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Redskins Hog Heaven fans have spoken. The Washington Redskins will win nine or more games in 2010 according 58.6 percent of those responding to a poll on this site.

Here's the breakdown of fan votes (percentages are rounded):

• 10 or more games - 30.1%
• 9 games - 28.5%
• 8 games - 22.0%
• 7 games - 10.7%
• 6 or fewer games - 8.6%

Wow. Whatever happened to the bell curve? I looked for a voting bulge around eight games. Lets chalk this up to off-season optimism.

Since 2001, the Redskins have averaged a 7-9 record in the first year of a new head coach's era. Sports book bodog.com pegs the over/under on Redskins wins this year at 7.5 games. Mike Shanahan went 8-8 in his first year as head coach with Denver (1995). And that was with John Elway and Terrell Davis in the backfield.

I'm just saying....

New poll going up today: Has Daniel Snyder changed? Let your voice be heard. Vote!

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NFL Network teaser ads say that Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan will be interviewed on TOTAL ACCESS at 7:00 PM ET today, Friday, July 16, 2010. 

The ads says that Shanahan will be asked about the Albert Haynesworth situation. Of course he will. Haynesworth is the most compelling story out of Redskins Park at the moment. But, he is not the biggest question mark about this team.

Here's what I want someone to ask the coach:

1. Can Donovan McNabb's knack of making average receivers look good carry over to Washington?
2. Where are you right now on a possible trade for WR Vincent Jackson?
3. With or without Albert Haynesworth, can the defense jell in the 3-4 alignment in 2010 when a change like this takes the better part of a season? 
4. Are the offensive linemen now on the roster a good fit for the zone blocking scheme?
5. Which Vinny Cerrato-drafted player will break out this season?

I don't expect Rich Eisen and his cohort to ask too many hard hitting questions. If they do, expect Shanahan to spew coach-speak; empty statements that give nothing away to rival teams.

Can't blame Shany for that, but I'm desperate for blog topics like everyone else this time of year. So cut me a break, coach. 

Football fans voted the Redskins the 19th best team in the NFL as reported on a NFL Network show broadcast June 24, 2010. The NFLN guys thought all the changes would get the Skins back to .500, but would not overtake the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys.

The fans voted the Eagles the 13th best, the Giants the 10th best, and the Cowboys the fifth best team in the league.

Fan polls are just beauty contests, especially in the off-season.

TOTAL ACCESS repeats on the NFL Network for 24 hours after the original broadcast. 

Point After: There's an odd thing about that 31 in 32 series on NFLN. The volume of fan interest in each of the team recaps were in the same order as the fan ranking. There were 1466 comments on the segment for the Boys compared to a mear 62 comments for the segment covering the Skins. You see the same on other sites. There are 1,335 members of the Redskins community on Bleacher Report.  There are 2,736 members of the Cowboys community.

Part of this can be explained by the fact that other teams draw support from a State. Outside the D.C. Metro area, Washington draws support from parts of Virgina. Maryland tilts toward the Ravens. Certainly part if it is because the Skins haven't been a serious Super Bowl factor in 19 seasons.

Whatever the reason, us diehard Skins fans must look provincial to the rest of the football world. 

Well here's a shocker: the oldest team in football has less talent under (and including) the age of 25 than any other team.  At least according to the writers at Football Outsiders, that is.

You need to be an ESPN.com insider to read the whole article, though, you can get the Redskins paragraph for free.  Here it is in its entirity:

32. Washington Redskins
Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan have inherited a wasteland from Vinny Cerrato, who used his draft picks to acquire "has-beens" and "never-weres." As a result, the Redskins only have four "young" starters, and two of them (wideout Devin Thomas and safety LaRon Landry) have been professional flops. Outside linebacker Brian Orakpo was extremely effective last year, and rookie tackle Trent Williams should start on the left side from Day One. The only notable young players behind them are tight end Fred Davis and backup linebacker H.B. Blades.

It's probably far too early to write Landry off as a high draft pick that never developed, but if he wants to represent talent prior to age 26, he's running out of time.  Landry turns 26 on October 14th.  Chris Horton probably deserves some sort of mention, but even "young" prospects such as Justin Tryon and Kareem Moore fail to qualify for being under 25.  Jeremy Jarmon has that ACL injury that will make him a limited factor in the defense this year, but he's only 22, and is likely an oversight in the article.

