OK, I've had the night to sleep on the Shanahan's decision to pull Donovan McNabb in the last two minutes of the Lions game and can think of only two reasons why such an event would occur.

Either, Shanahan got a huge secret payoff from ESPN to hype the Monday Night Football Eagles-Redskins game on November 15.

Or, in the heat of battle, the Shanahans lost their nerve and had a gigantic brain fart.

Although this is Washington, I'm no conspiracy theorist. Shanahan is too above-board and professional to cut secret deals, but the guys at ESPN must be in ecstasy over the hype potential Shanahan created; you know, that whole Vick vs. McNabb Vs. Shanahan thing. What an audience tease!

T.O. is not involved in this thing. Get your popcorn ready anyway. It promises to be quite a show.

Shanahan did great damage to his assertion that he is trying to win now. He is being crushed everywhere, deservedly so, for pulling McNabb in that circumstance.

I'm going to defend the move, not the timing, but the move itself. Well, somebody has to.

The Jason Campbell example

Donovan McNabb's stat line after eight games is...not very impressive. He has completed 57.4 percent of his passes for seven touchdowns and eight interceptions. His QB rating is 76.0. He is the 25th-ranked quarterback of 2010.

For comparison, Jason Campbell (Oakland) is the 21st-ranked quarterback who has completed 56.5 percent of his passes for six touchdowns and four interceptions. His QB rating is 82.5.

Campbell was benched in the second game of the season and sat out the next two games. Yesterday, Campbell led the Raiders to a 33-3 beatdown of the Seattle Seahawks with a 2-touchdown, 310 yard performance for a 120.9 QB rating.

Campbell is struggling in Oakland for the same reasons that McNabb is here. He is playing in a new offense for a new coach behind a suspect line and questionable receivers.

It didn't hurt Campbell to be benched. It helped that the Raiders made the switch to Bruce Gradkowski at half time of the St. Louis Rams game. That allowed time for Gradkowski to get in the flow of the game and have an impact.

Even with Jason's recent heroics, the Raiders are week-to-week on his starting status.

McNabb can be replaced by anyone, given his performance to date.

The Todd Collins example

Todd Collins followed offensive coordinator to Al Saunders to Washington in 2006 hoping for a shot starting quarterback. The Redskins justified Collins' roster spot on his familiarity with Saunders' playbook, the very reason Grossman is here.

Joe Gibbs never gave Collins a shot at winning the starting job. He preferred Mark Brunell, the first player he signed when he returned to Washington.

Our first good look at the Saunders offense came when Collins stepped in for Campbell in the four game playoff run to close out the 2007 season. Collins performance (63.8 completion percent, five touchdowns, 0 interceptions, 106.4 QB rating) under tragic circumstances led many to over-estimate his talent.

With Saunders gone the next season, Collins' performance reverted to his norm for a 71.6 QB rating.

One of my few criticisms of Gibbs II is his blunder of not valuing Collins' familiarity with Saunders offense enough to see the potential to win games.

Mike Shanahan seems not to have considered Grossman's familiarity with Kyle Shanahan's playbook to give Grossman a serious shot at starting. Gibbs stuck with Brunell, and then started young Jason Campbell when the 2006 season spiraled to disaster.

Should Gibbs in '06 have picked Collins for his play book knowledge over Campbell's athleticism? Isn't that where the Shanahans are now?

Make the call, coach

It's not my intent to call for Grossman over McNabb. (I don't.) The intent is to challenge conventional thinking. Maybe a quarterback change is warranted.

The Redskins are at the bye. If it makes sense to insert in a game-time panic Grossman for his knowledge of Kyle Shanahan's playbook, it makes more sense to do it now, at the bye.

Shanahan would do better to make an executive decision now and have everybody prepared for the change, than to pull a stunt like yesterday's at Ford Field. That was just silly.

With about two minutes to go in a tight game, the Shanahans bench starting quarterback Donovan McNabb for Rex Grossman. Fumble. Return for touchdown by Detroit (Ndamukong Suh). A game still within reach at 31-25 is blown away.

So the question for coach Shanahan is why? Why replace quarterback Donovan McNabb so late in the game?

I'm not arguing that McNabb should not have been replaced, but why so late in the game? Shouldn't that move have been made at the half, or third quarter at the latest?

