all of their time in the locker room (Keim, Tandler, al-Bashir, Mike Jones) question his leadership from anyone on the team. I give zero credibility to Bleacher Report/Pro Football talk 'articles' about things like that because they aren't feet on the ground reporters. They are aggregate bloggers whose sources are often other bloggers.

Sorry, end of that rant, back on topic.

I'm hesitantly, cautiously, pensively optimistic. While many were too high on the prospects of 2013, I feel that as many are too low on our 2014 outlook. I can legitimately see us contending with Philly for the NFC East crown with a ceiling of about 10 wins. There is WAY too much talent on both sides of the ball for this to be a 4-12 or 5-11 team. While Haslett deserves the criticism he gets, if Hatcher, Rak and Kerrigan are healthy, our defense will improve simply because QB won't have all day to sit and pick us apart. Fletcher being gone will improve our linebacking group. He is a legend but last year was a huge liability. Our mid October offense will look much better than our early September offense so as long as we keep improving throughout the year, we should be good.

Ceiling 10-6, floor 7-9 so I'll settle at 8-8.