Redskins 2008 Schedule Review: Band One

Verdict: yay!

Original bands
Band one review: games 1-5
Band two review: games 6-9
Band three review: games 10-12

In the heat of summer a neighbor and I, we call him Tony Almeida because he reminds us of the character from 24 played by Carlos Bernard, walked the Redskins 2008 schedule to see if we could read the future. We saw four logical bands that did not quite comport with the statistical breakdown of the season into perfect quarters. While quarters are measurement milestones that make sense for comparing teams in a league context, the bands we came up with reflected the flow of only the Redskins' schedule: first five games, next four, next three, final four.

After we had diced the schedule up we started looking at each band and assigning it a relative difficulty and made record predictions in each of three categories or performance: underperform, perform, outperform.

As training camp wore on we reviewed our records and I posted them up (op. cit.) the day of the season opener. It is perhaps worth noting that none of our record predictions changed from July when they were made to the season opener, the conventional wisdom on Swarthmore Drive on the 2008 Redskins was hardened before camp and did not really move going into the season.

We designated band one as by far and away that most difficult according to the following:

• Three of the first five games are NFC Beast road games
• The other two are NFC conference games against recent or predicted playoff teams
• General uncertainty of the new coaching regime
  

As such our predictions of performance in all three categories were conservative, with worst case 1-4, reasonable expectation 2-3 and best case scenario 2-3, we expected the Redskins to lose two of three road division games and one of the two home games, in the best case.

Well obviously band one outperformed outperform:

Band one

Game one	at Giants	lost 16-7	0-1
Game two	vs. Saints	won 29-24	1-1
Game three	vs. Cardinals	won 24-17	2-1
Game four	at Cowboys	won 26-24	3-1
Game five	at Eagles	won 23-17	4-1

A two game overperformance, the Redskins completely obliterated any realistic expectations I had for these first five games.

Based on band one actual performance and bands two through four predictions the Redskins are now looking at results between 12-4 and 7-9 with 10-6 now the solid perform. I am comfortable with these numbers.


Band one MVP: going to cop out totally. I cannot tell you whether Jim Zorn, Jason Campbell or Clinton Portis was the team's most valuable player through band one so I am going to give it to all three. Honorable mentions: the entire defense, Santana Moss, Chris Horton, Chris Cooley's penis.


Band two is by far the easiest of the four bands, Curly R will review band two in one month, after game nine against the Steelers.



Image by me, original Redskins logo from here.