So you watched the Alamo Bowl to scout Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III. What you saw was NFL eye candy everywhere.
Baylor back Terrance Ganaway (Sr) projected as a fifth-round NFL Draft prospect. Five Alamo bowl touchdowns later, albeit against a terrible Huskies defense, he will move up in the draft.
Ganaway upstaged Huskies junior back Chris Polk who only ran for 147 yards and a score on 30 carries.
Senior Huskies wide receiver Jermaine Kearse accounted for 198 yards and a score on five receptions to upstage senior Baylor wide-out Kendall Wright who projects as a first or second rounder. Wright caught seven passes for 91 yards and a score for the night. For the season, Wright was good for 108 receptions for 1,668 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Then there are the quarterbacks. Sophomore Keith Price follows Jake Locker as quarterback for the Huskies. I will circle the date on my calendar when the Huskies play the USC Trojans just to see the Price-Matt Barkley showdown. Washington had better fix that defense for any real chance to win, but what an offensive show that will be.
Griffin III completed 73 percent of his passes for a touchdown and he ran for another in Baylor's winning effort. Here's a new Draft scenario. Andrew Luck and RG3 are drafted 1-2 and neither the Colts nor Rams are open to any deals for the pair.
That could put Peyton Manning and Sam Bradford in play for a move. Fair warning: Hog Heaven is prepared to blast the Redskins front office if Washington trades for Manning. We have been through that scenario with Donovan McNabb. We heard Mike Shanahan acknowledge that the team is in a rebuild mode. (Washington would be a year ahead if Shanahan took that approach last season.)
If a new quarterback were coming, it would be best that he be young to grow with the team Shanahan will put in place. That is strategic thinking. Washington needs a good dose of that.
But, Griffin 3rd hasn't decided to declare for the draft yet. Baylor beat traditional Big 12 powers Texas and Oklahoma, but did not win the title. That leaves an aftertaste of unfinished business that must tug at Griffin—as it did with Matt Barkley and Andrew Luck. Every now and then in the corrupt BCS era, we get reminders that there really are student-athletes with higher aspirations than turning pro.
I think those players are from intact, middle-class families that instill a value that a person is what they do and not how much they make. From a distance, the Griffins appear to be one such family. I would not find it surprising if RG3 assessed what talent remained at Baylor and what talent is leaving Ok State as part of his stay or go thinking. He has until January 15, 2012 to make his decision. I think he will take his time.
One hundred points and 1,000 yards in a single game! That game was more Madden than football. No other Bowl game this season will match the Alamo Bowl for football enjoyment.
How is it that Baylor is only ranked 15th? Baylor would give LSU trouble as surely as Oklahoma State would have given them trouble. Not advocating for Baylor vs. LSU here. I am advocating for Oklahoma State. The BCS likes to say that every game counts. Well conference championships should count more. Losses in conference championship games should not count as much as they do.
The Bogus Championship Series has contracts with participants that requires them to refer to the winner of the manufactured system as BCS Bowl "National Champion." Unless the sports media is part of the contract, who knows what secret handshake deals exists, I don't see why the media goes along with it.
It's "BCS Champion," people. That's all it is and it's always in dispute.
Recaps
The Crystal Ball Run: Baylor, Washington Pander To Our Basest Desires.
Football Nation: Ganaway Scores 5 TDs As Baylor Outlasts Washington.
ESPN Boxscore: Baylor 67, Washington 56.
If you have been sleeping under rock lately, you may not have heard the buzz about Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III, quarterback of the Baylor University Bears. The rest of us have
not seen the man play. You get your chance tonight with Baylor faces the Washington Huskies in the Alamo Bowl (9:00 PM ET, ESPN/ESPN3).
Alex Brown wrote an extensive scouting report on Griffin III for Optimum Scouting. Click here to see that report.
Our friends at DC Pro Sports Report track mock draft choices of bloggers and pundits who follow the NFL. Of the 162 mocks tracked by DCPSR, 37 percent list Griffin III as the Washington Redskins' top NFL Draft pick. I don't see the names Shanahan or Allen on the list of pickers, so take the list as the wisdom of the crowds. Click here to see the DCPSR mock Draft
RG3 has already graduated from Baylor, but is attending graduate school Baylor. He has a year left of NCAA eligibility and is weighing a stay or go decision for the 2012 NFL Draft. Like most people, I think Griffin will ultimately decide for the NFL now rather than later. But, if he feels he has unfinished business with the Big 12, or wishes to finish his academic work before turning pro, Griffin might join Matt Barkley and remain on campus—to the wails of NFL fans and front office executives.
