Washington Football Team: Building a Super Bowl blueprint

Skill Positions

This is the area where Washington needs the most work in terms of its Super Bowl blueprint. Tampa Bay has far more weapons at its skill positions than Washington has ever had.

Let’s start at quarterback. No matter the argument, Tom Brady is the G.O.A.T. and has clearly shown that Bill Belichick was not the sole reason for his success. Now does Washington need a Hall of Famer at quarterback to have a chance to make the Super Bowl? I wouldn’t go that far, but more competent quarterback play will make a huge difference.

Over the past five years, we have seen Nick Foles, Jared Goff, and Jimmy Garoppolo lead their teams to the Super Bowl. Would you call any of those three top ten quarterbacks in the league? I didn’t think so, but at least two out of those three options would give Washington more hope than its current stable of quarterbacks.

What Washington needs is someone with the leadership skills and determination of Alex Smith, the moxie of Taylor Heinicke, and the mobility of pre-injured Kyle Allen. When looking at the current quarterback room in Washington, it is hard to see any of the three quarterbacks making it through a full season healthy.

All three quarterbacks also have their own limitations whether it is their ability to stay healthy (all three), the propensity to turn the ball over (Kyle Allen), the lack of mobility (Alex Smith), and the question mark on if Heinicke’s success was all a late-season mirage.

With many quarterback options on the table, the Washington Football Team needs to come away with a clearer answer on who will take the reins of the team for years to come.

Looking back at Tampa for a minute, the offense has such a depth of skill players. Although the one-two punch of Antonio Gibson and J.D. McKissic was great for Washington, the Ronald Jones-Leonard Fournette combo for Tampa was a hair better. I do like what McKissic brings to the table, but another talented RB addition in the backfield would make a huge difference.

Tampa is loaded with pass catchers, including Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown, Scotty Miller, Rob Gronkowski, and Cameron Brate. With that many weapons, you can’t focus your attention on just one player. When Washington lost Antonio Gibson for a few games during the season, teams started to focus on taking away Terry McLaurin, which led to Washington’s offense stagnating.

Yes, Logan Thomas is a stud and is one of the gems discovered by Rivera and this front office, but, the vast majority of starters on this offense would be third and fourth-string players on other teams.

Cam Sims has made some strides but is by no means a WR2. Steven Sims showed some potential in 2019 but took a step back this season. Isaiah Wright, Robert Foster, and Antonio Gandy-Golden are projects. And nobody knows how Kelvin Harmon will look returning from injury.

Washington needs to add at least a WR2, TE2, and ideally, a WR3 to give a much-needed boost to its dismal offense, which finished the year ranked third-to-last in the league.

Bruce Arians was able to go from 7-9 in his first year to a Super Bowl win in his second year with the Buccaneers. Will Coach Rivera be able to pull off the same magic for Washington in 2021? The blueprint is there, now the team just needs to follow it.