We are all learning how the coach thinks, so this explanation will be revealing. I like almost all of Shanahan's decisions since his arrival. I will likely buy into this one when I've heard it. But the timing of it is a head-scratcher.

For distraught Redskins fans, let's just say the 'Skins are where they should be for a team expected to finish with seven or eight games. Detroit is not the patsy they used to be. Martin Mayhew is a year ahead of Bruce Allen in rebuilding his team with young talent. The result is that the Redskins and the Lions are so evenly matched that this game could not be predicted.

The game's outcome tells us nothing about the state of the Redskins beyond the impact on the record. Six sacks on our quarterback tells us a lot more, but nothing we didn't know about before the season.

Going into the bye, Washington has issues to address with the offensive line, just as they did last year. The front office has to fix the issues with the players already here.

Maybe now the whispers about Grossman in front of McNabb will stop. But I'm going to sneak a peak at college quarterbacks entering the next NFL draft (whenever that will be). It seems certain Bruce Allen will be looking.

McNabb still throws a nice deep ball and that's something to work with.

UPDATE: Shanahan says that Grossman was more familiar with the two-minute offense than McNabb; thus, Grossman gave the Redskins the best chance to win. Shanahan clarified that he was referring to the formation and terminology and that Grossman handled that better. He said nothing about handling the ball.

In business, you are responsible for the decision and accountable for the results. Both are open to second-guessing.

 

 

Time was when the Detroit Lions was as close to a gimme game as the Washington Redskins could ever find. The 'Skins are 27-11-0 all time over the Lions. The Redskins have never lost to the Lions in Washington. So, even with the team struggling, Washington's loss to Detroit last year was beyond shock.

The loss laid bare Washington's issues that were just below the surface. Who expected to see Clinton Portis fail to score on fourth down with one yard to go? Who expected to see $100 million Albert Haynesworth sprawled on the field, gassed? Who expected to see the Lions score 13 points before the Redskins get on the board (57 yard Campbell to Moss scoring strike)? Who expected to see Jason Campbell play his finest game (27/41, 340 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT) and lose? To the Lions?

Worse, the loss triggered the most inept example of leadership failure by Vinny Cerrato and Daniel Snyder as you will find. That gets to the point. Detroit won last year because of better leadership at the top. They may win this game because former-Redskin, current GM Martin Mayhew is a year ahead of Bruce Allen in remaking his team.

If nothing else, The Redskins should be on high alert this time when they visit the Lions.

Into the Lions den

No more the patsy, the Lions are three point favorites this game despite a deceptive 1-5 record. Mayhew and company made astute choices to restock the Lions with real talent, including a defensive line that features DE Kyle Vanden Bosch and DT Ndamukong Suh. The TV cameras and media types will focus on quarterbacks Matthew Stafford and Donovan McNabb, but the real contest in this game will be Washington's offensive line versus Detroit's front seven.

The Lions hung 20 points and 366 yards on the New York Giants in a losing effort on the road. They did that with their second and third string quarterbacks. The Giants consider themselves lucky to have come away with the win.

The Philadelphia Eagles outlasted Detroit's 32 point, 410-yard effort in the game that made Michael Vick a media darling. We know the Giants and the Eagles. If the Lions can do that to them, we then know that Detroit can move the ball and can score.

Detroit averages 24.3 points per game. The Redskins average 18.6 points per game. That fuels a lot of doubt about Washington's chances.

But wait. There's more.

Football Outsiders ranks Detroit #21 and Washington #23 in week seven DVOA, their statistical measure of a team's performance against a theoretical NFL average. FO projects that both the Lions and the Redskins will win three more games this season.

Paul Bessire at PredictionMachine.com gives the Lions a 55 percent probability to win after simulating the contest 50,000 times. What's scary is that Bessire's Prediction Machine signaled a Washington win in Chicago.

Measuring defensive rank by yards allowed doesn't tell you enough about the Redskins. Yards be damned. The Redskins did that last year. Did it well. Didn't work.

This year, the 'Skins are going for disruption--quarterback sacks, hurries and turnovers. The results are better. And Washington is doing it by playing Beast ball, that old school, slobber-knocking, east coast smash mouth football. People get hurt when they play the Redskins.