The Redskins need more than a quarterback. For skill positions, keep your eye on Baylor wide receiver Kendall Wright and Washington running back Chris Polk.
Huskies-Bears shapes up as a decent game, but for Redskins (Rams, Colts, Dolphins, Browns, Vikings) fans, this game is all about RG3.
no commentsAnd so the Washington Redskins will be the final opponent faced by the Philadelphia Dream Team in 2011. That's not a guarantee I am making that the Redskins will knock the Eagles from the playoffs and head to the super bowl, that's just the reality of who the Eagles are.
Realistically speaking, this is the best team in the NFC East this year. The Eagles have seven victories. But four of those have come against NFC East teams. The Eagles finished just 3-7 against the rest of the NFL. 5-1 against your division is impressive no matter what division you play in, but last year the Oakland Raiders went 6-0 in the AFC West and just 2-8 against the rest of the league. And in case you are keeping track, this is the second time I've tried to draw parallels between the Oakland Raiders and Philadelphia Eagles this year.
It just means that the Eagles have failed all season to beat quality teams. The Eagles have dominated mediocre competion, beating the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, and New York Jets four times by a combined score of 116-43. Against the three opponents of the Eagles who enter Week 17 having already clinched the postseason, the Eagles went 0-3, and forced exactly one turnover.
This will be an excellent gage of who the Redskins are at this point of the Mike Shanahan era. I said the same thing the last time these two teams met -- when the Redskins were 3-1 -- and the Redskins proved they were not up to the moment. The Eagles are a very, very different team than they were back then. They were an at best an average team when the Redskins faced them, incapable of putting a smacking on anyone. Two weeks later, they came out on the other side of the bye week and put a beating on the Dallas Cowboys.
The Eagles have beaten up on the middling teams they have played lately because their defense is finally forcing turnovers. The Dolphins turned it over three times. The Jets turned it over four times. The Eagles defense has gone to more man coverages, and it's turned their defense into a formidable unit. But the Redskins are also improved. Back in Week 6, the Eagles didn't really need to play much man coverage to force Rex Grossman into tight window throws gone wrong. Grossman struggled to hook up with Fred Davis down the seam multiple times, and on the occasion the Eagles would force Grossman from the pocket, he could not get in synch with his receivers. The latter issue is not something that has been corrected, but the former is something Grossman has proved able to handle down the stretch.
It will be very interesting to see if Philadelphia tries to go back to zone coverage against the Redskins when it worked so well to limit Fred Davis the last time these two teams met. Well, a couple things have changed since then: Fred Davis is out of this one, and the Redskins have just destroyed zone coverage of late. It would be a very pecular decision by the Eagles to go back to their preferred zone coverage, because their personnel has done such a good job covering man to man.
The other thing that the Eagles were doing earlier in the season is that they were dropping seven, using a four man rush in passing downs and trying to get home. Well, the Eagles could not protect their young safties by doing that, players who proved succeptable to double moves by the offense. Now the Eagles have gotten really creative out of their sub package, specifically designing third down blitzes to help get off the field if they decide they want to stick with man coverage.
What are the weakness of their newfound successes? A couple things. These sub packages the Eagles are using now stick the Eagles in five defensive back personnel, force the coverage behind the blitz to be "man-free", and make it so there will be at least one coverage mismatch on the field. Let's say the Redskins get in third down and seven on Sunday. With Jabar Gaffney off to the right and Santana Moss off to the left, the Eagles can match up with Samuel on Gaffney and Asomugha on Moss and take away Grossman's pre-snap reads to the outside. But if the Redskins put Donte Stallworth in the slot to the right as they are prone to do and send Logan Paulsen in motion accross the backfield, the Eagles will have to tip their hand. There is no reason for the Redskins to fail to be prepared for what they are going to see on third down from the Eagles, even if it is something new. Any zone blitz the Eagles might throw in can be broken down by leaking the RB out of the backfield.
The Redskins must prevent the turnover in this game. I thought the Eagles played their most complete game of the season against Dallas last week, but Dallas never gave up and made the big mistake. We can assume the Eagles offense will come out and make a couple of errors, but the Redskins have yet to show that they can manage Rex Grossman into not turning the football over for 60 minutes. This has to happen. For all the tricks the Redskins might try in this game, it doesn't matter if Grossman goes back in the second quarter feeling like he needs to make the game winning throw right then.
