chiefhog44 wrote:First off, don't cut up my argument. Thanks.
I respond to what's relevant, and I try not to clutter up the board with my responses. If you think I'm misrepresenting you on a particular point, then please point out what you think was put out of context. It's not intentional on my part.
I think you damn well know what I'm talking about from the rest of my post, and if you read it, you would have understood that I didn't say a must win game in the sense that we can't get into the playoffs if we don't win this weekend...because we can.
I never talked about playoffs with you. The only post where I mentioned the playoffs was responding to the OP. Between you and me the whole discussion has been about the team mentality.
Perhaps I deserve a little more credit here for having read your argument. I quoted and acknowledged your points about how this is important for the team mentality.
I feel like this is a must win for the franchise to take the next step in ridding us of this losing mentality and to build a championship team in three years. I think the timing is right that if we win this game, coming off a tough loss, that it will set up our team to continue to build this foundation.
All well and good . . . but this alone not what makes something a must-win.
What makes something "must-win" is when it's do or die. I've never disputed that this is a great chance to continue building our foundation — actually, if you read my posts again you'll see I explicitly
affirm this.
Secondly, why don't you define what you mean by long term.
I use the term in the context of a single coach and a single "team," where that signifies a particular group of players (centered around a core group) that as a team will have the chance to accomplish something. Realistically speaking, anywhere between 2-5 seasons.
By my count I only used "long-term" once, and it was after I had said this: "I see this week as an important — but not life-or-death — step in a process that began two years ago with the firing of Vinny and the beginning of the Shanaplan." So what I have in mind for "long-term" concerns Shanahan and what he'll be able to do here. That could be 10 years, though in today's NFL and especially with Snyder I'd give better odds to something more like 2-5 years.
I think this is a must win FRANCHISE game, a game that's important to the development of our franchise. A game that will go a long way to securing next years success. I can't figure out how else to say it, so if you want to sit here and argue, or bang your head against the wall, or call my statement trivial just to make yourself feel better about someone disagreeing with you, then fine.
(1) I didn't hypothesize that you were making a trivial point to "make myself feel better about someone disagreeing with me." I've been an active participant on this board for going on 7 years now, so I'm rather used to disagreement and working out ideas through conversation.
Saying your point is "trivial" isn't a personal attack or being dismissive. I'm making a counterargument that you're free to rebut: namely, that your argument didn't accomplish what you thought it did, so what you were concluding wasn't warranted.
(A
dismissive response would be something more like saying "You're just saying that to make yourself feel better that someone disagrees with you" — i.e., an irrelevant attempt at psychologizing rather than taking arguments head on. Not that you or I would ever condescend to those kind of tactics.

)
(2) What makes something a "must win," in my view, is when by losing the team will lose something very important that it can't get back. I've said too many times now that this game is
important for changing the mentality and setting the foundation for next year. What I don't see is how this is our one chance to get it right this year or set it up for next year.
Is it crucial in that way? No. And why am I confident in saying that? Because there have actually been Redskins teams in the recent past overcame losing these kind of "bounce back" games to still have success, and a changed mentality.