# Commanders Punditry Check: The Field Was 4.8 Wins High Last Year, and Now It Can't Agree Whether They Win 1 Game or 9 | MissedTakes Daily

*Published 2026-09-07 — MissedTakes*

The single loudest fact in the [Washington Commanders](/nfl/teams/commanders) file is a number nobody wants on their résumé: seven graded season win-total calls on the 2025 team averaged 9.8 wins. Washington won five. That's a collective miss of 4.8 wins, the fifth-worst field miss of any team-season the site has graded.

It wasn't one bad projection. It was the whole apparatus. Ten graded Division Winner calls on Washington: average accuracy **0**, average skill **-156.6**. Fourteen graded Playoff Picks: average accuracy **14.3**. Seven Conference Champion picks: 21.4. [Aaron Schatz](/pundits/aaron-schatz) presented FTN's almanac at 10.6 wins. [Brady Quinn](/pundits/brady-quinn) had them 10-7 and in as a wild card. [Nick Wright](/pundits/nick-wright) took the over on 9.5 and said 11-6, twice. All scored zero.

The two people who came closest were the ones who hedged down. [Gregg Rosenthal](/pundits/gregg-rosenthal) voted Commanders under 9.5 and predicted nine — 20 accuracy, +40 skill. [Chris Brockman](/pundits/chris-brockman) said they'd "come back down to earth" at 9-8, same grade. Nobody in the graded pool was within three wins.

![Washington 2025: what the field said vs. what happened](/posts/visuals/9713fbd9-31bc-41c3-9e80-664b0348005e.png)

## The 2026 spread is the widest we track on this club

Having been wrong high, the field has scattered. The graded-and-pending Season Win Total calls on Washington for 2026 run from one win to nine.

![2026 Commanders win-total calls, one roster, eight-win range](/posts/visuals/ca9376f3-1081-40cf-b1bb-7f0175ba93b8.png)

[Patrick Claybon](/pundits/patrick-claybon), going game by game on Sept. 4: "The Giants win two games. The Commanders win one." Nick Wright, twice in four days, has them last in the NFC East at 5-12. [Moe Moton](/pundits/moe-moton) says 8-9, [David Harrison](/pundits/david-harrison) laid out eight specific wins to clear a 7.5-win number, [Chad Millman](/pundits/chad-millman) took the over on the same 7.5, and Conor Orr has them tied for second at 9-8. [Richard Sherman](/pundits/richard-sherman) went 1-3 through four games. [Tom Pelissero](/pundits/tom-pelissero) is the outlier optimist: "maybe this Washington team, we've overlooked the entire offseason."

That is not a consensus with noise around it. That's an eight-win range on one roster, and none of it is graded yet.

## Who has actually earned the benefit of the doubt

Washington punditry is not thin — 753 tracked takes, roughly 316 of them graded. Here's everyone with at least five graded Commanders calls.

| Pundit | Graded | Accuracy | Skill |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Philip Hughes](/pundits/philip-hughes) | 51 | 100.0 | +27.5 |
| David Harrison | 87 | 50.0 | +29.1 |
| [Daniel Jeremiah](/pundits/daniel-jeremiah) | 6 | 83.8 | +36.9 |
| [Gregg Rosenthal](/pundits/gregg-rosenthal) | 11 | 73.7 | +12.2 |
| [Bucky Brooks](/pundits/bucky-brooks) | 5 | 70.1 | +50.7 |
| [Nathan Jahnke](/pundits/nathan-jahnke) | 5 | 60.0 | -40.0 |
| [Colin Cowherd](/pundits/colin-cowherd) | 10 | 30.2 | -24.8 |
| Nick Wright | 12 | 27.7 | -55.4 |

Hughes's 100% is real and also a lesson in how this site scores. All 51 of his graded calls are roster-spot projections, and nearly every one matched the naive baseline — a player who was on a 53 last year makes one again — so he banks accuracy without banking much skill. His overall MissedTakes Score is 14.29 on provisional confidence, from two articles.

Harrison is the highest-volume Washington voice on the site (292 takes) and sits third on the overall leaderboard at 35.41. His Commanders accuracy is only 50, but his skill is +29.1, and the split explains why: his mock-draft work grades at 64.04 accuracy and +43.24 skill across 120 calls, while his roster-spot work grades 89.29 accuracy at **-4.29** skill. He gets paid for the hard calls and gives it back on the easy ones.

Wright is the one to flag. He is the loudest 5-12 voice on Washington right now, and he is also the worst-graded frequent Washington pundit on the board, at 27.7 accuracy and -55.4 skill across 12 calls — a record built substantially on being 11-6 wrong last August.

## What just got graded, and what it cost

Cutdown-day calls settled on Sept. 7, and Washington's receiver room ate several pundits alive. Van Jefferson made the 53 after [Carter Bahns](/pundits/carter-bahns) flagged him as a cut risk and Nathan Jahnke wrote in two separate PFF recaps that he "appears unlikely to make the roster" — three takes, three zeros, -200 skill each. Harrison's 53-man projection released Dyami Brown and cut Javontae Jean-Baptiste; both made it, -200 apiece. He did land Drew Stevens at kicker against a zero baseline for +200.

![Commanders takes by prediction type: average accuracy](/posts/visuals/9eeebcd8-532d-44fd-85f7-6b8fdb9a79bc.png)

One more pattern worth naming: the backfield. Every graded take on Brian Robinson has scored zero — four of them, average skill -67.9, including a 1,200-yard projection against an actual 400. Jacory Croskey-Merritt drew three separate sleeper calls in 2025 from [Derek Brown](/pundits/derek-brown) and [Andrew Erickson](/pundits/andrew-erickson); he finished RB28 against an RB24 bar, -200 each. Pundits are already back for another round — FantasyPros has him as a fantasy RB1 this year, [Simon Hunter](/pundits/simon-hunter) is avoiding him outright. On the graded evidence, the Washington backfield is where confident calls go to die.

## The league day in brief

Grading over the last seven days was almost entirely one thing: **1,153 takes settled, all of them Roster Spot Calls**, alongside 457 new takes filed. Cutdown season is the biggest single grading event on the calendar and it rewards precision — [Jared Koch](/pundits/jared-koch) nailed Brevin Jordan as Houston's odd man out, [Scott Kennedy](/pundits/scott-kennedy) called Atlanta's three-quarterback 53 exactly. It also punishes confident releases: [Paul Schwartz](/pundits/paul-schwartz) said Darius Slayton's contract wouldn't protect him and [Evan Tarracciano](/pundits/evan-tarracciano) put Slayton in a preseason duds column; both took zeros at -200.

[Lance Zierlein](/pundits/lance-zierlein) still leads the board at 39.1, though on 38 graded takes his confidence rating is limited — Daniel Jeremiah, tenth at 22.2, is the only established-confidence name in the top ten. No pundit is logged as changing their mind this week.

Full standings and every graded call are on the [leaderboard](/leaderboard).