Offensively, the Eagles strike me as a declining team. You can give their OL some credit: it has played really well as a group this year. LeSean McCoy might be having the best season by a running back in 2011. But Michael Vick is trending in the wrong direction. Early in the season, Vick struck me as the same player as last season, but suffering from elements of bad luck (and some shoddy decision making) leading to turnovers that the Eagles couldn't overcome because of fundamental defensive struggles. That's the kind of player the Redskins played in Week 6, though Grossman and Kyle Shanahan more or less combined to do the work of the Philadelphia defense for it, leading to an ugly game where the Redskins let Vick off the hook just when he most needed a break. The Redskins defense succeeded at confusing and limiting Vick, but could not stop him in critical downs, and never had much of an answer for McCoy.
Vick now is struggling to prove he can handle the rigors of a 16 game schedule, and I'm not talking about his health. Vick declined over the last month or so of the 2010 season, causing him to drop a game to the hopeless, Favreless Minnesota Vikings in Week 16, costing the Eagles a first round bye and forcing them to play the Green Bay Packers in the Wild Card round. On tape, a lot of the same struggles Vick displayed then are creeping into his game now. He was sensational outside of the pocket in Dallas, classic Michael Vick at times, but he also failed to see a lot of open receivers against pressure fronts.
The Redskins have become a blitz happy team. When the Redskins are not blitzing, they prefer to play "Tampa 2" from the look of a 40 front with Brian Orakpo and Ryan Kerrigan in three point stances. Quick pressure will make Vick drop his eye level, but I would not get too used to sitting in Tampa 2 if I was Jim Haslett. Vick has the arm to beat it down the sideline "in the hole" between the corner and the safety. The other problem with Tampa 2 is that the most improved player over the last month for the Eagles offense has been TE Brent Celek who is playing great football after spending most of the Michael Vick era as an afterthought. Celek is also significant because he is the first Eagle receiver to step up his game this year as much as their team has needed it.
The nicest thing about facing the Eagles is that the way they use LeSean McCoy and their running game doesn't force a defense to maintain great gap discipline. There are reads in the Eagles zone run offense that will determine where the ball goes. Where McCoy will sting a defense is not by planting his foot and attacking downhill, rather, McCoy will create space and put a move on a linebacker in the open field. It's important to limit McCoy in space, no matter where you are on the field or what your defensive assignment is. Give him nowhere to run.
The Redskins have failed to play the Eagles offense aggressively in the past, and that's a mistake they cannot afford this time around. Vick just made the Cowboys defense look really bad at home last week, and this will represent one last chance to dicate terms to an offense this year. The Redskins can keep Vick in the pocket by bringing the blitz and collapsing the pocket around him, forcing him to quickly decipher coverage, where the Redskins have an advantage in being very multiple and creative. They lose that advantage if they sit deep and force Brian Orakpo and Ryan Kerrigan to make one on one tackles on Vick in the backfield.
Pressure against Vick should come in waves, not through winning one on one matchups with very good offensive linemen. This is a chance to get the Eagles at home in front of their fans with the cost of losing exactly one spot of position in the upcoming NFL draft if they win. Such a small cost for ruining the narrative of the Eagles having found themseleves at the end of the 2011 season, sending them into the offseason with more questions than answers. no comments
You better not pout.You better not cry.
you better watch out.
I'm telling you why.
Santa NFL snubbed London again.
Roger made a list. He fluffed the fuzz.
He took it to heart.
He checked TV buzz,
But the list ain't that smart.
Santa NFL snubbed London again.
London is an iron man,
a one-man tackling machine.
Though fate dealt him a losing hand
the snub is just so mean.
You better not pout.
You better not cry.
you better watch out.
I'm telling you why.
Santa NFL snubbed London again.
The NFL announced the Pro Bowl selection today. No Washington Redskins player made the list. Fourteen year veteran London Fletcher tops the chart as the NFL taklers as he usually does. As usual, the NFL ignored the evidence of Fletcher's stat line and game video to select Patrick Willis (49ers) and Brian Urlacher (Bears) instead.
NFL analyst Michael Lombardi wondered about the ommission in his assessment of the NFC Pro Bowl roster. "Not sure how he is off this list," writes Lombardi.
Fletcher made the 2010 Pro Bowl, his first, as an alternate when Jonathan Vilma qualified for the Super Bowl.
The NFL named Redskins castoffs CB Carlos Rogers and DE Andre Carter to the Pro Bowl. They deserved to go. So did London.
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ESPN 980 "Redskins Radio" announced that the Washington Redskins released running back Ryan Torain today and promoted rookie wide receiver Aldrick Robinson to the roster from the practice squad.