Still, adding Jarmon and Horton to Davis and Blades still doesn't really create much of a core of talent behind first round picks Trent Williams and Brian Orakpo.  That would probably move the Redskins ahead of the Chargers, and that's not such horrible company.  The point remains that the "age" on this roster isn't good age because only four players expected to play a major role this year are under the age of 25; only three once Landry leaves this category after Week 4.

The Redskins have been pretty successful at drafting over the last seven drafts, which is to say, they've added a lot of field-ready cheap talent to complement their big-money contacts.  The problem with the Redskins' draft record is two fold.  First, the inclination of the team to trade its picks for players that other teams aren't building around any longer gives the Redskins a cast full of veteran bit players who replace even more potential draft picks on the roster.  However, this is a fairly notorious Redskins inclination.  The second problem with the draft record is much less obvious: when the Redskins draft, they tend to draft older players.

The team passed over age-19 Amobi Okoye for age-22 LaRon Landry in 2007.  Both have flashed their potential, though neither has developed quite as expected.  However, with Okoye just 23 years old going into this season (younger than rookie Ndamukong Suh), he still has multiple years to develop: his rookie contract doesn't expire until after the 2012 season.  Landry finds himself in a make or break year; at age 26, the Redskins HAVE to know if he's a cornerstone of Jim Haslett's defense, or whether he should be someone elses problem.

Landry is just one really obvious example of the Redskins looking for field-ready players in the draft.  Carlos Rogers was a legitimate 24 year old rookie who was born the same week as (2003 NFL Draft pick) Nnamdi Asomugha.  Both are on the back end of their prime years.  Rocky McIntosh is going to be 28 in November (no, I'm not kidding). Chris Horton is 25 this year, just his third in the league.  Kareem Moore is 26 in his third year.  Justin Tryon is 26 in his third year.  Reed Doughty is to be 28 in his fifth year, and Kedric Golston is 27.  Jason Campbell was a 23 year old rookie, didn't get on the field until just a month before his 25th birthday.  Even, unfortunately, Brian Orakpo, was an advanced rookie who turns 24 this month. There's a really obvious benefit to drafting this kind of player: the prime of their career is covered at minimal cost in their rookie contract.  All of these players developed really quickly, because they had a maturity advantage compared to their rookie class.

Even worse, when the Redskins step outside their comfort zone and draft younger college players (particularly underclassmen), their development record is terrible.  Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly made their Redskin debuts at age 21, as did Jarmon.  Add to that list Sean Taylor, who took longer to develop before his break out.  Taylor's tragedy might point towards more of a Murphy's Law type jinx on the franchise and player development.  Even when they get it right, they can't reap the benefits.

The Redskins' tendency for older players means that they end up receiving quality complementary players in the draft instead of franchise cornerstones.  When you look at the players that the Redskins have successfully developed, such as Chris Cooley, Derrick Dockery, Davis, Blades, and Orakpo, those worthy of contract extensions either now or down the road have been college seniors who were between a few months and a year and a half younger than the advanced draft prospect that the Redskins have preferred.  In this case, it might be refreshing that 4 year college player Trent Williams turns 22 on Monday, just in time for training camp.  For comparison, Russell Okung is about 10 months older, and would have been a much more in-character pick for the Redskins, given their past history.

Interestingly, the Redskins have built the core of their teams around veterans, but the kind of veterans who were originally very young college draftees, and hit the free agent market in the prime of their careers.  The Redskins acquired players developed elsewhere in Clinton Portis, Andre Carter, Santana Moss, and DeAngelo Hall, all of whom received lucrative contracts from the Redskins at young ages (Hall -- 25, Portis -- 23, Moss -- 25, Carter -- 26).  Portis was acquired to be a cornerstone player.  Moss was acquired to fill a need, but established himself as a probowler in a year.  Hall is more of a complementary part whose age is a bonus, and will help him justify his contract if he can keep his nose out of trouble.

