The Washington Football Team has a new name, but the stink remains

Year after year, it’s a low-talent roster that often talks big.

But this year takes the cake. This is the worst bunch I’ve seen in burgundy and gold since my youth, when the ’59-’60-’61 teams went 5-30-3 and were outscored by 514 points. That’s an unbelievable 13.5 points a game in a league built for parity.

Between ’61 and last season, no Washington Football Team had a season when it was outscored by more than 10 points a game. But in ’19, Washington was outscored by 169 points — 10.6 a game — the worst showing in 58 years.

Since then, the organization has gotten more messed up, subtracted talent, come under fire from all angles and, can you believe it, even had bad luck, hiring respected coach Ron Rivera, who is now fighting a “very treatable and curable” cancer, according to the team — a squamous cell carcinoma located in a lymph node.

As far as the long-term franchise future goes, remember that respected coaches come here, at high prices, to work for Dan and yet somehow still lose some of that shine, like Joe Gibbs (30-34) and Mike Shanahan (24-40).

To understand the present, and anticipate the future, it is useful to consider how long it has been since a WFT coach could escape — even in part — the FedEx Swamp. In the four years of Gibbs II, the team was only outscored by four points. In retrospect, that seems like divine intervention.

Since then, Jim Zorn was outscored by 101 points in two years and Shanahan by a devastating 250 points in a four-season reverse “rebuild” that took the talent level backward. Most recently, jolly, nebulous Jay Gruden was outscored by 317 points in five seasons plus five winless games last fall. Fun, right?

Franchise destruction on this scale can last for almost forever. The team then called the Redskins was an NFL sinkhole for 23 years, from ’46 through ’68. The modern team didn’t implode until Gibbs left after the 2007 season. Sorry, but this nightmare may last a long time.

As bad as the 3-13 WFT was last year, it has since subtracted its top three running backs (Adrian Peterson, Chris Thompson and Derrius Guice) as well as two of its top four receivers. Yes, five of the top seven in yards-from-scrimmage will be replaced by rookies and journeymen, none of whom has left more than a ripple in the NFL the last three years.

Defensive starters Josh Norman and Montae Nicholson are gone, too, though perhaps little missed. The one player Washington most wanted back — seven-time Pro Bowl left tackle Trent Williams — hated the franchise so much he refused to return.

The Team With No Name added the No. 2 pick in the draft, edge rusher Chase Young, who has seldom been able to practice this summer, never a dream scenario. He will help the one unit that didn’t need help: the D-line. Oh, the WFT, those sly rascals.

Beyond that, this is an ideal roster to illustrate how you replace players who are inadequate with others who are just a bit worse. Oh, they’re NFL players. Just not very good ones. They may win three or four games, but is there any future in them?

The WFT’s only proven tight end is Logan Thomas, who has proven he’s no answer: At 29, he has eight starts in the last six seasons and caught 16 balls last year. Well, one was a score. Journeyman wide receiver Dontrelle Inman, 31, caught 12 passes last year. Both these gentlemen may be starting pass catchers.

Ironic as it may seem, the WFT no longer has its more efficient quarterback from last year. Case Keenum and his 91.3 quarterback rating are gone, while, quite logically, the starting job from Day 1 will go to first-round pick Dwayne Haskins, whose rating was 76.1.

Cut Haskins 10,000 miles of slack. Surrounded by such “skill players” and O-line protectors, many a brave man would hide in the Orange Lot — although, with no fans, he’d stick out.

Rivera praises his unknown group of running backs, saying that in some ways they remind him to his versatile superstar Christian McCaffrey in Carolina. Let’s hope for the best. So far, the similarity is all of them have two eyes, two ears and a nose.

Much is expected from compact J.D. McKissic, who has four starts, 88 carries and one rushing score in four years in the NFL. How ever did the WFT wrest him away from the competition?

I confess to curiosity about rookies Antonio Gibson (fast) from Memphis and Antonio Gandy-Golden (big) from Liberty. Sooner or later, the WFT has to find a jewel in the third or fourth round of the draft, right? The offensive line will depend on the “continued development” of two such picks: Wes Martin and Geron Christian.

So this WFT team is going back to its roots: those hideous teams of ’49 through ’63. Why focus on point differential, on the actual score of games? Because it tells you about basic talent levels, especially over multiyear periods, and about general franchise morale — including which teams (Washington) tend to quit when they get behind.

This miserable era is just like 1949-’63, except in the last 12 years the WFT has been outscored even worse — by 759 points, better only than Jacksonville, Oakland and Cleveland.

Good work, guys. All those years, I’ve enjoyed listening from six feet away as waves of players explained how hard they were trying, how talented they were, how close they were to being good or even very good.

“They really believe this,” I’d think. And, because talent really is so evenly spread and so many NFL games are last-possession close, the WFT would win some games.

But it’s just a disguise. Since Darrell Green retired after the 2002 season, perhaps only four Hall of Famers have worn the “maroon and black”: Champ Bailey, Bruce Smith and Jason Taylor spent their best years elsewhere, and in-his-dotage Adrian Peterson was released last week.

Add all this up and where do I stand?

I will be pulling, not very hard but with an amused smile, for this miserable team every time it plays this year. The existence of a person like Snyder isn’t their fault. The diligent Rivera deserves a break so that, as he tries to cope with cancer, he doesn’t exhaust himself with coach-conscience worry. The Labors of Haskins will make Hercules look like a slacker. Two other promising products, receiver Terry McLaurin and Young, would make fun stars.

They say it’s always darkest just before the dawn. Or before the sky goes completely black. Bet on the latter. But I’ll be peeking between my fingers, preferring the former. Maimed by the teams of my youth, I guess I’m just a sucker for the manageable misery of 5-11.