Washington Commanders
Depending on the undependable.
There are a lot of dysfunctional football teams in the NFL. The Jaguars have had a top-10 pick in all but one draft since 2007, and almost none of these players made it to a second contract with the team. The Lions haven’t won a playoff game since 1991. The Texans are the nouveau riche kids on the block, building a bland roster around the idea that a chaplain can pick the player characters that will do best. The Panthers treat quarterback searches like Bobby Hill with his father’s credit card.
“Forgotten” is a word that conveys a little too much insult to long-time followers, but the [racial slur redacted] Football Team Commanders are the current NFL dynasty of dysfunction, a stagnant swamp very much worthy of bearing the name of the nation’s capital. And because of how deep it runs here, it is probably a little overlooked in our Squirrel!-based media society. The Commanders haven’t won a playoff game since 2005 and haven’t had a point differential over +13 since 2012. Since Daniel Snyder took over the team in 1999, they have vacillated between spending extravagantly on big-name free-agent busts and being so undesirable that nobody actually wants to join the team.
This year, they picked “being so undesirable that nobody actually wants to join the team.” The Commanders brought in three outside free agents before the draft—guards Andrew Norwell and Trai Turner and edge rusher Efe Obada. All three of those players were Panthers when Ron Rivera was in Carolina. Then Washington traded two third-round picks to Indianapolis for quarterback Carson Wentz and a swap of 2022 second-round picks. (One of those third-rounders could upgrade to a second next season if Wentz plays 70% or more of the snaps.) Wentz cost the Colts a playoff berth with two terrible performances at the end of the season, first falling to the Raiders in Week 17 after he missed a week of practice on the COVID reserve list because he was unvaccinated, then getting easily handled by the Jaguars to end the season. He was trashed out the door in...
