Just a heads up, Geron was release when Morgan was and it went under the radar… other than that great article, loved the read. Kind of stunning with all of the hype around this team we sure do lack blue and red players.. this is why I see 5-12 at best next year with the hopes of developing young players into the red category
Oh crap, I totally forgot about that… I’ll correct that, thanks for the heads up!
Glad you enjoyed the read. I think its still a young team and there are plenty of players that have the upside to develop into blue/red players. I certainly think Brown, Charles and Cosmi could all become red players in the future if they develop well, so that would boost the overall grade of the team. But it was certainly a drastic improvement from last season.
We play about 7 of the top 12 QBs if they’re all healthy we lose all of those games… we won 7 games vs back up and 3rd strings.. except for Pittsburgh but they were reeling.. we got smoked by every starting QB and it wasn’t even close
Just making it clear we’re having a cordial conversation, but I’m interested in what 8 teams you think we can beat next year.. also I want you to be right so bad lol
All I can tell you is that the team has a lot more talent than it did last year. You're talking as if QB is the only thing that matters. Even if it is, look at the guys the WFT had to use last year. But it's not - there's more than that. There's the really impressive defense, and what appears to be an at-least-credible offense.
Who can they beat? Well, all 6 games against the rest of the NFC east - they all suck. The Broncos, Panthers and Falcons all won 4 or 5 games last year. Then there are the Raiders & Chargers, who are so-so. So that's 10 games where they'll have a decent-to-strong chance of winning. They can blow a few of those and get lucky against a good team and that's 8.
There's a lot more to winning football than the QB. The Bucs made the best QB in football look helpless by overwhelming 2 bad tackles.
How does this stack up against the other 3 teams in the NFC East? If Washington has 14 starting level offensive players, how many would you guess the other 3 teams have, or do you even know of someone that's done this for those other teams?
I don’t know of any other writers that have done this for the other teams, but it would be interesting to see. I dont know those teams as well as this one, so I couldn’t grade them as accurately, but I think from an offensive perspective, the Cowboys probably have the best offense in the division, which is of course helped by having the best QB in the division. I think the Eagles are rebuilding now and the Giants have some real good pieces, but Jones is the big question mark.
Agree with all the categories, except for Roullier being placed in the Purple. At the very least, he should be in the Red category given his performance last season. He ranked 2nd among all Center's for Run Block Win Rate and 9th for Pass Block Win Rate (he ranked 6th in 2019), according to ESPN Analytics models (using tracking data from Next Gen Stats). And although I don't take PFF grades that seriously, he also ranked 6th among all center's with an overall grade of 76.4 last year.
Roullier is perhaps borderline a red player. Given the team has given him an extension I’d guess they think he is. I don’t see him having the standout reps where he dominates an opponent and enables Washington to do certain things because of his ability, which is what I think of when I think of a red or blue player.
An extreme example of this would be how Trent Williams used to work on an island and negate the best pass rushers in the league. That allowed the rest of the line to slide the other way and help out others, while also freeing up tight ends and backs to release freely, instead of having to pause to chip. For Washington, that meant guys like Chris Thompson didn’t get stuck in protection trying to help the left tackle, instead he was able to get out into his route and force defenses to step up towards him, opening up things further down the field.
Another example would be how Scherff can cover so much ground on screens. I’ve seen plays where he blocks a defensive tackle inside to buy time for the screen to develop and then make up a ton of ground to get out in front of the running back to block on the screen. Other guards aren’t able to do that so the scheme has to change, but because Scherff can do that, Washington has more options available to run.
Obviously, Trent and Scherff are two blues, so its a harsh comparison, but those are examples of standout things those two do that I don’t see from Roullier. Now, where he could make a strong case for being a red is the mental aspect. As the center, Roullier is responsible for IDing fronts and setting the targeting on run plays, as well as communicating any protection changes. Unfortunately, without being in the meeting rooms, we’ll never know just how good Roullier is at that aspect of the game, but if Washington sees him as elite in that regard, then he’s certainly worthy of a red grade. But as we don’t have access to that kind of info, I have to go on what I see, so I put him in the purple.
Just a heads up, Geron was release when Morgan was and it went under the radar… other than that great article, loved the read. Kind of stunning with all of the hype around this team we sure do lack blue and red players.. this is why I see 5-12 at best next year with the hopes of developing young players into the red category
Oh crap, I totally forgot about that… I’ll correct that, thanks for the heads up!
