Four teams were shut out of the Pro Bowl, and while one is surprising somewhat in the Packers, the other three being the Panthers, Patriots, and Commanders are not so surprising, given those three teams could have the Top 3 picks in the 2024 Draft.
The cupboard isn’t bare, but even a Michelin Star chef can’t make a gourmet meal out of Hamburger Helper and wilted produce, so, yeah, things are dire in DC.
“As they get ready to try to hire a GM and convince someone to come run this team, what kind of shape is this roster in? Is it as bad as it feels like last night as you're seeing them get shut out?” Grant asked.
“Yes, it is, and the delusion that we've all been under – and this has been emblematic again of so many different regimes and things here – is that just because we know someone's name, we assume that they're good.
Someone can be here for a while, but that doesn’t mean they’re the right answer, or they would start for 15, 16, 20 other teams in the NFL.”
You can’t have a team of only All-Stars, you gotta have role players and unheralded guys who do the dirty work, and even though a handful of teams are stacked everywhere, Danny knows that success is fleeting in a salary-capped league. But…
“Yes, it really is that far away,” Danny said. “The guys that we think of as good…for example, everybody loves Brian Robinson as a person, and what he's overcome is unbelievable, but he’s a plodding, pedestrian, okay running back that was in the low-30s in terms of success rates on running downs. They need to do a lot better at a bunch of different places. I think Logan Thomas is a fantastic dude, is a future coach and should be on a roster as a leader, but that is not a TE1. They have a number of those kind of things where you go, you are so far away from not only being good, but being league average, it’s emblematic in how they played.”
Grant isn’t THAT down, but there is a lot of work to do.
“I think that their roster is normal ‘you need a new head coach’ bad. I don't think it's worse than the type of team that is typically firing a GM or firing a head coach or picking in the top five,” Grant said. “When you get a GM job, you're going to an organization that needs lots of work and a major overhaul, and I think they're on par with that. This isn't an egregiously bad roster.”
GP set off the Ben Johnson alert in looking at the offense through an outside lens, noting things like ‘Terry McLaurin is better than any wide receiver in Detroit not named Amon-Ra St. Brown’ in comparing the current Commanders and Lions rosters, and concluding that there ‘are some pieces here, so it’s not a terrible roster, but it’s a bad one.’
“They lack star power, but I think they've got some very solid building blocks, as every team is going to,” Grant said. “And I think that's probably what you're getting here, if you're a GM or you're a head coach and you come to Washington. They don’t have stars, but probably a dozen guys who are solid, and two or three guys who are really good.”
And all that said, there is hope on the horizon.
“I think if you spend your $90 million wisely, you’re going to hit more than you miss,” GP said. “No one bats 1.000, but you gotta do better than this regime that hit .220. We’re shooting for .600, and if you hit on these picks, especially a quarterback at No. 2, you can be right back in the mix in a pretty mediocre NFC for a wild card spot next year.”
Take a listen to their entire conversation on the roster above!