It's expensive to let other teams develop your stars, but the Redskins' drafting preference for advanced players leaves little choice, and leaves them as one of the two weakest teams in football in terms of talent under 25, because typically, that means "talent from the 2009 and 2010 drafts".  It's why, if you miss on third rounders like Chad Rinehart and Kevin Barnes, and then Jeremy Jarmon tears an ACL at the end of his rookie season, then you trade your next third round pick for Donovan McNabb (or, arguably, Jamaal Brown), and that's your haul of third round picks between 2008 and 2011, well, your coaching staff has to go out of the way to develop those players before their 26th birthday.  Barnes and Jarmon still have time to develop, but you look at the Artis Hicks and Phillip Buchanon signings, and well, it's tough to blame the Football Outsiders writers for ranking the Redskins 32nd in age 25 and under talent.  If the team isn't going to try to develop it's young players from a prior regime, why should national writers pretend they 1) exist and 2) represent talent?

Rinehart's short season performance from last year suggests he's ready for a bigger role, and he already knows the zone blocking scheme from his college days as a Northern Iowa Panther (as well, obviously, as with the last two years on the Redskins).  But he had slipped behind both Big Mike Williams (who will miss 2010 with blood clots near his heart), and Hicks at last mention, which should kill the notion that bringing in a zone blocking guru for a head coach is going to do anything but kill his career.  Anyway, the Redskins suddenly have plenty of young talent on the offensive line, which makes the Hicks signing even more confusing.  They no longer need Rinehart as a developmental player, but I think they would be best off starting him at RG in 2010.  Williams' injury will at least give him reps to show the coaches what he can do, but this probably isn't a competition.

We'll conclude this piece with a Hog Heaven power ranking of players on the Redskins who will be age 25 or younger when the season begins on September 9th:

(first round selections in bold)

1. LB Brian Orakpo (24)
2. TE Fred Davis (24)
3. OT Trent Williams (22)
4. S LaRon Landry (25)
5. S Chris Horton (25)
6. LB HB Blades (25)
7. LB Jeremy Jarmon (22)
8. OL Chad Rinehart (25)
9. WR Malcolm Kelly (23)
10. G Kory Lichtensteiger (25)
11. TE/FB Dennis Morris (23)
12. CB Kevin Barnes (23)
13. WR Devin Thomas (23)
14. G/C Edwin Williams (23)
15. G/C Erik Cook (23)
16. RB Ryan Torain (24)
17. DE Rob Jackson (24)
18. LB Perry Riley (22)
19. WR Terrence Austin (22)
20. RB Keiland Williams (24)
21. LB Robert Henson (24)
22. OT Selvish Capers (24)
23. WR Brandon Banks (22)
24. LS Nick Sundberg (22)
25. CB Byron Westbrook (25)
26. OT William Robinson (25)

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The Washington Redskins released its new marketing video this week and it's pretty slick. It should be. The Redskins have had lots of practice. After all, Danny Snyder swapped out coaches five times this decade. That's five "new beginnings" sales campaigns.

Don't know about you, but I'm jaded. I wish Snyder was better at building a team than hyping it. We needn't rehash his football blunders here. They are too well known already.

I'd like to understand why Snyder does those things without resorting to name-calling. Here's my conclusion: the guy's a poor leader. He misapplies the entrepreneurial spirit that's worked so well in other ventures. He just doesn't know how to build a winning organization, much less a winning football team.

It's a business cliche that entrepreneurs who are so good at starting businesses often get in their own way when it comes to running a grown up enterprise. Why? Because entrepreneurs are innovators who create value. Their vision, their success arises from their hands-on involvement. That skill set so valuable for start-ups does not translate as well to established organizations.

Yes, Virginia, there is a difference between entrepreneurs and leaders. The difference is why you don't see entrepreneurs running GE.

Organizations, like the Redskins, need executives who foster excellence in every part of the group, mostly by teasing the best out the people in the group. That's where entrepreneurs like Snyder fail as leaders. Start-ups need visionaries. Enterprises need leaders who foster teamwork at every level, and leave team members free to be their best.

Here's Jimmy Johnson's rant about Snyder from October 2009:

"Realize that a great 53-man roster is what wins championships, not five or six high-priced stars. Dan Snyder builds his team like its fantasy football and that's a big negative. The Redskins need a GM who can prevent Snyder from making decisions while letting Snyder think he's involved. Who can work that magic? I don't know."