Glad you enjoyed the read. I think its still a young team and there are plenty of players that have the upside to develop into blue/red players. I certainly think Brown, Charles and Cosmi could all become red players in the future if they develop well, so that would boost the overall grade of the team. But it was certainly a drastic improvement from last season.
No problem man! Thanks again for doing what you do, keep up the great work. I will be sharing this article with friends
You're the best, thank you! Hope they all enjoy it too.
The barren board last year won 7 games; I think 8 or 9 wins is pretty likely, given the added talent on both sides of the ball.
We play about 7 of the top 12 QBs if they’re all healthy we lose all of those games… we won 7 games vs back up and 3rd strings.. except for Pittsburgh but they were reeling.. we got smoked by every starting QB and it wasn’t even close
Do the 21 other guys on the field make no difference to you?
Just making it clear we’re having a cordial conversation, but I’m interested in what 8 teams you think we can beat next year.. also I want you to be right so bad lol
All I can tell you is that the team has a lot more talent than it did last year. You're talking as if QB is the only thing that matters. Even if it is, look at the guys the WFT had to use last year. But it's not - there's more than that. There's the really impressive defense, and what appears to be an at-least-credible offense.
Who can they beat? Well, all 6 games against the rest of the NFC east - they all suck. The Broncos, Panthers and Falcons all won 4 or 5 games last year. Then there are the Raiders & Chargers, who are so-so. So that's 10 games where they'll have a decent-to-strong chance of winning. They can blow a few of those and get lucky against a good team and that's 8.
There's a lot more to winning football than the QB. The Bucs made the best QB in football look helpless by overwhelming 2 bad tackles.
Lol we haven’t beat the giants in 3 years but yea they suck and we’re a 10 win team
How does this stack up against the other 3 teams in the NFC East? If Washington has 14 starting level offensive players, how many would you guess the other 3 teams have, or do you even know of someone that's done this for those other teams?
I don’t know of any other writers that have done this for the other teams, but it would be interesting to see. I dont know those teams as well as this one, so I couldn’t grade them as accurately, but I think from an offensive perspective, the Cowboys probably have the best offense in the division, which is of course helped by having the best QB in the division. I think the Eagles are rebuilding now and the Giants have some real good pieces, but Jones is the big question mark.
Agree with all the categories, except for Roullier being placed in the Purple. At the very least, he should be in the Red category given his performance last season. He ranked 2nd among all Center's for Run Block Win Rate and 9th for Pass Block Win Rate (he ranked 6th in 2019), according to ESPN Analytics models (using tracking data from Next Gen Stats). And although I don't take PFF grades that seriously, he also ranked 6th among all center's with an overall grade of 76.4 last year.
Roullier is perhaps borderline a red player. Given the team has given him an extension I’d guess they think he is. I don’t see him having the standout reps where he dominates an opponent and enables Washington to do certain things because of his ability, which is what I think of when I think of a red or blue player.
An extreme example of this would be how Trent Williams used to work on an island and negate the best pass rushers in the league. That allowed the rest of the line to slide the other way and help out others, while also freeing up tight ends and backs to release freely, instead of having to pause to chip. For Washington, that meant guys like Chris Thompson didn’t get stuck in protection trying to help the left tackle, instead he was able to get out into his route and force defenses to step up towards him, opening up things further down the field.
Another example would be how Scherff can cover so much ground on screens. I’ve seen plays where he blocks a defensive tackle inside to buy time for the screen to develop and then make up a ton of ground to get out in front of the running back to block on the screen. Other guards aren’t able to do that so the scheme has to change, but because Scherff can do that, Washington has more options available to run.
Obviously, Trent and Scherff are two blues, so its a harsh comparison, but those are examples of standout things those two do that I don’t see from Roullier. Now, where he could make a strong case for being a red is the mental aspect. As the center, Roullier is responsible for IDing fronts and setting the targeting on run plays, as well as communicating any protection changes. Unfortunately, without being in the meeting rooms, we’ll never know just how good Roullier is at that aspect of the game, but if Washington sees him as elite in that regard, then he’s certainly worthy of a red grade. But as we don’t have access to that kind of info, I have to go on what I see, so I put him in the purple.