Redskins: Firing Joe Barry won’t make you rich or get you the pretty girl.

And you think it’s all Joe Barry’s fault.

The Redskins are what they are by design. A work in progress. An unfinished product. Very good passing team. Not very good at much else.

Take the defense, for example.

If you recall the preseason rankings of the Redskins defense, you had to start from the bottom.

Last September, Pro Football Focus ranked our ‘D’ 27^th.

“At inside linebacker, Washington has plenty of competition, but each member of that group has been poor on the field in recent seasons, offering little hope that the winners of this battle will give the defense a boost.”

After 13 weeks, Football Outsiders clocks the Redskins defense seven percent below a theoretical average defensive performance (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average). FO ranked the pass defense 20^th and the run defense 30^th, no surprise after facing Ezekiel Elliott and David Johnson.

Linebackers. Stopping running backs. There is a connection.

Joe Barry sold the front office a snow job on his employment interview. Hiring him may not have been the team’s best move. But firing him is no quick fix. This is a talent issue.

“It’s not the Xs and Os. It’s the Jimmys and Joes.” ~ Football cliché.

Fans won’t let anyone forget that Barry was the DC for a Lions club that went 0-16. Hog Heaven believes that GM Matt Millan had more to do with that, with “that” being lack of talent.

News flash: The Redskins are not a winless team.

GM Scot McCloughan added nice pieces in the Draft: S/LB Su’a Cravens; CB Kendall Fuller, and DL Matt Ioannidis. These are rookie low-round picks, however, meaning that they were always about next year.

If When McCloughan builds the defense to be mid-tier competitive, the Redskins could make some noise in the playoffs. For those 2016 rookies, that’s 24 to 36 games away.

Barry can only coach the talent he has. Todd Bowles or other future defensive coordinator of your dreams won’t fix that.

Channeling/paraphrasing Redskins players' mantra of 2007: 4 and 0 OR WE DON'T GO! #HTTR

— Anthony Brown, The RedsCommander (@RedsCommanders) December 6, 2016

The Redskins must run the table for a shot at the playoffs. By quirk of statistics, our remaining opponents are bunched together in Football Outsiders Offensive DVOA rank.

• After NFL Week 13

The Eagles haven’t been the same after T Lane Johnson’s suspension.

The Panthers are in melt-down mode for reasons I don’t understand yet.

The Bears are on their third-string quarterback, Matt Barkley. There isn’t much video of Barkley with the Bears. Such player always present problems. But the Bears should be an opportunity.

The Giants may not have Jason Pierre-Paul on defense. Odell Beckham, Jr. and Victor Cruz are available. Against our secondary, that’s enough to worry about.

Our hopes for the Wild Card may come down to Giants @ Redskins on New Year’s Day.