JP Finlay tries not to get caught up in preseason wins and losses, more the performances of the players and coaches – and so far in DC, there's a lot to be encouraged by,
If you do care about wins and losses, the Commanders did give the Ravens their first preseason loss since 2015, and it was a thing, but John Harbaugh praised his team for fighting, and railed on those making light of it for never having been on the field fighting for a win, a job, or even a play.
Great, and true, as Brian Mitchell will attest to, because even if the final score doesn't matter, there are times where literally everything that happens between the lines does, at least for some out there.
"The final result may not matter, but tell that to the guy that was undrafted that all of a sudden, in a preseason game, had a chance to make a big play. Or, a guy drafted in the first round who goes out there and basically falls on his face and doesn't play well," BMitch said.
For the fans, well, BMitch said it best: "People whose teams lose a lot of preseason games immediately say 'it doesn't make any difference, but fans whose teams win a lot of them and see the team play well understand the importance of it."
"That won't send you to the Super Bowl, but they could damn sure jumpstart it," Brian said. "Ryan Clark was there the day they had 10,000 people, and talked about how he saw something different then. He was trying to tell people last night on TV that this might as important of a game as you may think some others are, but this can jumpstart something like that."
Commanders players sure felt it, even if Sam Cosmi had said no one cared about the Ravens' win streak, because he also said he wanted to beat it.
"That team had been able to go out there and get everybody to come in and buy it, and say we're going to play our best," BMitch said. "They played third and fourth-stringers, but their guys play better than others – and now, if we can take this and build on it, maybe not go on a streak but have a different approach than what we used to have, then maybe the season will be different – and I guarantee you people will be happy as hell and I think they will be able to come back to this game."
And, of course, as JP noted, there are a lot of players the preseason matters to, from a seventh-round pick like Andre Jones all the way up to QB1 in Sam Howell – so perception, here, is reality.
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