Ten Yard Fight: Rooting For Losses Makes You Less of a Fan

Winning = Winning

High draft position may = JaMarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf or God forbid Heath Shuler

Shame on me for not reading the entire article and for conspicuously ignoring all comments. But high picks are extremely valuable. The higher the better. If you’ve got a good organization with good scouts and player development personnel you can select a top end blue chip “change the franchise” type of player – like a Peyton Manning. If you’re scouts are worth their salt and they recognize that type of player isn’t available with a top pick, it can then be packaged in a trade for multiple other picks. These picks are pure freaking GOLD for a team with as many holes as the Redskins. So while I never root against the Redskins, I know that every win makes it that much more diffiuclt for this organization to pull itself out of the squalor in which we’ve all languished for the last twenty years. Constant mediocrity with a splash of horribleness. So, while I root for the Skins every Sunday, I do so knowing that games like that against the Seahawks mean more losing in the future. Meaningless wins are just that – meaningless. Anyone who doesn’t understand that is fooling themselves. So should we be happy the Skins won? Sure, for 5 seconds. Then reality should set in. This team stinks and that win you just celebrated doesn’t mean its getting any better. In fact, it just made getting better more difficult.

But winning out will probably hurt us more than losing the rest of the season. Yes we will win but what will that achieve. We wont make the playoffs we will have a middle of the road draft pick. Like jay said it will be middle of the road suckage. like we have been doing for the past 20 years. Not bad enough to get a shot at real franchise changers just bad enough so that we can never get out of the basement. We have anything but a playoff caliber team. Since the NFL has become a multi billion dollar business scouting has become better and better. Its becoming less and less likely that you will get quality starters from lower draft picks.

Granted I never root for us to lose but since we aint going to the promised land this year it would be nice have a shot to get our QB of the future.

First off, loudly rejoicing a skins loss or verbally cheering against them during a game is obnoxious and I could agree that I don’t see how a real fan could do it.

But i don’t think silently thinking that the best thing for the team is to lose out makes you less of a fan. Maybe you would agree Ken, or maybe not.

If a hypothetical fan thinks that we can either win 2 or 3 more games this season and go 8-8 or worse for the next 7 years, or we can win 0 more games this year and win 10+ games a season and be yearly playoff contenders for 6 of the next 7 seasons with a franchise QB, then I don’t see how it makes you less of a fan to be willing to endure losses now for many more wins in the near future.

Obviously it is not a given that a high draft pick used one any of the top 3 qb prospects that hopefully enter the draft this year will help us if we draft them. BUT, if a fan is willing to put their faith in a young QB who they think will put us over the edge to success, they may be nieve, foolish, misguided, but I don’t think it makes them less of a fan. They just want to see their team win, and win continually. They think the way to this end is not just “draft position”, but particularly a chance at a 2012 top QB prospect.

Its sad that I have to make such a contentious issue my first post, so before I start I would like to thank you guys for having so much redskins information. Easily one of the most informative places to find info about the skins. Now onto rooting for your team to lose making you less of a fan.

Of course when it comes down to it winning games makes you a winner. But like a lot of things a simplified view does not quantify all of the nuances that go into making a winning team. Talent makes you a winner. Occasionally the less talented team will win here and there, but cream rises to the top. The redskins lose not because they want to suck for luck, but because they don’t have talent and are not a good team.

The draft is one of the places you can acquire talent. With a strong correlation of the more talented players being drafted earlier. Losing => Drafting players who could be more talented => Having a more talented team => A Winning team. This does not work perfectly but it is a viable alternative strategy that can lead to winning, which has worked in the past for other teams.

I think as long as your long term goal for this team is to see this team be one of the best teams in the league, I don’t think that you can be called less of a fan. But that is just my two cents. I am personally torn between both sides, because I see that both sides have their pros and cons. But deep down I just want the skins to be the best team. Hopefully next year this time we won’t be having this discussion.

to make positive plays, not to regress, not to suffer injuries. I root for individual players to discover and exploit their talents, execute well and make good decisions, to gain cohesiveness with other players in the system.

I root for my team not to make bonehead penalties and get baited into personal fouls, but to make the opponent do so. I root for the coaching staff to put the players in a position to succeed, manage the game well and pressure the opponent into bad execution and choices.

I root for my team to enjoy the game – it is a game after all – and play with enthusiasm and pride in representing the fans. But most of all, I root for the Redskins to win – game in, game out; year in, year out.

Grossman isn’t the future. Beck sure as hell didn’t look like the future. I think most people would agree that we need to draft a QB of the future. Drafting around the top 5 pretty much guarantees a shot at one of the best available QB’s. This would mean not having to trade picks and sacrifice our rebuilding momentum to do that. And this is a really strong QB class, much better than last year’s (or at least on the surface it is)

So, yes, winning a couple of token games against teams like the Seahawks and maybe the Vikings doesn’t seem to have a lot of positive impact to me. Beating Dallas at home would have meant a hell of a lot more, but that didn’t happen. That doesn’t mean I’m going to lament every first down, TD, or win that the Redskins get between now and the end of the season. It just means I’m cognoscente of the fact that it will not save the season. It’s too little, too late.

I’m a fan of this team, and no other team. I follow no other sport, and I don’t mess with fantasy football. In my opinion, fantasy football players aren’t true fans. Make of that what you will. I just want this team to stop mortgaging the future, hold onto draft picks instead of trading them away, and build a perennial contender through the draft. And I think losing out the rest of the season would be making the best of a bad situation, for the sake of rebuilding.

I count myself among this group:

You can “see the bright side” of our losses without actively rooting for those losses

LETS WIN OUT

I think the post should be called : Rooting For Losses Is The Wrong Approach.

Then talk about how draft picks aren’t a gaurentee and how learning to win now helps the team grow for the future, teaches a winng attitude and gives our team confidence in themselves.

But don’t say that those who feel differently are a lower tier of fan. Heck, Kevin at one point said that years ago he would be in the “tank for draft position” camp, but he later retought that position. Were you less of a fan in those days Kevin?

I just read this and can’t stop laughing… Well done sir.