There were plenty of Washington fans who expected 2023 to be a season of struggle and a season with fewer wins than losses, but none of them are saying ‘I told you so’ because no one was really expecting this.
The overall expectation was that Washington would be led by its defense while young Sam Howell worked his way through the process of becoming an NFL quarterback under the tutelage of his creative new offensive coordinator, Eric Bieniemy. The team would, as it had in 2022, field a defensive squad that would make it tough for opposing offenses to regularly score over 20 points in a game, and that would allow EB and Sam Howell to take advantage of an easy early-season lineup of opponents.