Hog Heaven Projects Seven Wins for Redskins in 2011

The Washington Redskins and the NFL released the 2011 Regular Season schedule yesterday, launching fan optimism that will carry from now to the season’s  opening kick-off. Reality sets in around game six. So I optimistically say the Redskins will win seven games this season–whenever  the season starts.

Your Redskins Hog Heaven writers do not drink the team Kool-Ade. That does not make us Redskins haters, nor even Dan Snyder bashers. We just try to figure out why this team doesn’t win more games, then we write what we see. 

For example, it isn’t hating to point out that passing offense was the best performing part of the team last year (eighth-ranked). Yet no position is more uncertain than quarterback. 

Nor are we bashing the team to note that Mike Shanahan’s arrival ranks second only to the second coming of Joe Gibbs for boosting the long-term outlook for the Redskins. Shanahan’s arrival signaled a turn away from the blunders of the past two decades. How could it be that Shanahan’s every early move, beginning and ending with the quarterback position, seems guided by Vinny Cerrato?

Shanahan, Cerrato and the release of the 2011 schedule can only mean one thing..,

a few incoherent thoughts about the upcoming season:

This is a critical season for Mike Shanahan. No Washington coach not named Gibbs made it past his second season in the Snyder era. Change and turmoil has been the bane of the Redskins since 2000. Shanahan must stay for three or four seasons no matter the record this year or next.  No more resetting the clock to zero every second season.

Seven-win team is what the Redskins is (are?). They’ve been that since Joe Gibbs’ first departure (1993) to end The Hogs era. The franchise won 122 regular season games since then, or 6.77 wins per season on average. That’s not a prediction for this year. Can’t do that until we see who makes the team. Redskins nemesis Bill Parcells said it best. “You are what your record says you are.” Seven wins is a good starting point for all the analytics that will follow. 

The Redskins would have been the Beast of the Least, if they were in the NFC West. Washington would have finished with three more wins if in the West by sweeping the Cardinals and winning a home game against the Seahawks. How bad is the N-West? Washington’s three Beast rivals scored more points than the four West teams combined. The outlook is good against these teams. It would be better if the ‘Skins were not playing the Rams in St. Louis and the Seahawks in Seattle. 

Steve Spagnuolo was Snyderrato’s dream coach before he parlayed Washington’s potential 2008 job offer into a raise to remain with the New York Giants. Spags is 1-1 versus Washington since joining the Rams. The Redskins are 2-3 against the Rams since 2006.

Pete Carroll left the best pro team in Southern California to bring modest success to Seattle. The Redskins won the last time they played in Seattle in a 2008, a sort of homecoming for Jim Zorn. That was in Zorn’s glory days before the NFL figured out his offense.  

All I see when I look at AFC-East opponents is the New England Patriots. The last time the ‘Skins faced the Patriots in New England, they were whalloped 52-7. And that was with Sean Taylor, Shawn Springs, LaRon Landry and London Fletcher on defense and Joe Gibbs on the sideline. This year’s game is at FedEx Field. The result won’t be much different. Ditto for the NY Jets. Jest no more.

The Panthers, Cardinals and Bills figure to be the only Gimmies on the schedule. If the ‘Skins don’t take two of those three games, they are much worse off than we thought.

Redskins-Viking could be high drama. Minnesota is the speculated next stop for Donovan McNabb. I smell flex game on Christmas Eve at FedEx Field if that happens, regardless of the won-loss records. That would be McNabb’s second homecoming of his career. Does Washington qualify as “home?”

Of course, Mike Shanahan never, ever said Mcnabb is done here. Given the issues of the rest of the offense and all of the defense, McNabb is more likely to stay than to go. Mark my words.

The NFL never misses a promo trick. Washington opens the season against the Giants in New York on the tenth anniversary of 9-11. Washington and New York were the sites of the terrorist attacks that terrible day. It’s one thing to remember the victims of tragedy. It’s another to exploit it. I hope the NFL knows where the line is and does not cross it.

Players have yet to miss a practice nor fans a game. Calm down about the labor lockout until one of those things happen.

Here’s a breakdown at Washington’s 2011 opponents, grouped by division, and their 2010 performance

NFC East

NFC WEST

AFC EAST

FOURTH-PLACE FINISHERS

Point after: The Redskins 2011 schedule is rated fourth-easiest based on the 2010 won-loss record of opponents.