Torain followed Coach Mike Shanahan as a free agent to Washington from the Denver Broncos. He rushed for 742 yards and four scores in 10 game appearances in 2010, leading some to deem him the successor to Clinton Portis. However, he never lived up to that expectation.
The Redskins traded for Cardinals running back Tim Hightower who opened the season as starter. Torain stepped in after an injury kept Hightower out of the St. Louis Rams game. Torain posted a gaudy 135 rushing yards and a touchdown (7.1 ave.) that day, but was never better than 22 yards in any game since.
Washington has since turned to rookies Roy Helu, the team's leading rusher, and Evan Royster who rushed for 132 yards against the Vikings last Sunday. Royster is up for the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week on NFL.com. (Go vote for Royster here.) Washington was not likely to keep Royster within their grasp if they waived him to add him back to the Practice Squad. That made Torain expendable.
Torain's release does not necessarily end his association with the team. Shanahan may invite him back to training camp next year to compete for a spot. However, it does stop a neat story idea for Hog Heaven.
One of the Redskins four running backs, either Torain or Royster, could be trade bait for a mid-round Draft pick. Torain joined the team as a free agent. Washington selected Royster in the sixth-round of the 2011 NFL Draft. An exchange of a player for a fourth-round pick would be a real value upgrade for the team.
The New England Patriots trade players for Draft picks as a strategic emphasis. Few would imagine the Redskins doing the same. That's just the kind of guesswork that bloggers do. It's what we are. In this case, it also made sense.
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Pro football is a game of precision. Teams prepare all week to exploit favorable match-ups against opposing teams, and then some guy comes off the bench and obliterates the game plan.
That's the story of Redskins-Vikings. The Washington Redskins held Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder and the great Adrian Peterson in check for a half. Then they knocked them out of the game early in the second half. The day should have been ours.
In some twisted Clint Longley imitation of the Ghost of Christmas Past, Joe Webb enters the game at quarterback in place of Ponder and stupefies the Redskins' defense.
Webb threw the ball only five times—for two touchdowns. Webb carried the ball only five times—for another touchdown.
Some guy named Toby Gerhart replaced Peterson and ran All Day (ahem) on the Redskins for 109 yards on 11 carries. How in the name of London Fletcher-Baker does a thing like that happen?
Thank you, Vikings, for the lump of coal you dumped on my Christmas.
By the way, Minnesota, your team name is a slur on Scandinavians and ought to be changed to something plain and inoffensive, like Lutefisk. Redskins Hog Heaven is considering the use of your place name only when referring to your team for the rest of this story, Like the Minnesota media does when referring to the "Washington team." So there!
And I still hate Clint Longley.
Ghost of Christmas Past: Donovan McNabb
Minnesota head coach Leslie Frazier is no smarter about quarterbacks than Mike Shanahan is. Why in the name of Andy Reid did he bring Donovan McNabb on board with an athlete like Webb on the bench?
Never do a quarterback deal with Andy Reid. Never.
Merry Christmas, Donovan, as you sit at home in shock that your phone is not ringing on a call by some team desperate for a quarterback. The argument about youth and strength versus old age and cunning has been won by the young. That will never change. Given a choice between Tom Tebow and you, teams would pick Tebow.
McNabb's only shot for a decent season was to stay with Washington. A second year in the Shanahan system would have done him a world of good. So would the humble pie he would have suffered. Mike Shanahan might have won another game (perhaps this one). Everyone would have been better off, though not by much.
Donovan McNabb no longer plays for Minnesota or the Redskins, yet he haunts them both.
Ghost of Christmas Present: Rex Grossman
Like many fans, my high state of frustration at the Redskins yesterday was visited on Rex Grossman. The Ghost of Christmas Present visited last night and guided a more generous thought. Grossman's interception that Minnesota would convert to a field goal was not a dagger. By then, the defense's breakdowns had worked its damage. Minnesota would have won anyway.
Grossman tries hard. The players know that he gives us the best chance to win. But Grossman may have something in common with Baltimore's Joe Flacco. The team will never win the division with him at quarterback.
Ghost of Christmas Future: TBD
Here's a deal for Mike Shanahan: We give you a dollar and you give us a quarter back.
Greg Trippiedi's story about Matt Barkley made clear that fewer first-round quarterback Draft options means that we will be stuck with Grossman. Fan interest in Barkley, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III so soon before the Shrine Game and the NFL Combine tell us one thing. Fans want better options at quarterback than Shanahan gave us this year.