Johnson added that the Redskins have good scouts, "but nobody listens to them." That's poor leadership.Sadly, neither Johnson nor anyone in the local media expanded on that flaw. The roster itself was proof enough of the truth of the statement.

Snyder may have been listening to Johnson. He hired Bruce Allen as general manager three months later, his first true GM since he fired Charley Casserly in 1999.

Poor leadership expressed itself off field, too. The season ticket scandals exposed an out of control sales team and insensitive management too eager to sue season ticker fans in distress.

Snyder characteristically ducked on the issue. He left it to his general council, David Donovan, to respond to an irate fanbase. Donovan said at the time that he personally reviewed every decision to sue season ticket holders. The media brought out that the Redskins were the only NFL club to sue ticket holders. Yet, in fixing the mess, it was Donovan who Snyder named as team CEO.

Perhaps Donovan is the best business-side leader available. It's more likely that Donovan, like Vinny Cerrato, can be counted on to do things the Snyder way.

So, has Snyder changed?

A snippet from a recent CSN post by Rich Tandler suggests that he has turned a corner:

"Snyder is rarely at Redskins Park these days, and when he is there, his secretary is under strict orders to tell any player who wants to drop by to talk about an issue with the owner to go see Shanahan or Bruce Allen."  

There is so much more to building up the Redskins than Snyder keeping his hands off the football operation.

As a fan, I desperately want the new front office set up to work. But Donovan's place in it rankles me. For all of this to work, Snyder has to understand that his real team isn't the players. It's the front office. He has to be leader enough to have the right people in place everywhere. He has to form them into a cohesive unit and give his people the room to ply their expertise.

As one of my Big Blue executives explained to me, "I became a better manager when I started taking credit for the work of others." He said that in jest, but there's a lesson in it for Snyder.

Snyder was successful in his early ventures in college and with Snyder Communications because he made the difference. That's his style. He wanted to be the Redskin entrepreneur. He wanted to be the difference. To outsiders, Snyder's hands on approach to the Skins looked like so much egotism.

Danny Snyder is never more dangerous than the year after he hires a new coach (two years in Joe Gibbs' case). That's when he tinkers and tampers and injects himself where he should not. Next season is the true test for Snyder and Allen, recalling Johnson's prescription of "a GM who can prevent Snyder from making decisions while letting Snyder think he's involved."

After Schottenheimer, Spurrier, Gibbs and Zorn, I'm not going to declare success in advance just because Shanahan, Allen and Donovan are in place.  

It would help if all those guys understand that they aren't tampering with customer loyalty. It's fan allegiance that is taken for granted. Snyder doesn't own the Redskins, you see. He just owns the franchise rights to sell us Redskins stuff. Nothing about that gives him the right to mismanage our team. 

Points After: There's an evolution in my use of Snyder's name. He was "Dan Snyder" when he bought the team in 1999, later to be derided as "Danny" and "Little Danny" for the ridiculous decisions that followed. He was "Mr. Snyder" to me when Joe Gibbs returned, never more so than in 2007 when he banked a huge store of goodwill after Sean Taylor's death. I dropped the "Mister" for "Daniel" during the goat rodeo of the coaching search in 2008 and reverted to "The Danny" as last season's disaster unfolded. I would love to call him "Mr. Snyder" again, but Danny has to earn it. 

Whoa! Could there be a more boring sports topic than something about leadership, entrepreneurs, organization and other multi-syllable words? Sports consumers crave light reading with short sentences focused on players and how the team is going all the way. But this is important. It's why just bringing in another set of personalities won't work unless the guy at the top morphs into a genuine leader. I hope I've given you what to look for. And thank you so much if you've read this far.

The Washington Redskins is searching for a Director of Sales and Marketing with proven ability to sell million dollar strategic sponsorship deals to Fortune 500 companies. The position will be based out of Redskins Park, located in Ashburn, VA. The right candidate will have a proven record of sales success, will be self-motivated, and dynamic.

 Aspects of the job will include but are not limited to the following:

Apply for this position through teamworkonline.com

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Lebron James' super-hyped departure from one NBA team to another triggered a lot of thought in addition to our own about how free agency works in football.

