5. A win is a win, even in the preseason.<\/p>\n
It’s\u00a0wild to think about, but the preseason win over the Dolphins was the\u00a0Commanders’\u00a0first at Northwest Stadium since Week 3 against the Las Vegas Raiders.\u00a0That’s\u00a0a long time between wins, and their\u00a0frustrating home record was one of\u00a0many disappointing things about last season.<\/p>\n
But a win is a win, even in the preseason, and the Commanders needed something to\u00a0feel good about heading into the season.<\/p>\n
The preseason might not matter, but it is important. The Commanders had several new parts on the\u00a0field against the Dolphins,\u00a0from\u00a0new players\u00a0to different schemes. They\u00a0created\u00a0some confidence during the joint practice earlier in the week, but\u00a0Friday’s game\u00a0remained\u00a0a critical measuring stick in the\u00a0team’s\u00a0progress.<\/p>\n
While it\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0a perfect night\u00a0from\u00a0either side of\u00a0the ball, it was a solid debut\u00a0for the Commanders’ new direction as they\u00a0try\u00a0to bounce back\u00a0from\u00a0last season. They did what they were supposed to do, and\u00a0it’s\u00a0a\u00a0nice change\u00a0from\u00a0last year’s preseason opener, when they struggled against the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n
There’s\u00a0still work to be done, but it was a nice start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5. A win is a win, even in the preseason. It’s\u00a0wild to think about, but the preseason win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":973758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[33525,7,1806,12186,128007,1805],"class_list":["post-973757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-five-takeaways","tag-football","tag-football-news","tag-gameday","tag-miami-dolphins-at-washington-commanders-2026-pre-1","tag-subsection-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117099064364697608","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=973757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/973758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=973757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=973757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=973757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}