Options are far wider than Adam Schefter's if-then guesswork about Redskins strategy to move up in the Draft in a play for Andrew Luck. (Hey, silly speculation is our job.) The Redskins are just as likely to offer picks to the Rams for Sam Bradford, if St. Louis wins the Suck for Luck race. Bradford would be cheaper to get and could serve the purpose. Just saying.
Why wouldn't the Redskins make a play for that Joe Webb?
Jason Campbell or Carson Palmer could be the top 2012 free agent quarterback depending on which player the Raiders choose to keep. Campbell is no more likely to come back here than his college roommate, Carlos Rogers is.
The front office has a long time to figure this out. They had better get it right this time. Count on the team to suffer a revenue hit next season if Grossman is the starter. Blowing smoke in our face only works once.
Redskins Round-up
Mike Jones: Five Observations About Redskins-Vikings.
John Keim: Ten Observations, Vikings 33-Redskins 26.
Dan Steinberg; The Redskins-Vikings Crowd at FedEx Field.
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"....and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!" ~ Charles Dickins, A Christmas Carol.All of us at Redskins Hog Heaven wish all of you, where ever you are, whom ever you are with, the best of the Holiday Season.
HAIL! no comments
Matt Barkley announced his decision to return to USC today. What does this mean for the Redskins? Probably nothing. I've been hearing the Redskins weren't even high on Matt Barkley, and this team won't be picking in the top five anyway. Sure, the cost of trading for Robert Griffin just got a lot higher, but I don't see the relevancy really. Griffin, if he even comes out, is going to be so highly thought of that the Redskins were going to be in a bidding war for his services anyway, if thats what the Redskins really want.
The quarterback equation for the Redskins isn't really different now. I think it does change the focus of the draft a bit if Robert Griffin stays at Baylor, because that shifts the focus of the Redskins from "try to move up" to "try to move down" in terms of draft positioning. And I think Griffin's decision may affect the decision of another Redskins target, Landry Jones. So that one matters a bit. This Barkley thing is cool, if you're into that. But the Redskins are in the same spot that they were at the beginning of the day.
Start looking at the senior quarterback prospects. Look at guys like Nick Foles, Kirk Cousins, and Ryan Tannehill. Look at later round picks like Dominique Davis, Dan Persa, Chandler Harnish, and Kellen Moore. Try to catch Landry Jones this postseason. Jones is someone I've been aware of as on the Redskins radar for awhile, and could be a trade down target. In a draft where up to four quarterbacks are likely to go in the first round, the Redskins should not be lamenting the decision of Matt Barkley to stay at USC.
Now, with about four guys slated to go in the first round, the thing the Redskins need to decide is whether or not a first round quarterback in 2012 serves them best in the long term wishes of the franchise. Now, wait, you must be saying, if the Redskins aren't going to address the quarterback position in this draft, then when and how are they going to address it? That's just the thing. Allow me to explain.
John Beck is no longer a viable option as a rostered NFL quarterback. Rex Grossman will be back as sure as the Shanahan's are, but that's one out of three rostered players. The Redskins can roster up to three quarterbacks, and they have multiple options to fill the roster.
Draft only
One way to do it is to say that "enough with the veterans," it's time to go draft-only. The Redskins could pick a quarterback high in the draft, and still be in the mix to add another guy later on. The Packers did this in 2008 with Brian Brohm in the second round and Matt Flynn in the 7th round.
Whether or not the Redskins draft another quarterback in the later rounds isn't particularly relevant. Going this route just means that they are going to turn the keys over to a young guy within the year. There is no QB competition. There is only a first-string veteran (Grossman) whose aim is to compete in the short term before the drafted players take over. In Green Bay, there was an honest competition in the preseason between the highly drafted Brohn and Flynn, and it was won by Flynn.
This methodology to picking the next Redskins quarterback makes a lot of sense if it was 2010, Mike Shanahan's first year, and the first-string veteran was Jason Campbell (and the first round pick remained Trent Williams). That would have given the Redskins their choice of Jimmy Clausen and Colt McCoy (well, the 2010 draft QB class kind of sucked), and would have allowed them to go back and get another developmental QB later. It makes significantly less sense with this coaching staff now. There hasn't been a concerted rebuilding effort under this leadership, and now is not the time to start, it's the time to make whatever the heck the Redskins have done over the last two years pay off. Based on where the Redskins are right now as a franchise, I don't think the draft only approach to finding the next quarterback makes a lot of sense.
Going this route commits the Redskins to pretty much the same spot the Redskins are right now a year from now, but the focus will be on whether we believe in the young guy and if we can find a head coach to coach up this kid against not having anyone.
