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process http://www.redskinscheapshops.com/cheap-authentic-...son-jer sey , and we have got to win right away.â - Jay Gruden (June 12, 2018)A funny realization washed over me a couple of days ago when I was preparing to return my 2018 Hogs Haven NFL predictions survey.Iâve never picked the Redskins to win the NFC East.Look, Iâm a realist.I painstakingly avoid the trap of being one of those fans who gets to mid-August and convinces himself that Washington is destined for the Super Bowl.Instead, I look at the Redskins, I look at their schedule, I look around the league to see what these other teams have, and Iâm consistently left with the same conclusion: Washington is fine.Definitely not bad.But definitely not great.Thatâs why Iâve always said the Gruden-led Redskins will win somewhere between seven and nine games every year.Until this year.I predicted that the Redskins would win the NFC East in 2018.Yes, the NFC East populated by the up-and-coming Giants, the potentially dangerous Cowboys, and the very formidable, world-champion Eagles.I said the Skins would go 11-5 against a pretty tough schedule.I also said they would win at least one playoff game, something they havenât done since January 2, 2006.Now, to the naked eye, this may look like uncharacteristic optimism.Itâs not, I assure you.Instead, itâs recognition of what may be the driving theme of the 2018 Redskinsâ season.Urgency.Or, for the more cynical among you, desperation.This is it.For better or worse, this is the fork in the road for the Jay Gruden Era Redskins.And one prong of that fork leads directly into a brick wall.Either the Redskins take the pieces theyâve accumulated over the last few years, coalesce, and make the leap into being a formidable playoff team, or the whole thing falls apart, they lurch toward the NFC East cellar, everybody gets fired, and we start overâyet againâin 2019.Thereâs a wide disparity of opinion on this point.USA Today has the Redskins ranked #12 in their preseason power rankings, which is fairly high for a team coming off a 7-9 year and changing quarterbacks.On the other hand, the five NFL experts featured by the league here figured, on average, that the Redskins will win 6.6 games this season.Four of the five said Washington would post a losing record.I think the scattershot opinion on the Redskins is understandable.We saw what a relatively healthy Washington team could do early last season in impressive prime-time showings against the Raiders and the then-undefeated Chiefs.The big change is obviously Alex Smith, but http://www.redskinscheapshops.com/cheap-authentic-...ger-jer sey , to a man, his teammates are saying all the right thingsâin a way that seems genuine.Thatâs great news.And, as the quote at the top indicates, Gruden believes that the time for success is nowâmaybe now or never.Put more simply, if you take the 2017 Redskins, add Daron Payne, subtract some of the injury woes and the constant background noise about Scot McCloughanâs departure and Kirk Cousinsâ contract, does this team instantly get significantly better than it was last year?I think so.The margins in the NFL are paper-thin, and changing a couple of injuries, distractions, and personalities can separate 5-11 from 11-5.Just as important, though, is the reality that this is almost certainly the last opportunity for this version of the Redskins to make the leap forward.Jay Gruden sports a 28-35-1 career record.Even throwing out his first year, heâs a middling 24-23-1.Very few modern NFL coaches get a sixth year with the same team if they have a losing record after five.Observant longtime fans will remember that Norv Turner did get a sixth season under such circumstances, but his salvation owed purely to the legal limbo that engulfed the ownership of the Redskins following the death of Jack Kent Cooke.As for the current regime, itâs playoffs or bust.My bet is that a tremendous pass rush, Alex Smithâs leadership and red-zone skills, and, most of all, a potent sense of urgency (or desperation) will push the Skins to their first regular season of more than 10 wins since 1991.If the Redskins struggle through a bad September, though, itâs likely things will decidedlyâand very quicklyâgo the other way.Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays To be perfectly honest, the Derrius Guice knee injury is still crushing my football soul. Aside from missing out on the fun of unwrapping that present all season long, the rubber kind of hits the road when you realize that we are also all of a sudden missing a guy we easily could have asked to touch the ball 20 times in a game. We will of course move on, but this one hurts. For all the weirdness (not necessarily in a bad way) of working out how to feel heading into this season as a Redskins fanâwe got a brand new quarterback after insane drama surrounding the old quarterback, the division is all screwy thanks to the Eagles (finally) winning it all and the roster has a lot of questions albeit with some possible great answersâthe idea of Guice getting the ball on first down when the season opened was something I was hanging my hat on this summer. It happens and it happened. Preseason injuries are a reality in the NFL, and even if the league made substantive changes to the preseason schedule, this would happen. Rookie running backs are most certainly going to get that rep that Guice got that led to the injuryâand rightfully so. If Guice took that injury late in the 4th quarter, I think we would all be