It figured that the Redskins would need half the season for the new schemes on both offense and defense to jell. Other teams figure to take that long to decipher Shanahan's game plan. This game comes right at the mid-point of the season and with Detroit, off of a bye, having two weeks to study game film on Washington.

Maybe this is the game when the Redskins explode on offense as Donovan McNabb promised would happen...someday.

No predicting this game

The Lions deserve their favored status. They are a better team with genuine talent and they are playing at home (they still stink on the road). They've had two weeks to prepare for Mike Shanahan and they get starting QB Matthew Stafford and MLB DeAndre Levy back from injury. These Lions have teeth, though I'm not sure their fans believe it. The game will be blacked out in the Detroit TV market.

Washington and Detroit are very evenly matched. That makes for an entertaining game that can go either way. The winner will be the team that catches the right break--the first to score like last year, or a turnover at the right time, or whoever benefits from a bad call by the refs.

Pick-'em.

Point after: We spend time at Redskins Hog Heaven analyzing the Redskins and rosters that win games. For me, that means studying successful general managers who construct rosters that win. Keep your eye on Detroit's Martin Mayhew.

Good things happen when you combine good people with good management. Former Redskin (Super Bowl 26) Mayhew is a real smart guy: Georgetown Law; Redskins front office intern; prestigious DC law firm Akin Gump (general counsel of the NFL), associate on the NFL management council. Mayhew has shown good management and a sense for picking good talent. Mayhew took the administrative career path to GM-ship, but he either has a nose for talent, or knows to listen to his scouts.

If the dumbest football thing the Ford family did was hiring Matt Millen, the smartest thing they did was keeping Mayhew. In three years, you'll compare this guy to Bill Polian (Colts) and Ozzie Newsome (Ravens). A competent team will take the field against the Redskins Sunday. That's Mayhew's doing.

The Lions do poorly on the road and they have never won in Washington. So, why are the Redskins playing the Lions for the second consecutive time in Detroit?

 

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Mike Shanahan isn't sitting tight at running back. Young runners Ryan Torain and Keiland Williams stepped up with Washington Redskins' ace tailback Clinton Portis out due to a groin injury. Portis will be out at least two more weeks according to Jason Reid at Redskins Insider.

Shanahan regards the practice squad as extensions of the active team. Both Torain and Williams spent time on the practice squad during the regular season. With both now on the active roster, it's slim pickings for runners on the practice team. For the Shanahans, that's reason to get busy. And they were real busy this week.

Washington released RB Quinn Porter and signed RB Jeremiah Johnson (Didn't they make a movie about him? Sorry, had to get that out.) to the practice squad on Tuesday, October 26. The Skins released Johnson and signed RB James Davis the next day, Wednesday, October 27.

Washington signed RB Javarris James to the practice squad earlier this month, only to have the Indianapolis Colts snatch him away by signing him to their active roster.

The 'Skins signed RB Chad Simpson to the active roster in September after he impressed the coaches with his play in the Redskins Bills preseason game. Simpson returned two kick-offs for 27 and 32 yards, but has yet to line-up with the offense. Simpson tweaked his hamstring during the Chicago game, which surely promoted the activity on the practice squad.

James says that coach Shanahan pointed to Torain as an example that he (James) too may have a shot at playing this season.

Not drawing any conclusions from this activity, other than to note that running backs are cycling in and out a lot. This story is more about Shanahan than Davis. I'm filing this factoid away as we try to figure out how the man thinks. I like what I see, though I don't yet understand what it all means.

Point after: Do any of these guys have to take the conditioning test when they sign with the team? Just asking.

[picapp] Side Lions Report: I wish they had a few more wins but they are what I thought they would be. The Lions have been competitive despite what their record might indicate. Injuries have been a big problem. Everybody knows about Matthew Stafford being out but the casual NFL fan might not realize that the Lions have played most of this season without their starting middle linebacker, DeAndre Levy. Both return this week so I am excited to see what the team can do at full strength.

SLR: Calvin Johnson has been more productive over the last three weeks and deserves the offensive MVP for the Lions so far. I was critical of him earlier in the season but I have to give him credit for doing his part to while Stafford was down.
Although he is just a rookie I will give Ndamukong Suh the nod for defensive MVP. He has been a do-everything defensive tackle so far. He is tackling at a good rate, leads the team in sacks, bats down passes, and commands double teams. I don't know what more he could have done over the first six games of his career.

