Washington - are we ready to accept & tolerate?

Patience.

Definition: “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious”.

For any sports fans, especially those who follow a consistently losing franchise, patience is often in short supply. Defeats are hard to take; Sundays are spoilt, and we are forced to bear witness to the success of our rivals.

The Washington fan base accept that culture building will, as a minimum, be a medium to long term process. Not many are expecting a play-off team this season; we have awareness this is the start of a journey with an overnight 10-6 record not likely to magically appear at the flick of a switch.

Ron Rivera was introduced to the media on 1st January 2020. He spoke with authority and he spoke openly and transparently. Like a lot of us, Ron sees the potential in this young roster. For too long, we have been an antiquated franchise with only a Burgundy and Golden History to fall back on. But with the right direction and coaching, there is the genuinely legitimate hope that the Redskins have the opportunity for a Burgundy and Golden Future.

A shift in culture, the creation of a better culture, must be supplemented with great football players. In San Francisco, there is a model example of a team built on high drafted defensive players.

It was, however, only the introduction of a legitimate QB in Jimmy Garappolo that ultimately elevated the 49ers. When Jimmy went down Week 3 against the Chiefs in 2018, the 49ers final record was 4-12. A fully healthy Garappolo led San Francisco to a 13-3 record and Superbowl appearance in 2019.

In Washington, a lot will fall on the young shoulders of Dwayne Haskins. Haskins showed flashes of his College excellence in the latter half of 2019. There should still be room granted for critical evaluation even when allowing for a process to take shape and it is likely this analytical eye will continue to be cast on Dwayne more than any other.

This comes with the territory as a QB and there are already encouraging initial reports than #7 is working harder than those early days in the building.

There are young weapons for Dwayne, but the lack of an experienced veteran (the Redskins pursued Amari Cooper hard in free agency, but the high-quality WR stayed in Dallas) and an obvious quality starter at LT will make the QB job in Washington that bit harder.

The drafting of Chase Young, however, does point to an immediate stud plug in and play DE to in the District. Washington in selecting Young have added a QB panic inducing stud that can hopefully ensure Dwayne & Co will be given plenty of drive starting opportunities in the scoring end of the field.

Chase has the ability and freakish size to further enhance the impact of fellow first rounders Jon Allen and Da'ron Payne & the perennially under the radar Matt Ioannidis. Young coupled with second year Montez Sweat provide the Redskins with two physically imposing hand in the dirt nightmares for any QB in the League.

This initial toleration phase will still equal a busted coverage or two and we shall likely witness the sought-after aforementioned Amari Cooper catching the ball in the End zone to put up six for Dallas. Most analysts will have Washington in the lowest tier of teams in 2020 and it is hard to solidly argue against those predictions.

Redskins fans: stay tolerant, accept the bumps ahead, but know we are on the right path to success.