If Smith wasn’t hurt, how would things have gone for Washington?

[patriotsheatyan]

They were 6-3 and looked like they would make the playoffs with him last year.  

If he stays healthy, how do things play out?

Edited November 17, 2019 by patriotsheatyan

[Xmad]

Somehow worse because redskins.

[lavar703]

We would be exactly where we are now only the record would slightly better. 

[footbull3196]

Not that much better.  Like 3-6 right now at best

[EvilenFroggen]

Better. 

[ronjon1990]

Good question. 

I've always had a soft spot for Smith, given how his early career played out. The Redskins, iirc, had a few injuries last year that hurt them late. 

I'd say they finish 9-7, maybe 10-6. Possible playoff berth. 

Where it gets foggy for me is the draft. Do they still take Haskins? Or do they invest in another solid weapon for Smith? 

Now, in hindsight, I'd put them probably closer to 4-5 with a healthy Smith at QB. They clearly have a lot of holes to plug, so it's equally as possible that they sit at 2-7 or 3-6. But I don't think they look like such a mess. He was never going to be the Redskins "franchise" QB, but he was a legitimate starting QB, probably top 15, on a team with very little behind him on the depth chart. Losing someone who is a stabilizer like that can dramatically change a team's narrative. 

*If any Redskins fans have more info on whether Snyder would've pushed for Haskins had Smith not gone down, I'd love to hear from you. I've been kind of in shock at how quickly everything seemed to unravel after Smith went down. Not to say he was lighting the world on fire, but there seems to be a stark difference between him playing and him being gone.

 

 

[e16bball]

Much better. In a short-term lens, at least.

In fairness, they were closer to 6-4 than 6-3 when he went down (trailing Houston 17-7 halfway through the 3rd quarter) — although they did actually come back to take the lead behind McCoy before eventually losing the game at the end. They weren’t that good a team, as their point differential coming into the game was just +1, despite their record. And they were coming off the flukiest of wins, somehow holding Tampa Bay to 3 points even though they rolled up 500+ yards of offense (it was dark FitzMagic that day). 

But they would have contended for the playoffs, undoubtedly. Philly made it (and won a game) at 9-7, so even if they dropped the Houston game, they just needed to finish 3-3 to be in that range. They probably would have done that with Smith. The disarray and hopelessness that set in after Smith’s injury — and more accurately, after McCoy then broke his leg in the next game against Dallas — would not have come about, had they not been forced to go from leading the division by two games to rolling out Mark Sanchez and Josh Johnson as their starting QB down the stretch. They would have done enough to be close to the mix. 

And they’d be better this year, undoubtedly. Gruden’s offense is tough to grasp, but it’s made for a guy like Smith. With another offseason to master it, he would have been more effective this year. Those strides likely would have been negated to some degree by not having Trent Williams and the defense taking a step back — but I think that disarray and hopelessness I referenced earlier would have been largely diminished with a QB like Smith at the helm that was The Guy™️, and I think the rest of the team would have played better with that sort of unquestioned leadership and direction. Probably something resembling their 2018 point differential from before he got hurt, like 4-5 or 5-4 at best. 

From a long-term sense, though, they would have been worse off. Having Smith (and Gruden with a decent QB to work with) dragging that team to respectability was giving the FO cover to continue with more of the same. You can still hear it now in their comments — they think they can say “we were close” with a straight face because Smith’s style of ball control offense and an opportunistic defense somehow had us at 6-3 and leading the division last year. Now, the emperor has no clothes. Everyone sees them for what they are, which is an abject failure at every level of running an organization. Which is what this franchise needed, a whole lot more than it needed a first round playoff exit for a 9-8 team. 

They absolutely wouldn’t have drafted Haskins at #15 if they had Smith. They would have been in full “go for it” mode. They might have taken Hollywood Brown (who they supposedly loved), but they had a big hole at OLB and I think it’s more likely that they would have just taken Burns or Sweat there and saved the 2nd rounder this year they gave up to move back up for Sweat. I think they would have hit FA a little harder looking for starters, so that might have been a short-term boost, but it wouldn’t have moved the needle in any meaningful way. It would have just been the same old Redskins: chasing mediocrity with the blind hope that they’d somehow stumble into something better. 

I don’t know if any positive organizational change and long-term evolution/progress will flow from this season, which looks like it will be the worst and arguably most embarrassing of Snyder’s tenure. But I can say with great certainty that if Alex Smith was still here, he would have spared the Redskins the outright humiliation of this blazing dumpster fire of a season and saved a lot of jobs — and that’s the cruelest thing he could have done to Redskins fans. 

[HTTRDynasty]

/ thread

[hornbybrown]

Better because he is a far better QB but the long term effect of that might be worse. That better play might mean a terrible GM hangs around longer