gathering around Redskins Park with ill intentions, but that is not how things went down. I understand the concept of âNext Man Upâ but I havenât felt the desire to let that mantra help me recover from this. The bug bit us and it is on the Redskins organization to handle the emotional side of it as well as the logistical ramifications of replacing what promised to be a next-level skill player. In all fairness and respect to Chris Thompson, Guice was our best every-down running back. The plan was likely to keep CT25 in business for 10-15 touches per game http://www.redskinscheapshops.com/cheap-authentic-...son-jer sey , and my hope is that this plan remains in place. Assuming no other moves get made, the team will once again turn to Robert Kelley and Samaje Perine and ask them to handle a load that will keep CT25 from having to take the rock between the tackles the way he ended up doing last season. To be perfectly frank, unless a player who has proven to be dynamic in the leagueâand can still beâcomes available, I am okay moving forward with the best running back corps the team can put together from the guys we have in camp. This isnât me trying to sell everyone on the possibility of an unforeseen breakout season from Kelley or Perine (though Perine does still technically have the kind of upside that could make us excited). Instead, this is me trying to wrap my mind around the new reality for this team moving forward: our running game is officially on the shoulders of our offensive line. That may have already been the caseâas it often isâbut I thought Guice could find yards not paved for him by the line, whereas I think expectations for Kelley and Perine are more confined to what the line can do for them. I think our best chance is for this group to gain some chemistry and flow the rest of the preseason and hit the regular season as professionally as possible. It ainât sexy, but efficient and effective running games donât always need to be. What makes me able to swallow that thought at all is this:The 2018 Redskins season is all about Alex Smith. It was always going to be all about Alex Smith and it is still going to be all about Alex Smith. Having Guice in the backfield would have been a huge boost to Smithâs chances of guiding a successful and prolific offense, but Alex is a veteran capable of spreading the ball around to help keep the defense honest against us. Again, not trying to lie to myself to help get over the loss of Guice (I can lie to myself like a champ). Alex Smithâs job just got a little harder, but it has not turned into an impossible mission...yet.As I try and talk myself down from the football grief of losing a player I fell in fast love with, here are some things I have been saying into the mirror. As a sneaky second round pick, Guice is on the books for four years and $4.5 million, and his cap hit stays modestly at or just above $1 million per season over those four years. Assuming for a moment that Derrius can recover and be ready to go in 2019, we would still have a player capable of returning gads of value on that deal. Had he been drafted where people thought he would in the first round, you would be looking at a much more difficult value proposition. This doesnât make the loss of him suck less for us right now, but it does provide guidance on our long view. I wonât turn this into a âCanât Wait for 2019â party, but the point is that the Redskins arenât bankrupt when it comes to hope...it just feels that way a little bit after watching our man hit the deck.As I was flipping channels last evening (and when I wasnât watching gut-punch, bottom-of-the-ninth grand slams take down my team), I came across the best thing Redskins fans could use to self-medicate: last yearâs NCAA National Championship game between Alabama and Georgia. Seeing our first-round pick DaâRon Payne playing at an incredibly high level in the most important game on the NCAA schedule was nothing short of heart-warming. It reminded me that, no, we did NOT lose our top draft pick as so many people have been erroneously stating the last few days. Our #1 pick is still a badass beast penciled in to start week one alongside his former collegiate teammate. Our defensive line is STILL on track to be something that should absolutely blow our collective skirts up, and if you really pay close attention, it should stand out when watching them play. Payne is a monster of a player and as long as he stays healthy through camp (a little dinged up now I know), the Redskins fanbase can still have plenty to celebrate in terms of the fruits of our draft. I donât even think I would put that in any kind of silver lining category. It sucks to lose Guice, but Payne looks every bit the part of âtop draft pickâ and come September, we will have to learn to get as giddy about backfield penetration and run-stuffing as we would about a nifty 20-yard gallop from a young and exciting running back. The Kevin Hogan picture below the headline does have a purpose, and it is the conversation I was hoping to kick off in the comments section below: which player that may have been previously on the cutting block has new hope about making the team now that Guice is out? Is it as simple as saying one of the running backs? Is it going to still come down to special teams? Does it free up Jay Gruden to even contemplate carrying three quarterbacks? Weâll pick up this discussion tomorrow night on The Audible, from the 1st Amendment Sports basement podcast studio!
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