RHH: What concerns you about this Redskins team?

SLR: Donovan McNabb. He torched the Lions the last time he faced them and I enter every game with a fear of the Lions secondary giving up big plays. So far they have exceeded my expectations but that isn't saying a whole lot because I was expecting next to nothing. The Lions have made a lot of quarterbacks look good over the years and McNabb is one of those guys that doesn't need a whole lot of help from the opposition. Hopefully the Lions can get some pressure with their front four and force Donovan into a few bad decisions.

RHH: Game Prediction?

SLR: The Lions exploit Washington's poor pass defense and score enough touchdowns instead of kicking field goals to win the game, 27-20.

The guys at Side Lions Report do a nice job covering Detroit's team. They describe what Mike Shanahan and Jim Haslett are doing with the 3-4 defense is worth a read. (See The "Hog's" Defense) Go take a look. We'll be here when you get back.

This post is not a defense of Vinny Cerrato and it is not a critique of the drafting methods employed by Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen, who have added a franchise cornerstone left tackle to the defensive cornerstones they inherited from a prior regime.

This post is merely to point out that even though the Redskins were able to 'trim the fat' this offseason in ways we had not been able to imagine prior to this uncapped year, that the best players responsible for this 4-3 start were already on the roster and inherited by the current regime.  Trent Williams is a lone exception to the rule.

Among the ShanAllen acquisitions that have played the most time this season: QB Donovan McNabb, RB Ryan Torain, WR Joey Galloway, LG Kory Lichtensteiger, RG Artis Hicks, RT Jammal Brown, NT Ma'ake Kemoeatu, DE Adam Carriker, DL Vonnie Holliday, and CB Phillip Buchanon.  More or less every other significant piece of this team was here for at least the very end of Vinny Cerrato's tenure as executive VP of Football Operations.  One more player, KR/PR Brandon Banks, is expected to make a significant contribution in the second half of the season.

If you asked a panel of national writers to name the acquisitions above that have had most to do with the team's 4-3 start, you'd probably get a lot of responses along the lines of "McNabb", "Torain", or "Jammal Brown".  You probably wouldn't get a lot of answers at the other positions.  In reality, the player who has been the most pleasant surprise amongst this group would have to be Buchanon, with Carriker as a close second.  Vonnie Holliday has not exceeded nor failed to live up to expectations, and Kemoeatu has been a major disappointment.

Meanwhile, the offensive line doesn't appear to be improved at the guards or the RT position.  Stephon Heyer has been (by far) the team's second most consistent lineman this year.  Lichtensteigher and Hicks have, if nothing else, brought stability to their positions, but stability in the form of out-matched interior linemen is only an improvement when compared to last year.  Derrick Dockery, who was one of the better performing pass blockers last year, has fallen out of favor because of his inability to assimilate to the man and zone blocking schemes favored by Kyle Shanahan.  The best possible pass protection group would have both Lichtensteiger and Dockery on it, and then only one of Hicks and Rabach.

Ryan Torain is a popular answer as one of the biggest upgrades in the Redskins offense, but Torain produces fairly misleading yardage totals.  4.6 yards per carry is very good, but Torain's fumbles nearly match his TD total, he doesn't break long runs, and he loses yards too often.  Still, when you have a guy who can take 6 yard gains and turn them into 14 yard gains, you want to feed him the rock as much as possible, and the Redskins run Torain a lot more than they would run Portis.  But with Portis, you didn't have nearly as many wasted plays or fumbles, knew that neither was going to break the long run, and had a guy who could take the blocking that gets Torain stuck four yards behind the line of scrimmage, and tunnel for three yards.

I guess it comes down to asking what's more valuable: the difference between -3 yards and 2 yards or the difference between 6 yards and 12 yards.  Torain will get you the latter on good blocking plays.  Portis will get you the former on poor blocking plays.  When you look at the struggles this offense has had since Portis got hurt, it's hard to argue that the ability to turn good plays into better plays is helping the offense succeed more than the ability to turn big losses into short gains.  Portis helped this offense stay on track, where as Torain pretty much makes you live and die with the variations in his results.  Both have value: I would take Portis.

