The more some things change, the more some things remain the same.
The old saying is still true in various aspects of life, and Sunday revealed it is true regarding the 2024 Commanders as well. What’s changed? The general manager, Adam Peters, is new, and so is head coach Dan Quinn, as well as most of his coaching staff is also new.
It’s also quite new that 30 players are on the active roster that were not Commanders in 2023. What’s also new is the name of the next Washington Commanders kicker, seeing Cade York was released after only one game.
York had come to the Commanders for a conditional seventh-round draft choice. The Browns were going to cut him anyway, as Dustin Hopkins continued to prove to Ron Rivera that he belongs in the NFL and was extended by the Browns. York had to be with the Commanders for two games for the draft choice to become a reality. This was enough motivation for Peters to release York.
What hasn’t changed is that the Commanders surrendered the most passing touchdowns in 2023, and they picked up right where they left off, yielding four more in the Week 1 loss.
Benjamin St-Juste was fighting out there. I will give him that. He even interfered with Mike Evans on one touchdown pass in the second quarter. Mike Sainristil looked like, well, a rookie. He was lost and beaten badly more than once. Emmanuel Forbes? Looked like the same rookie of 2023.
You recall back to last year, when Ron Rivera was recorded saying the Commanders were hoping to draft Emmanuel Forbes that night in the first round. Were they actually that determined and hopeful to draft Forbes? Before selecting him, Rivera was telling Commanders Nation how Forbes had great ball skills and had set an NCAA mark for pick-sixes.
Other than the highlights film of Forbes at Mississippi State, how much of the game film did they actually watch? It’s unthinkable to consider this as a possibility. Forbes has gotten beaten so badly, so repeatedly, there had to be college games where his coverage was shown to be inadequate. How did they not see that? How did they not recognize that?
However, at this rate, will Forbes show that Rivera may have gone 0-4 in his four NFL draft first-round picks with Washington?