The Quinn/Peters era gets off to a historic start
Throughout the course of the first season of the Commanders’ rebuild, I wrote two articles on the timelines of NFL team rebuilds.
After the opening day loss to the Buccaneers, and an unconvincing win over the Giants, frustration and disappointment began to take hold in the Hogs Haven discussion threads. To help readers set reasonable expectations for the seasons ahead, I published an in depth look at the most recent comparable rebuilds:
How Long Does it Take to Rebuild a Team in Today’s NFL?
That article identified four teams between 2017 and 2021 that rebuilt to playoff contention starting from similar baselines to the 2024 Commanders ( 50% roster turnover). Three of the four teams took three seasons from the franchise reset to record their first playoff win (2021 Lions, 2021 Texans, 2017 49ers). The fourth team took four years (2017 Bills). It could be argued that the Bills’ and Lions’ rebuilds actually took longer, because both teams had false starts before embarking on the successful rebuild.
Among those successful rebuilders, the biggest Year 1 increase in regular season wins was the San Francisco 49ers, who improved by four wins from 2-14 in 2016 to 6-10 in 2017. The 2017 Bills started from the highest baseline and improved their record in Year 1 by 2 wins. The 2021 Texans held steady at four wins; while the Lions went backward, dropping from 5-11 in 2020 to 3-13-1 in 2021. The main takeaway for Commanders’ fans was that any real success from the rebuild was likely to be a few years away.
That conclusion was quickly turned on its head as the team began to gel around an emerging superstar at QB, and embarked on a four-game winning streak. By Week 9, Jayden Daniels had won NFL Rookie of the Week seven times, and the Commanders had nearly doubled their win total from the previous season. The mood of the fanbase was buoyed by the team’s unexpected success and discussion topics turned to the possibility of making the playoffs.
That bubble of enthusiasm burst when the Commanders hit the hard part of their schedule in Week 10 and suffered three consecutive losses to the Steelers (27-28), Eagles (18-26) and Cowboys (26-34). After the loss to the Cowboys, fan confidence took a nosedive and the haters came out in force to dominate Hogs Haven discussion threads. That prompted my second update on NFL rebuilds, in an effort to remind readers of how remarkable the Commanders’ progress had been, and hopefully provide some perspective on the recent setbacks, which turned out to be temporary:
Some Perspective on the Washington Commanders’ Three-Game Losing Streak
The Week 13 update, looked all the way back to 1994, when the current rules that constrain roster building were first put in place. The extended analysis found that, in the 30 seasons since the introduction of the salary cap, only 1 team had won a playoff game in the first season of a total franchise reset. The 2010 Seahawks sneaked into the playoffs with a 7-9 record and won a Wild Card playoff game against the Saints.
Only 4 teams in 30 seasons won a playoff game within two seasons of a franchise reset. So the fact that fans could even entertain the possibility of a playoff finish was pretty remarkable. Although, in Week 13, fans who thought the Commanders would not win another game seemed to outnumber those who still had hopes for the playoffs.
When the final whistle blew on the Commanders’ season, not only had they advanced to the playoffs, they had made it to within one game of the Super Bowl. In the final analysis, the Kool-Aid drinkers who were predicting a deep playoff run in Week 10 proved to be far more perceptive than the pessimists who were predicting a 7-10 finish in Week 13.
Never mind that some of those were the same people. What Commanders’ fans had witnessed in the first year of the rebuild seemed miraculous.
To get a better idea of just how remarkable the Peters/Quinn first season turnaround was, let’s take a look at how it stacks up against the most successful NFL team rebuilds in the salary cap era.
Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images
Salary Cap Era Rebuilds
For this exercise, I stuck with the same successful rebuilds identified in the Week 13 article. These were teams that started rebuilding from a comparable baseline to the 2024 Commanders: 6 or fewer wins the previous season, new GM or equivalent, new coaching staff. Most but not all of the successful rebuilds featured major roster overhauls in Year 1.
