2017 Redskins Regular Season Schedule Exactly Sixteen Games Long

Thanks, Captain Obvious.

Few fanbases are more guilty than ours of putting too much stock into the past year’s performance when looking at the schedule ahead. It’s one thing to project that the New England Patriots are going to keep being one of the toughest outs in the league. It’s an entirely different thing to project strength or weakness from over 50% (or more) of the rest of the league based on its achievements—or lack thereof—in years prior.

In 2017, the Redskins will face teams that had horrid 2016 campaigns (49ers, Rams and even Chargers). There will also be games against teams that had monster 2016 performances (Chiefs, Raiders and even the 10-5-1 Seahawks).

(Jeez...every team I listed is out west, with four of those games on the road.)

The knee-jerk reaction to a schedule like this is to sleep on the teams that under-performed and lose sleep over the ones that dominated—and this doesn’t even begin to address what are mostly irrational in-division thoughts on an annual basis. (In terms of the Irrational Brigade, I’m not just the president...I’m also a member!) I thought a good first step would be to take the temperature on what we think about a few of the teams that struggled in 2016. Baby steps, y’all!

In the weeks and months ahead, we will cycle through countless schedule predictions. In the context of that, I thought I would get things started with a few core April Beliefs*.

(*As they pertain to the 2017 schedule, core April Beliefs are worth slightly more than a hill of beans, but slightly less than jack-squat.)

1) The Rams are going to stay bad for at least one more year.

2) The 49ers will AT LEAST double their win total from last season (bold prediction?).

3) The Giants SHOULD be dominant next season, so they won’t be dominant next season.

4) I have no idea what to expect from the Vikings (or the Broncos).

5) I am penciling us in for a 4-2 record against the six teams I identified above.

Next up...we plot the road to 10-6!