Best Player Available
On the other extreme is the draft philosophy that the Redskins should continue to maximize their value in the draft by picking the best player available at their pick, and try to trade down and then employ the same philosophy. Under Vinny Cerrato, the Redskins used the draft as an extension of free agency. This would be a continuation of that philosophy.
The Redskins under Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan have typically shied away from this route to roster building. That doesn't mean that they've improved on it. If you want to stack your roster with the most talent. But because of the supply of players, the Redskins can best address their needs (if you consider quarterback to be amongst their needs) by using free agency. If Grossman isn't good enough to be the starter, the Redskins should go out into the market and get a starter. That starter could easily be RG3, but the Redskins will consider the cost first and foremost. There will be no morgaging the future to get the quarterback of 2012.
Come draft day, the Redskins would be wise to bump quarterbacks higher up their board because the value is there this year, but how silly would it be to pass on Michael Floyd or Alshon Jeffery or even Kendall Wright because Ryan Tannehill once played in the Mike Sherman WCO system? Whatever your evaluation of those players is, why pass on the better one for the quarterback is the main question? Take the best player available and address remaining needs via trade. Nothing will bring the Redskins back quicker than making smart personnel decisions.
Whether the idea should be to bring the Redskins back quickly or for good is at the heart of the debate, but one thing that won't get mentioned in the debate that no one will have is that Mike Shanahan will be 60 years old next year. And no head coach beyond that age has ever survived three consecutive losing seasons. It is nothing besides silly at this point to think that the Redskins can rebuild their way through more 10 loss seasons under the current regime. If the Redskins aren't back quickly, they aren't back at all.
Developmental Quarterback Route
This may be the best route for the Redskins to take, though it's very similar to the BPA route, just significantly less focused. The Redskins split their effort at the quarterback position. You have Rex Grossman for the here and now, perhaps as a backup. Then you have to go outside the organization and get the best quarterback you can get for 2012 to compete with (and hopefully beat out) Grossman for the 2012 season. Then on the other hand, the Redskins spend their first or second round pick (or best remaining pick) on someone with great talent such as Tannehill, Landry Jones, or Kirk Cousins. Then that player takes a back seat to what the Redskins are trying to accomplish right away.
In both the BPA philosophy and the draft-only philosophy, there is some amount of integration between the now and the future. Working only through the draft, the future is the only thing that matters, and Rex Grossman will play until he's not the best guy for the job. The whole idea is to accelerate the clock on the rebuilding process. Don't skip steps. The future isn't now. With best player available, the Redskins are upgrading to make as much of a run in 2012 as possible without actively hurting the long term health of the organization. It's bundling the future and the present into a new element of Redskins football, using the draft and free agency as a vehicle to achieve success with the Shanahans.
Developing a quarterback splits the efforts and resources. It's an admission that wins in 2012 are paramount, but instead of lumping the future with the present, it separates the future and tries to do two things at onces.
Now, it doesn't make a lot of sense for Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan, or Jim Haslett to put a developmental quarterback on the roster. First of all, they had two years already to do this. They never did. Secondly, if they are feeling the heat as much as it seems like they are feeling the heat, why split the resources of the franchise between saving their behinds and building for the future? Everything the Redskins have done on offense over the last two years suggests that they think a quarterback who doesn't play is useless to them. They've attempted (perhaps succeeded?) to build the offensive infrastructure up around the quarterback so that a player just has to come in, learn the system, and then the pieces are around him to contribute immedately. Like the draft-only route, this would have made more sense back in 2010 than in 2012.
Learning from the past
Really, it's worth trying to study the last two years and understand exactly what they have been trying to accomplish. The Redskins decided way back at the beginning of 2010 that they would need to go get a quarterback, and they thought Donovan McNabb was the best available at a reasonable cost. So clearly they went all in on McNabb. They did not split the efforts between McNabb and a young guy, even though the timing would have allowed it. They backed up McNabb with Rex Grossman and John Beck. This followed the post-Cerrato meet-the-new-boss, same-as-the-old-boss script.
After the 2010 season, though, the Redskins broke that script and went totally off the map, arguing that, in fact, quarterback was not a need. This seemed insane at the time. A team that inhereted Jason Campbell, Todd Collins, and Colt Brennan at quarterback determined that quarterback was a need. That team replaced those three with Donovan McNabb, Rex Grossman, John Beck. That's arguably deeper if not better than before. But the problem with that, according to the Shanahans, was that McNabb was in the way. So just get rid of McNabb, promote Grossman and Beck, look at the draft to see if you really love a guy (the Redskins did not love Blaine Gabbert or Christian Ponder), and if not, quarterback depth is a frivolous need anyway. Just move forward.