Non-Comparable Turn-Arounds
This analysis excludes non-rebuilding teams that had big single-season turnarounds, since they aren’t directly comparable to the Commanders’ situation in the aftermath of Ron Rivera’s tenure. Seven excluded teams achieved single-year improvements of 8 or more wins since 1994. In four cases, the single season turnaround resulted from a change at QB and/or head coach on a team with an otherwise competitive roster:
2008 Dolphins, +10 wins, lost Wild Card playoff – added HC Tony Sparano, QB Chad Pennington
2004 Steelers, +9 wins, Divisional playoff win – drafted QB Ben Roethlisberger
2016 Cowboys, +9 wins, lost Divisional playoff – drafted QB Dak Prescott
1997 Jets, +8 wins, no playoffs – added HC Bill Parcells
In three other cases, the turnaround was the result of finally putting together pieces that were already in place:
1999 Colts, + 10 wins, lost Divisional playoff – Peyton Manning’s 2nd season
2004 Chargers, +8 wins, lost Wild Card playoff – 3rd season with HC Marty Schottenheimer, QB Drew Brees and RB LaDainian Tomlinson
2015 Panthers, +8 wins, NFC Championship – 5th year with HC Ron Rivera and QB Cam Newton, 3rd consecutive playoff season
How the 2024 Commanders Stack Up to Teams in Full Rebuild Mode
The salary cap era teams that successfully rebuilt from comparable baselines to the 2024 Commanders are shown in the following table. “D Time” is the number of seasons to the first playoff win. “Y1 D Wins” is the increase in regular season wins from Year 0 to Year 1.
As noted above, the 2010 Seahawks were the only team in the salary cap ere to win a playoff game in the first season of a full franchise reset. They qualified for the playoffs with a 7-9 record by virtue of a tiebreak over the 7-9 St. Louis Rams to win the lackluster NFC West Division title. They beat the New Orleans Saints in the Wild Card round and lost to Jay Cutler’s Chicago Bears in the Divisional round. The 2024 Commanders bested their playoff finish by sending the #1 seed Detroit Lions home early and claiming a Divisional round playoff win. The Commanders’ +8 win improvement in the regular season dwarfed the Seahawks’ modest gain of 2 wins.
Only two rebuilding teams had larger improvements in regular season win totals than the 2024 Commanders:
The 2013 Kansas City Chiefs kicked off the most successful rebuild of the modern era by hiring John Dorsey as GM, Andy Reid as head coach and trading for QB Alex Smith. Their regular season record improved to 11-5, following the disastrous 2-14 finish the previous year. But they lost to the Colts in the Wild Card round and did not win their first playoff game until 2015. They did not win a Divisional round playoff game until 2018, when they unloaded Smith on Dan Snyder’s Redskins and moved on to Patrick Mahomes. The Commanders fell one win short of the Chiefs’ regular season improvement in Year 1, but were five years ahead of them in terms of playoff finishes.
The 2012 Colts mastered the art of the tank, dropping to 2-12 when franchise QB Peyton Manning missed the season due to back surgery that left his playing future uncertain. The Suck for Luck campaign delivered the first overall pick in a draft featuring the highest rated QB prospect since their former starter. While this rebuild meets my eligibility criteria for comparison to the 2024 Commanders, their roster was lightyears ahead of the one that Ron Rivera left behind, and didn’t require much tweaking ahead of the 2012 season. Despite the 9-win improvement, Andrew Luck’s Colts did not win a playoff game until the following season when they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the Wild Card round. They did not win a Divisional round playoff game until Year 3 of the “rebuild”.
No other team in the salary cap era has come close to the Commanders’ achievement in the first year of a total franchise rebuild.
There is no guarantee that the Commanders will match the long-term success of teams like the 1997 Rams, 2010 Seahawks, 2013 Chiefs or the 2017 49ers whom they outpaced in the first year of their rebuild. But it is undeniable that the franchise reset is off to a great start.
Conclusion: Turns out Kool-Aid is actually good for you.
Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images