(Editor’s note: This is excerpted from Mike Sando’s Pick Six of Dec. 8, 2025.)
4. For Washington, losing 31-0 at Minnesota while losing a 35-year-old tight end can signal one thing.
It sounds flip, but as a general rule in the NFL, old plus bad equals fired — especially if the combination persists too long.
The Commanders, NFC Championship Game participants under first-year coach Dan Quinn last season, are just getting started under their current leadership. But their eighth consecutive defeat has dropped Quinn to 15-15 in his tenure, and losses as lopsided as this one can put any coach in peril.
The Commanders surely wish they had not run it back this season with mostly the same aging roster. They’ll need to add and develop younger players while figuring out how to keep their best young talent, quarterback Jayden Daniels, in the lineup every week.
The table below ranks NFL teams this season by the difference in their rankings for snap-weighted age and point margin per game. The difference between the Commanders’ age rank (first, or oldest) and their point margin rank (27th) is the NFL’s most extreme in the old-and-bad direction. That is not sustainable.
Washington’s modern-day “Over the Hill Gang” cannot compare to the original one.
George Allen and the 1971 Washington Redskins initially resisted the “Over the Hill Gang” label.
“We’re not old,” the Hall of Fame coach would say. “We’re experienced.”
Sonny Jurgensen (37), Jack Pardee (35), Boyd Dowler (34), Richie Petitbon (33), Ron McDole (32), Myron Pottios (32), Billy Kilmer (32), Tommy Mason (32), Pat Fischer (31), Clifton McNeil (31), Chris Hanburger (30), Ray Schoenke (30) and Charley Taylor (30) all started games for that first Allen-coached Washington team, which finished with a 9-4-1 record.
Allen’s teams got even older through most of the 1970s but never had a losing record during his 1971-77 tenure. Some of those relative old-timers became beloved players on a perennial playoff team that reached the Super Bowl in the 1972 season.
The current Washington team, renamed twice since Allen’s time, is somehow older than Allen’s 1971 Over The Hill Gang when calculating average ages for non-specialists appearing in at least one game, per Pro Football Reference.
Sonny Jurgensen, left, with coach George Allen in 1971. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)
Allen’s teams were functionally older because they leveraged strong performances from so many seasoned players. But the 2025 team claims five of the seven oldest non-specialists on these rosters: Josh Johnson, Von Miller, Nick Bellore, Bobby Wagner and Ertz.
The season-ending injury Ertz suffered against the Vikings drew attention to a roster overhaul that surely must be coming. Quinn has already demoted his defensive coordinator, taking over play-calling duties himself. That shows a level of urgency beyond what a coach might typically feel after reaching a championship game in his only previous season.