In 2010, the Redskins operated like a win-now organization who found it's long lost solution to the QB conundrum and would compete with the current roster. That failed, so they deluded themselves to believing everything was already in house in 2011. So the Redskins in effect went from a continuation of the Cerrato-Gibbs-Zorn era in 2010 to completely insane in 2011.
As we enter 2012, the only real difference is that there is now pressure to perform on the coaches and team. The 2011 team has disappointed to date, one year after the 2010 were a strong disappointment. I recently suggested that the Shanahans are going to be one way or another tied at the hip to Grossman, because it's unlikely they can win early in 2012 without Grossman's continued improvement, and without a hot start next year, there is no future.
You could see the Redskins going draft-only if they really, truly believe that they've accomplished something this past season under Grossman. Because if they are totally comfortable with their fate lying in 16 Grossman starts next year, there's no reason to use free agency for any reason beyond signing Grossman. But taking a slightly more rational approach, that even if Grossman leads the Redskins to another 3-1 start, without a future prospect or (relatively) young free agent on the roster, 2012 won't be any different from 2011.
If internally, the Redskins are much closer to the public perception of their situation, and realize that they are pushing their luck with Grossman, you will see them spend money prior to the draft at the QB position, improve on John Beck, and then turn their eyes to the draft. Whether they try to grab their next quarterback in the first round or try to play it cool and get the developmental quarterback with an obvious decision making flaw, like Cousins or Landry Jones.
There are merits to both philosophies. But it starts with critical evaluation of their own situation. And that's the part of the quarterback conundrum that the Redskins have consistently failed under Mike Shanahan. Matt Barkley staying at USC doesn't change that.
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Grossman, perhaps beyond all odds, is on pace to start his 12th game of the season, and also has played well enough to prevent the Redskins from adding another quarterback to the roster, which is really the best thing that could have happened to John Beck's career at this juncture.
Grossman's statistical performance has been below average, whether by yards per attempt index, DVOA rating, Total QBR, or whatever you want to look at. Of late, Rex Grossman has stopped taking sacks entirely. While I wouldn't recommend to use Grossman's 71.4 passer rating as an evaluation tool (with a 4.8% INT rate and a 58.3% completion percentage, Grossman's doing about as well as a Redskins QB can do).
Predictive measures of quarterback play suggest Grossman's below average play in this system with these receivers and an improved offensive line is still a risky play, but that if he could just go back to the INT rate he showed in Chicago while keeping the gains made in this system, Grossman would be a perfectly average quarterback rate. We know two things about interceptions as a stat and the Redskins offense:
- Interceptions are notoriously fickle from year to year (Alex Smith has 5 passing INTs this year! Who saw that coming?) even though they correlate fantastically well to wins and losses (Hey, the Niners are 11-3 this year! Who saw that coming?) You can become a better decision maker, but the game situations, downs, distances, and teammates will prevent you from becoming better at not throwing interceptions.
- Kyle Shanahan has not been an offensive coordinator for very long, but with him calling offensive plays, quarterbacks under him have shown an increased interception rate of roughly one-half percent (or 1 pick every 200 attempts).
I think that if the Redskins coaches knew that if they could do the best possible job in their coaching arsenal with Grossman over two to three years as a Redskin and a year with the Texans and that he would come out the other side as a potentially average quarterback, I cannot imagine that he would have been Plan A for the Washington Redskins this year. On this level, the Redskins reliance on Grossman has been a great example of the inability of the Redskins to critically evaluate their options at the quarterback position. Grossman as Plan B may not have been ideal, but it would have been more than acceptable if the Redskins had gone out and tried to sign Vince Young, Caleb Hanie or someone with upside as Plan A. John Beck as Plan A or B was just depressing.
But we should at least consider the merits of average quarterback play for the Washington Redskins. The Redskins have not proved, recently at least, that they could win with mediocre quarterback production. But after sitting through a sharp decline from Donovan McNabb in the second half of 2010, some really poor starts by Rex Grossman, and finally the John Beck world tour, it has been discussed in Redskins circles that the decline in quarterback performance from the decidedly average levels under Patrick Ramsey, Mark Brunell, and Jason Campbell to what we've had the last two years may have obscured the fact that the team has made some significant improvements elsewhere. For the first time in the last ten years, average QB play might finally be a viable vehicle for the Redskins to ascend up the charts in the NFC East (it helps for sure that the rest of the NFC East is doing what it can to lower the standard in the division).
