Winning in Washington has been hard to come by recently; but 2021 may be different

We all know wins have been hard to come by for Washington for some time now, but how bad has it been lately?

As we all know, winning in Washington has been hard to come by since owner Daniel Snyder took over the team 21 years ago. Following the Jay Gruden era, Snyder looked to complete an entire team overhaul, from the front office to the coaching staff. Head Coach Ron Rivera has taken over, and right now, things are trending upward, but it would be naive to think that their recent history will be easy to overcome. So before we fully transition into 2021, let’s take time to recognize what the Washington Football Team is up against based on their recent seasons.

Washington has had one double-digit win season over the past decade.

Washington last won ten games in 2012, which was the historical Robert Griffin III rookie season. However, from 2010-2020, Washington has only produced one eight-win and one nine-win season, with the rest being sub .500 seasons. Further, Rivera’s first season in Washington, albeit a division title year, produced a 7-9 record.

Since 2016, Washington has held a winning record for just 12 weeks, which is 27th in the NFL.

If you are unfamiliar with Warren Sharp and his analytic background, you can check his story out here. However, in this small piece of information, you can see how hard it has been for Washington to overcome ineptitude on and off the field. So in the five seasons that Sharp mentioned in his tweet, there are 85 total weeks within that span, and putting things in perspective here, Washington has held a winning record just 14 percent of the time.

Washington has repeatedly met preseason win probabilities in recent years.

You can find the full article by Neil Greenberg here if you are interested, but as you can see, in 2019 and 2020, Washington has met the expectations of oddsmakers heading into the season. How this is calculated is simple, using each week’s points spreads to find the implied chance that Washington comes away with a victory. Obviously, this is for those who have some gambling familiarity and understand what a point spread is. There are percent chances to win behind each point spread that oddsmakers produce for each team. So after looking through weeks 1-18, there is a 53 percent chance that Washington finishes with seven wins or less.

Becoming a consistent winner takes time, and things won’t happen overnight, but I believe that Washington has a good chance ahead of them to repeat as NFC East champions. These hurdles mentioned above are just that – hurdles – and grew larger and larger as the years have passed. But Rivera is one of the few coaches who can overcome the hurdles that are currently overshadowing this franchise.

Let’s have some fun with this poll; comment and let us know what you think.