Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins throws a first-quarter touchdown pass to wide receiver Ryan Grant in the game against the Dallas Cowboys on Jan. 3 in Arlington, Tex.

Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins throws a first-quarter touchdown pass to wide receiver Ryan Grant in the game against the Dallas Cowboys on Jan. 3 in Arlington, Tex. John McDonnell/The Washington Post

As the Washington Redskins dragged through preparations last week for a game that mattered only for pride and record keeping, Coach Jay Gruden challenged his players once more. He thought practice was too lackadaisical by the team’s new standard, and he couldn’t let that slide, not even for a glorified exhibition game.

This team was too good for that. This team was more than a collection of mercenaries wearing burgundy and buying gold with money the franchise spent foolishly. For four months, the Redskins had defied meager expectations because they embraced the grind, because they cared more about playing in the NFL than simply living the life. So, no, sleepwalking wasn’t going to cut it.

“Don’t ever disrespect the game of football,” Gruden told his players.

That’s all he really needed to say. On Sunday, Washington completed a delightfully gratifying regular season with a 34-23 victory over the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. In finishing with a 9-7 record, it earned its first winning season since 2012. When the playoffs begin this weekend, the Redskins will enter their Sunday afternoon game against the Green Bay Packers having won four straight games and seven of their final 10. They boast an offense that produced quarterback Kirk Cousins’s franchise-record 4,166 passing yards this season.

[Redskins defeat Cowboys to finish 9-7 as playoffs await]

The Washington Post's Gene Wang and Scott Allen discuss the Redskins' Week 17 win over the Dallas Cowboys. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

For all the talk about the improbability of this NFC East division title and playoff berth, there’s a better word to describe what spurred Washington’s improvement: accountability. There’s nothing implausible about a team changing its mind-set by adding quality veterans and focusing on substance over flashy acquisitions.

There might be a magical element to some of the things Washington has done, and certainly a woeful division (Dallas, Philadelphia and the New York Giants all had losing records) contributed to this breakthrough. But mostly, this season has been about a rebuilding team establishing a viable, blue-collar way of doing things.

While still in beta mode, Washington found a shortcut to the playoffs, and it isn’t a fluke as much as it could be a preview of the future. Sure, the Redskins have much work left to do. Sure, the next steps are even more difficult than rising from bad to respectable. Sure, we’re still talking about an organization that has been to the playoffs five times in the past 23 seasons. But the most impressive thing about this run isn’t merely the climb from winning seven games in a two-year span to winning nine in the 2015 season. It’s the manner in which Washington has done so, with the creation of a sustainable team-building model that new General Manager Scot McCloughan can build upon in the years to come.

It’s the fact the Redskins know what they’re looking for now. They have a crystallized idea of what their players should be: tough, physical, obsessed with the game and wearing a chip on their shoulders. They’re no longer in the business of buying stars and hoping they become saviors. They’d rather develop their own stars, instilling the franchise’s new beliefs along the way and creating organizational pride.

[QB Cousins says momentum matters]

Since Washington clinched the division last week in Philadelphia, veteran players have expressed gratitude to their younger teammates for following their lead and believing in this new movement. There’s an interesting dynamic on this team. One-third of the roster is too young to care about past futility. Another third is a group of players in their prime who have survived trying times enough to appreciate this upswing. The final third is a group of older players who mean as much to the team’s locker-room culture as they do on the field, and their importance belies their statistical production. Their desire for one last taste of success leads this team. And they have the entire roster understanding how precious success is in the NFL.

“I needed this season,” said defensive end Jason Hatcher, who will be making just his fourth postseason appearance in a 10-year career. “They brought in the right guys to help us get this done. Last year, I didn’t feel it in the locker room. It’s not that guys didn’t care. The big difference is accountability. When you don’t have accountability, when you don’t have competition for positions and a group of guys who police each other to do right, you don’t have nothing. We know we’ve got to keep pushing, keep raising the bar.

“Coach said it best: Don’t ever disrespect the game of football.”

Over the past 15 years, this franchise had specialized in disrespecting the game. It was a soap opera. It was a joke. It was relevant only because of the disturbing way it handled its on-field irrelevance.

Not this season. Not anymore.

Can it last? There are no guarantees in such a competitive league. There is a new way of doing things however, and Gruden doesn’t have to say much to keep this team on task.

“Guys were just fed up with what had happened in the past,” safety Dashon Goldson said. “They were tired of seeing talent come in and out and not have teams that reflected it.”

They are just one year into that process, but the turnaround has been stunning. And McCloughan is the product of a tried-and-true philosophy that has benefited some of the best teams of the past 20 years, including the Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers . He won’t change. He’ll only fine tune.

It was a regular season of rectification — compete, evaluate, correct, grow — the lessons hardening the team, the adjustments making it charming. The Redskins did more than sneak into the playoffs because the rest of the NFC East stumbled. Over the past month, with Cousins playing as well as any quarterback in the NFL, they’ve been one of the league’s most dangerous teams.

Now, the question is whether it will translate to the playoffs. That’s a tough call considering Washington played only two teams (New England and Carolina) that made the playoffs. It played only one other team (the New York Jets) that had a winning record. The Redskins were barely a threat in those three games, but all of them came on the road.

In their first playoff game, they’ll be at FedEx Field, where they were 6-2 this season. They’ll seek their first postseason victory since 2005.

“We’ve been here before,” running back Alfred Morris said. “We want to just get past this first round.”

Simple goals have taken Washington this far. The players have learned to respect the game — and respect themselves. They have fostered an identity. Being a member of this franchise means something again, something greater than, “Oh, I play in the NFL and make good money.”

Next on the stop on the respect route: The upper echelon of the NFL.

After a two-year absence, Washington is back in the playoffs. No extra motivation is necessary this week.