Then there's McNabb.  Quarterback production from last season to this season is down across the board with one notable exception: sacks.  McNabb is getting sacked a perfectly league average 6.1% of his dropbacks.  Jason Campbell was sacked on 7.8% of his dropbacks last year.  This has effected the ever-critical fumble totals: Campbell had nine fumbles and aborted snaps all of last year.  McNabb has just three and is on pace for seven total this year.  Since not all fumbles are lost, the difference over the course of the season adds up to about six fewer sacks and one fewer turnover for McNabb than Campbell last year.  A small improvement in ball security is worth a fraction of a win improvement at the QB position.

In the aggragate, McNabb may be holding the Redskins back.  Certainly, it's not like the team has a better option, as neither Rex Grossman or John Beck can be trusted with a professional offense.  But this offense could be executed to this level by many NFL quarterbacks.  We're going to stick with McNabb because he is one of the many quarterbacks who could have lead this team to four wins in his first seven games here.  Beck and Grossman do not qualify.

However, McNabb falls into a growing category of offseason acquisitions that look seemingly more pointless by the week.  You'd have to think that with the new roles we've given Santana Moss and LaRon Landry, with the way that Albert Haynesworth has dominanted in two out of his three games this year, with the surprise that Trent Williams and Lorenzo Alexander have provided, with the steadyness of London Fletcher and Carlos Rogers, and the big play ability of DeAngelo Hall, and the quarterback killing mentality of Brian Orakpo, that pretty much any combination of offseason moves (or at least any where we drafted a tackle at no. 4 overall) could have had this team at 4-3.  Add breakout WR Anthony Armstrong to that mix, and those (sans Williams) are all Cerrato acquisitions that are contributing to a team that has more wins than losses at the mid-season mark, and are being used correctly, finally.

The real question is: was there perhaps a combination of moves that could have gotten this team off to a much better start?  You'd have to think that: yes, this group missed an offseason opportunity to really put together a true winner in 2010.

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Ex-Redskin Of The Week: Jason Campbell, Quarterback, Oakland Raiders
One week after earning Ex-Redskin of the Weak honors, Jason Campbell merits a return engagement after the Raiders' point-a-minute beatdown of AFC West rival Denver Broncos. Yes, Darren McFadden had more to do with the 59-14 win than Campbell did, but Jason opened the party with a 43 yard scoring strike to TE Zack Miller. As Football Outsiders points out:

"Campbell doesn't get credit for handing the ball off, but he did have six plays of 20 yards or more, five of which came on the left side of the field. That's the side struggling rookie corner Perrish Cox plays on.... Four of the six passes Campbell threw to his running backs resulted in first downs."

Campbell endured cruel treatment last season at the hands of his own team, the Washington Redskins, who boldly entered the sweepstake for Jay Cutler against the Chicago Bears. Neither Denver nor Chicago would consider Campbell in any trade formula. Denver accepted Kyle Orton and multiple draft picks for Cutler. They've gone 10-13 since, including 0-2 against Campbell.

In more evidence of Karma, Campbell finished the game with a QB Rating of 127.9. That's the exact sum of the day's ratings for Cutler (54.3) and Orton (73.6).

Ex-Redskin Of The Weak: Norv Turner, Head Coach, San Diego Chargers
I am reluctant to name Turner as Redskin Of The Weak now. It's only October. Turner is gifted at guiding the Chargers to a late-season peak and the playoffs. The Chargers are the NFL's best team in total offense and total defense. They've scored 177 points. Phil Rivers is their quarterback. Who's to say they are not on the verge of a 9-0 run to clinch the division after an unimpressive 2-5 start? Not I quacked the duck.

GM A.J. Smith's hard-line negotiating tactics and the decline of Shawne Merriman has more to do with the Chargers' swoon than Turner does. No other ex-Redskin sunk to the honor, unless you count Denver's Brandon Lloyd who was held to a single reception in that blowout loss to Oakland. But Lloyd and his Broncos cohort had to defeat Raider CB Nnamdi Asomugha, a tough task for anybody, and Lloyd's one catch was for 46 yards.

By default, this week's (weak's?) honor goes to Turner.