Andrew Brandt, now president of National Football Post, used the occasion to bluntly explain why free agency does not work in the NFL.

Brandt spent his career at the pro level as an agent, then at various levels for football, including ten years as vice president of the Green Bay Packers. The Packer experience is significant since it was Green Bay's signing for DE Reggie White in 1993 that was a game changer in football free agency.

Yet, Brandt says in two articles that free agency rarely works as well in football as in other sports. In his words:

"Football is about schemes, sets, body types, coaching philosophies, etc. Tony Dungy loved fast, small linebackers, Bill Parcells likes big, stout linebackers: the Redskins employed a 4-3 defense last year, a 3-4 this year, etc. Coaching staffs change; players that fit the previous scheme do not fit the present one. And, of course, football players are completely dependent on teammates; the best players play less than half the game.

"For these reasons, moving parts are not as seamless as in other sports. A player may look enticing on a board of players eligible for free agency (or the Draft, for that matter) but the question that has to be asked and answered is not how good the player is, but how good the player will be in our system?"

That concept animates Redskins Hog Heaven's thoughts about all of Washington's free agent and trade moves of this decade. It's just so interesting hearing that idea expressed by a NFL insider.

Brandt points to the Redskins as one example to make his point. Who can blame him? But he buttresses his argument with cases from the Packers, Eagles and Patriots, too.

One man, or three in the case of the Miami James Gang, can make a bigger impact in basketball where pro coaches have less influence on their players and the only scheme is to shoot a lot. In football, not so much.

Brandt makes his case in a July 6, 2010, story in The National Football Post, with a follow-up on July 8, 2010.  

One last quote from Brandt from a story today: "Free agency is the price paid for drafting poorly."

Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com hints that the NFL will look at player-to-player tampering to keep a LaBron case from occuring in the NFL.

You can't keep genuine free agents from comparing notes. Some stories suggest that LaBron's move was cooked up by he and Dwyane Wade while Wade was under contract to the Maimi Heat. If that's the case, why wouldn't Wade be considered an agent of the team? And how could a league prove it unless one of the participants admitted to it? That's what's bothering the NFL.  

Some of my Bloguin football colleagues weighed in on L'Affaire LeBron.

Andy Furman, who covers the New York Giants on Ultimate NYG, is scathing in his criticism of ESPN's 70 minute LeBron James announcement that Furman calls as phony as a $3.00 bill. I agree, and like Furman, I watched the dreck anyway.

Nate Dunlevy, who covers the Colts on 18 to 80, says in his story on July 10, 2010 that LeBron James wasn't Cleveland's only traitor. Dunlevy point fingers at Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and the media: Gilbert for the cruel firing of coach Mike Brown and for the failure to build enough talent in Cleveland to make LeBron want to stay.

Dunlevy is harder on the media for making a spectacle of the event then for criticizing LeBron for the frenzy they created. Of course the media faction that hyped the ESPN show are not the same people who criticized it, but the point is noted.

LeBron did something new and different. We've never see the like before. LeBron will be criticized for it until the next super star athlete-hero does the same.  

I've had my doubts about Washington Redskins tackle Mike Williams all alone. But what a story he is.

Williams' connection to Derrick Dockery gave him an in to Washington fans. He's part of the family regardless of the improbability of his quest to start at tackle. His 80 pound weight loss, his self-discipline, his willingness to fill in at guard instead of tackle made you pull for the guy.

So it comes as hard news that Williams is OUT for the season when blood clots were found near his heart. "Clot" and "heart" are two words you never want to hear in the same sentence.

The assumption going into training camp was that Artis Hicks was penciled in as starting right guard. Mike Shanahan liked Williams, so he figured to rotate Big Mike in and out of the line-up.

With Williams out, the Skins could rejigger the depth chart with Chad Rinehart, Edwin Williams and Will Montgomery, though none were as high on the chart at Mike Williams. Kory Lichensteiger played guard for Mike Shanahan in Denver in 2008.

Dockery had a hand in Williams joining the Skins last season. I wonder how this news impacts him.

We at Redskins Hog Heaven wish Mike Williams the best.