The Homer & The Hater: All I Wanted for Christmas…

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December 30, 2022

By Paul Francis

There resides within me a “homer” and a “hater”.  The Homer strives to see the Washington team through the lens of my childhood Redskins, believing that every positive play is a hopeful sign of returning to glory years.  The Hater in me languishes through every wasted second spent watching this unholy catastrophe of an organization, as they annually invent new ways to fail at every level.  The Homer and the Hater engage in robust subconscious debate, and my logical brain typically tries to balance the two views.

Today, the Homer and the Hater reflect on what Santa brought the Commanders fans this holiday season.

The Homer

All I Wanted for Christmas was to keep believing.  That’s all I ever want – reasons to keep the hope alive.  And you know what?  I got a couple.  The reasons didn’t come in the packaging that I wanted – which was wins against the Giants and San Francisco.  But they came, as many kernels of hope do, in other mysterious packages.  Like that random gift card that you got from a colleague you weren’t expecting.

They came from the Lions and Seahawks losing, which means Washington’s playoff hopes remain alive.  Shoot, even the Giants lost, which means the 6th seed is not an impossibility.  I was glad Washington was playing meaningful football in the month of December.  Well, now it’s January and we are STILL playing meaningful football in control of our playoff destiny.

It also came in the form of a Carson Wentz cameo appearance that has the potential to turn things around for the last 2 games of the season.  Say what you want to about Wentz, but he came into the Niners game and looked sharp against the league’s number 1 defense.  In 2 drives he went 12 for 16 for 123 yards and a touchdown.  But more than the nice stat-line, he passed the eye test.  He ran a quick-passing offense that mitigated the pass-rush and spread the ball around.

Carson Wentz has his faults, but if you look at the early season statistics, the team also played awful around him.  In his 6 starts, the defense averaged 22 points allowed, and the running game averaged a paltry 95 yards.  In Heinicke’s 9 starts, the defense averaged 18 points allowed and the running game has averaged 142 rushing yards per outing.  If the defense and running game can hold steady, and if Wentz’s arm can add a more dynamic dimension to the passing game, then maybe the winning formula can finally come together – better late than never – just in the nick of time to salvage a playoff spot.

The Hater

All I Wanted for Christmas was some clarity – some sense of what this team is and where it is heading.  Instead, what I got was “more of the same”, like another pair of socks from my aunt who forgot that’s what she gave me last year, and I don’t need more friggin’ socks.  The same carousel we’ve been on all season – correction…the same carousel that we’ve been on since the Ron Rivera Era started still goes round and round.

Washington came up short against the Giants when they needed to come up clutch, and they predictably got their butts kicked in San Francisco.  Playing against a 7th round rookie QB, their vaunted defense coughed up 37 points…and here I thought the Niners were a “defensive” team.  Anyways, Carson Wentz appeared just in the nick of garbage time to lead the team on a touchdown drive.  Now certain elements of our fanbase are spun up with the possibility of something getting “sparked”.  As if we haven’t seen Carson Wentz play before.

But for fantasy purposes, let’s just say that Carson Wentz has been reborn.  He’s healthy, he has a better grasp of the offense, and taking a step back has done him some good.  The sad truth is that he still has to play behind this Oline, and he still has Scott Turner calling the plays.  So unless Carson Wentz spent his time away learning how to steal the soul of Patrick Mahomes, expectations need to be tempered.  Like, really really tempered.  Because not only have we seen Wentz play for us, but we’ve seen Wentz play in this situation in Indianapolis – 2 games to go with the playoffs on the line and everything to play for.  What happened?  Well, he’s no longer the starting quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.  As I’ve said before, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

I guess Washington could win another game or two, and have some other things fall their way.  Washington could back its way into the playoffs with a team that has a decent defense, and a mess of an offense with an unsettled QB situation, and see what happens.  Sound familiar?

Yeah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2020…errrr…