Need Reasons To Get Excited

Probably the most unenthusiastic I've been about this team in years. I'm looking for reasons to waste my Sunday's this season but everything seems to point to a long depressing Redskins season. The team has looked terrible in preseason. Factors that kill my optimisim are:

-Oline still not creating holes in running game

-Cousins running for his life making the same stupid mistakes and turnovers to cost us games.

-All of our rbs are either rookies, unreliable, or unproven. And none of them are gamechangers. (By the way Alfred Morris looks great in Dallas)

-We let both Jackson and Garcon go and sign Pryor as our #1 who's been a ghost in 3 preseason games and can't seem to catch the ball. Doctson is a bust until proven otherwise. Jordan Reed is guaranteed to end up on the injury report at least half the season.

-Run defense still suffers with no true impact nose tackle. Phil Taylor out for season. No interior push from the Dline or pressure without blitzing. Expect more rotating barely starter quality guys like Ziggy Hood on the line all season.

-Breeland continues to give up big plays and Josh Norman exposed by elite WRs (AJ Green, Julio Jones etc.)

Jay Gruden/Joe Barry rookie level gameplanning and adjustments.

-Junior Galette........

This script seems all too familiar.

Is it really that bad? Any reason to believe this team is capable of proving me wrong this year?

4 wins, heh?

Some of you guys bite way too hard on the preseason.

Some of you guys bite way too hard on the preseason.

Agree with this. They didn't even try to show anything they would pull out in games.

Defense should be better. Offense, not sure how it doesn't get worse, that's how highly I value the deep threat that was Jackson. Overall, back in the same place, 8-8 or maybe squeak back to 9-7.

There's enough promise to hope that things break just our way and we end up in the playoffs.

To me it will boil down to whether the improvements in the D (and I think they will be tangible) will outweigh any backslide on O. We would have won a few more games had our D not been just average, and it would have put less pressure on offensive side of the ball. I think we picked up more on D -- Swearinger, Gallette (healthy), J. Allen, Zach Brown (people seem to forget what an improvement he will be), and R. Anderson -- those are 5 solid contributors, and if McGee and McClain improve the D line (or Iannodis with another year under his belt), that's gravy. I also think Cravens to safety will help too (assuming he can get healthy). Breeland has looked pretty sharp this preseason as well. Overall, I think the D will take some significant strides forward (they had only one place to go), and should make up for any setbacks with our offensive production.

Having said that, I am worried about the O line which has not looked great, although it is preseason, and like most folks in this forum (I think), I would like to have kept at least one of DJax or Garcon.

Back to back winning seasons with a top 10 offense... And u are already doom and gloom because of bs practice games that players don't even care about winning... Wow

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Idw pile on, but this is pretty hilarious. Bro you must not have been around long enough to remember the glory days preseasons that didn't matter once the regular season started. My #1 goal in preseason is no injuries, and while it hasn't been bad we haven't made it through unscathed. Performance means nothing in preseason.

Some of you guys bite way too hard on the preseason.

I would agree but, last year's preseason seemed rather lethargic as well and it did cast a reflection on the season. Wins and losses in the preseason are a moot issue, it is all about execution. There was improvement in the last game, so we will see if it continues in game 4.

I would agree but, last year's preseason seemed rather lethargic as well and it did cast a reflection on the season. Wins and losses in the preseason are a moot issue, it is all about execution. There was improvement in the last game, so we will see if it continues in game 4.

This year's preseason was vastly different then last year's. Last year KC and the starting offense maybe played 2 quarters over 3 games. JG was far more relaxed then this year. This year he held the offense accountable in all 3 games, making them stay out until they executed some plays. I think that will have a tremendous positive impact when the games count.

Yes the game plans were vanilla, and yes the oline looked less than stellar, but our line revolves around TW, if he is playing, and you could tell he was playing at a preseason pace. Unless something is significantly wrong with him, there is no reason at all to think he won't be a pro bowl caliber LT again this year.

Tonight's game is so meaningless, I bet half the starters don't even make the trip. But come next week, I expect to see the best game 1 of a season that JG has put together. When you put Reed, Crowder, Kelley (especially the Kelley who was running in game 3), Thompson and the rest on the field our offens has multiple potent weapons, and KC is mature enough to march them down the field consistently.

Our D has solid players across the board now, and potential playmakers in Allen, Kerrigan, Norman, and Anderson. Will strong offenses give us challenges, of course. But last year we were bottom dwellers on D with the staff and players infighting all season. I think our coaching staff is better (not sold on the DC unfortunately), and the locker room will be better with the likes of Anderson and Allen setting a brutal tone.

preseason records mean nothing, but I love the change in coaching mentality enough to think that this preseason will be Gruden's turning point as an NFL head coach.

I am somewhere in between right now. Not excited b/c I have lived with mediocrity and the continual promise that we will break out of it only to have fall back to double digit losses. After 25 years of this cycle, call me jaded. At the same time, I will watch and hope. I think the D has made some good acquisitions. I think the offense will be solid, but am less enthusiastic than I was originally. This is mainly because I am now concerned that the Pryor/Doctson replacement plan will be a much larger step down than I originally thought.

DJax, for all his faults, meant we were a threat to score at any time. When he played, opposing D's backed way the f* off or got burned. I thought Pryor and Doctson could make up for that by being much better red zone targets. Now, I just want to see them catch the ball and get on the field.

Now, before you pull out the "back to back winning seasons" on me, let me just say: 8-7-1, 9-7. Yes. They are winning seasons. In one, we won only one more game than half of the games played. In the other, we won half our games and only achieved a winning season by TYING A GAME (Yay! We are winners b/c we tied a game! lol). As a result of these slightly better than purely mediocre seasons, some are hopeful of bigger and better things. To me, however, this has been the cycle since the early 90's - we suck, we achieve mediocrity, fans get excited, we sink back to sucking. Rinse & Repeat.

If I felt like Gruden had turned the corner, maybe I get excited. I just haven't seen anything to convince me that he has. I think mediocrity may be the best he's got. If so, he's gone after this year or next and back to sucking we go. On the other hand, if we start fast out of the gate and are 5-3 or 6-2 by midseason, I will pull a mea culpa and be hooked all over again. I just don't see that happening. c'est la vie.

For now, I'll watch the games but will not pass up a beautiful fall afternoon with my family outside of the Plato's cave that we Skins fans have constructed for ourselves over the last 25 years.