It was all going according to plan.
They were 0-4 in the twilight of September. They hadn’t competed; in fact, against a marginal competitor in Week 4, they’d lost by a margin of over 20 points. But this was all according to the plan. This team wasn’t supposed to win this year, anyway.
They had offloaded players for a treasure trove of assets before and during the first quarter of the regular season. They had long-term candidates for their rebuild all across the roster, and they used these games, not to place unnecessary playoff pressure on their players’ shoulders, but to set a foundation of development. All the while, locking up the greatest asset of all: The first overall pick.
It’s losing with a purpose. It’s all part of the plan.
Two NFL teams are tanking. But this anecdote applies to only one. The Washington Redskins 2019 season has taken many by surprise, but none more than the Redskins themselves. It’s a cautionary tale, about accepting reality, and having a cohesive plan. A tale of two very different tanks.
The Dolphins
After going 7-9 in 2018, the Dolphins fired head coach Adam Gase and blew up the coaching department. In his place, they hired Brian Flores, the Patriots’ former linebackers coach and co-defensive coordinator, with the hopes of imbuing the Patriots culture into Miami’s locker room.
Such an experiment has failed before, but those teams didn’t go all-in. The Dolphins are going all-in, and so they’re giving themselves a chance. They overhauled their coaching staff. They let various high-priced free agents, such as Ja’Wuan James and Cameron Wake, walk in free agency. They traded Ryan Tannehill to the Titans for a fourth-round pick. They traded a second-round pick for Josh Rosen, a high-upside passer, on the second day of the 2019 NFL Draft.
The Miami Dolphins purged their roster of nearly all established talent, conveyed an obvious unified emphasis toward development and reconstruction, and received a massive influx of draft assets as a result. They had accepted that, to turn the franchise around, they needed to start over, with unwavering and unforgiving totality.
It goes without saying, but the Dolphins are winless through four games. They’ve been outscored 26 to 163 by opponents, building a whopping point discrepancy of 137 points. An average deficit of 34.25 points per game.
But the Dolphins have put themselves in a position where this historic ineptitude will benefit them in the long run, if they play their cards right. After trading Laremy Tunsil, Kenny Stills, and Minkah Fitzpatrick, they have three first-round picks in the 2019 NFL Draft. They have seven total picks on Days 1 and 2 in 2020, and they have fourteen total picks. They’re projected to have over $117 million in cap space next offseason.
It’s ugly right now. But it’s all part of the plan.
The Redskins
After going 7-9 in 2018, the Redskins filled several newly-opened coaching vacancies, rotating in a new special teams coordinator and a new defensive backs coach, among other things. The primary positions remained the same, however. Jay Gruden remained the head coach. Greg Manusky remained the defensive coordinator. This, after the team lost seven of their last eight games in 2018. This, after five years of mediocrity and a steady buildup of volatility.
In January of 2019, Bruce Allen said this.
“We’re in the middle of the pack. We’ve been in the middle of the pack the last three seasons. It means you’re close.”
From 2016 to 2018, the Miami Dolphins went 23-25. The Washington Redskins went 22-25-1.
In the offseason of 2019, the Redskins made Landon Collins the highest-paid safety in the NFL. The move highlighted an otherwise quiet free agency, but they also signed former Giants offensive lineman Ereck Flowers and cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie. These moves negated third-round, sixth-round, and seventh-round compensatory picks that they would have been projected to receive from the departures of Preston Smith, Ty Nsekhe, and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, respectively.
In the 2019 NFL Draft, the Redskins received high marks from draft media, amassing talent on Days 1, 2, and 3. Their class was punctuated by the acquisition of former Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins, and former Mississippi State edge rusher Montez Sweat. Other picks, such as Terry McLaurin and Cole Holcomb, also showed promise.
Washington traded up for Sweat, sacrificing a second-round pick in 2020. It was a move, and an offseason, resemblant of a team going all-in on immediate success. But the acquisition of Haskins, a rookie quarterback, suggested a potential conflict of interest in D.C. Why did a team that was starting over at the game’s most important position, think they could make the leap in 2019?
Despite questions surrounding the offense and the coaching staff, the Redskins pressed forward with the ultimate trophy in mind. Now, four weeks of the code-red season have passed, and the Redskins are with the Dolphins, at 0-4. Their margin of defeat has increased each week. The defense, once lauded as a potential top-ten unit, is statistically the worst in the league. The team’s coaching staff is in limbo, and the quarterback situation has completely collapsed.
The pack that Bruce Allen and the Redskins had grown so comfortable with has now left them behind.
The Redskins have one first-round pick in 2020. They don’t have a second-round pick. Their one asset that’s commanding value, Trent Williams, they refuse to trade. And they’re projected to be nineteenth in the NFL in cap space by the turn of the new league year.
It’s ugly right now. And no one saw it coming.
The Difference
One team prepared for the tank. The other refused to see it coming. And now, the stark contrast between the two is only growing.
Both the Dolphins and Redskins are 0-4, with no end in sight to their incompetence. But for the Dolphins, this failure was an expected part of their master plan, and it’s allowed them to reload for a monumental 2020 NFL Draft. The Redskins depleted their own future assets to go in on competing in 2019. For them, this failure is a nightmare in broad daylight.
The root of the problem? The Redskins front office was complacent. They failed to introspect and self-scout. They were lazy. And now, they’re paying the consequences for their short-sighted view of mediocrity. Mathematically, yes, one could say they were close. But structurally, functionally, they were closer to a total collapse.
Things will get better for the Dolphins. They turned the page, and took the first step in the next direction in unison. Before anything changes in Washington, the Redskins need to embrace the ugly, exchange costly, aging veterans and un-aligning players for draft picks, and re-assess the very foundation of the franchise. Otherwise, they won’t see the next tank coming, either.