What stinks for Ramsey, Brunell, and Campbell is that their efforts came at the wrong time to help the Redskins ascend as a franchise. But for Rex Grossman? The book is not closed on his efforts as Redskins quarterback. He will be a free agent after the season, but the Redskins are the only franchise in the NFL who will sign him to be their starter in Week 1 next year. Maybe that tells you something about the Redskins. But it also suggests the Redskins may believe that with a ten year veteran behind center, they'll finally be ready to compete in the NFC East next season.
Even the most optimistic projections for Grossman would suggest that the Redskins cannot be a favorite in the division as long as he is the quarterback. But Grossman has never been pushed by a quarterback of the future before. And if we can make the assumption that Grossman can be pushed either into a career year in 2012 or to the bench for good, we could be looking at a very optimistic offensive season for the Redskins next year.
The Washington Redskins did not hire Mike Shanahan to foster over kind of average quarterback play; they already had that under Al Saunders and then Jim Zorn. But under Shanahan, if the Redskins can just find a way to get that average quarterback, the Redskins might be able to prove that the future is now. Rex Grossman is not the best option in the league for the Redskins to obtain average production out of all their options. He might not even be better than a first round rookie on a throw for throw basis in this system. There are four or five guys I would take in the 2012 draft over Grossman next year. But because the Redskins may be looking at one of the two or three first round talents outside of that group, Grossman may be the easiest avenue by which the Redskins make the playoff in 2012.
I don't think the chances that Mike Shanahan leaves a positive legacy with the Washington Redskins are very good, but it is still possible: if Rex Grossman proves his faith in the gunslinger correct, the Redskins will be able to roll a potential late season winning streak into next season, and possibly lead the NFC East at a meaningful juncture in 2012. If Grossman cannot continue to produce (or struggles given more opportunity), the Redskins are bound to struggle through a couple of poor months next year, and be playing another lost season. And with a third lost season on the ledger, I'm not sure anything Shanahan can do -- short a super bowl appearence -- will make his hire look like a good idea.
Shanahan's legacy as Redskins head coach remains tethered to Grossman's legacy as Redskins quarterback. And that's why these last two games matter for the Washington Redskins heading into next year. no comments
Carlos Rogers intercepted Ben Roethlisberger in last night's 49ers-Steelers game. It was his sixth of the season. Rogers joins a growing list of Redskins alumni who went on to other teams an made the playoffs (The 'Niners have clinched already). Rogers left a legion of haters in Washington who scorned him for hands of stone, Rogers did struggle to hold on to potential interceptions, but your Hog Heaven writers never shared that view of him. We considered him the best cover corner on the team and are glad to see him thrive elsewhere.
So, why didn't Rogers perform so well with the Redskins? He didn't grow new fingers when he left. I suspect that he felt less pressured to make those picks and relaxed. San Francisco coaching and schemes have something to do with it. Dashon Goldston also has six INTs for the 'Niners. I will study the bios for DC Vic Fangio and DB coach Ed Donatell for clues.
Ryan Clark and Shaun Suisham took the field for the Steelers. Clark is credited with five tackles and two passes defended. Suisham scored a field goal, the Steelers only score through the night.
Did anyone else wonder how it might have been if the Redskins kept Clark and Rogers in the secondary? I have no illusions about Super Bowls. The Redskins have neither the stability nor talent evaluation machine that the Steelers have. If we did, Washington would have receivers like Mike Wallace and Antonio Brown.
Whether players or coaches, the Redskins have had good football people on the payroll. Something happens to them when they get here.
Andre Carter injured his left quadriceps in the Patriots-Broncos game. New England has placed him on Injured Reserve. Carter finishes the season with 52 total tackles and 10 sacks.
Jim Zorn was seen on the Kansas City sideline when the Chiefs upset the then unbeaten Packers. Zorn is a legend in Seattle, like Jurgensen in Washington and Mark Brunell in Jacksonville. The Seahawks never considered Zorn to be coordinator material. That material fact never raised red flags with the Redskins in 2008 when they made him head coach and stood by as he named the equally inexperienced Sherman Smith offensive coordinator. Washington layered heavy-handed management on top of Zorn. The results were predictable.
Members of the head coach club usually get a second shot with another club. Zorn will likely get a shot as offensive coordinator first and could even be successful with mentoring from the right head coach. If you doubt that, consider that Norv Turner got two more bites of the apple. I bet you never expected that when Dan Snyder dumped him.
Turner's San Diego Chargers upset the Baltimore Ravens in stunning fashion Sunday night.
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