It is clear that the ever-competitive Peyton Manning is determined to play football...somewhere. The elder Manning is orchestrating a very public campaign to announce his availability with the latest salvo courtesy of ESPN's Adam Schefter.
"Manning is completely open to creating a contract," writes Schefter, "in which he would be paid little or no guaranteed money up front and he would have to earn every cent he makes strictly through performance, according to sources."
Wait, what? Manning signaling contract flexibility while still on an ironclad contract to the Indianapolis Colts?
Earlier this month, Manning's doctors cleared him to play football. That is play, not just rehabilitate and practice. Manning released that news in the lead up to the Super Bowl and it seems to have caught the Colts by surprise. Colts owner Jim Irsay tweeted shortly after that the team's medical staff has not cleared Manning to play.
Peyton Manning has two obstacles to overcome to catch on with another team—prove his ability to play this year and offer contract concessions that hedge the risks for any team that signs him.
Manning may surrender some of the guarantees in his Colts contract for a future team, but the team that signs him will still pony up about $30 million bonus money to clinch a deal. Meanwhile, his people deny that Manning has a short list of teams he hopes to play for.
The Colts owe Manning a $28 million bonus by March 8 to retain him under his current contract. If they choose not to pay him, Manning will be an unrestricted free agent. The colts have a serious rebuilding task ahead of them. A lot of smart people think they cannot afford to tie up the salary cap in both Manning and top Draft pick Andrew Luck and restock talent.
Irsay has said that, if Manning is an active player in 2012, he will play for the Colts.
Gambling tout Bovada (was Bodog) quotes 5/2 odds that the Washington Redskins will sign Manning for the 2012 season. The Arizona Cardinals, who signed former Eagles back-up Kevin Kolb last season, are the surprise odds (2/1) on favorites to sign Manning. The Miami Dolphins who are frequently linked to Manning are 3/1 odds.
The good news here? No one is talking about Brett Favre's return to football.
Point after
Good thing to remember, in the offseason everybody lies.
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There are two lessons from the Patriots-Giants Super Bowl yesterday. One is that receivers are as important to the passing game as quarterbacks (Patriots receivers let the team down yesterday). The second and more important lesson is the value of standing beside your man. This lesson applies to the Washington Redskins and Mike Shanahan.
Bill Belichick has been the football czar of the New England Patriots since 2000. Tom Coughlin has been head coach of the World Champion New York Giants since 2004, the same year Joe Gibbs returned to the Redskins. Longevity in position is an ingredient for winning programs.
Art Modell will go down in history as the only man who fired Belichick, as Cleveland's head coach, in 1996. Belichick coached the Browns to the playoffs in 1994, then fell on hard times with a 5-11 season in '95. Even then, Belichick was putting together the ingredients of a Super Bowl team—a task finished by GM Ozzie Newsome. The Browns-Ravens and Patriots franchises might have been very different if Modell stuck with Belichick.
Need coaches that can fight through adversity
The Patriots aren't about to fire Belichick any more than they are to dump Tom Brady. New York's Tom Coughlin is regularly in hot water with fans, as he was in December after the Redskins swept his team. The Giants stood at 7-7 with looming showdowns against the Jets and Cowboys. Coughlin and the Giants dug in and drew an inner strength to overcome the odds. They did not lose another game that season that ended with yesterdays Super Bowl win over Belichick's Patriots.
Coughlin was in real hot water after the 2006 season. The Giants finished 8-8, losing six of their last eight games. The smart guys and a legion of Giants fans, expected the team to fire Coughlin after that fiasco. Instead, the Giants worked with Coughlin to become a better coach, mostly by improving the way he dealt with the players.
The Giants were rewarded when Coughlin put together a Super Bowl season in 2007.
You hire the right people from the beginning. Then you let them work through adversity. It's football. It's life. There will always be adversity. The best people do their best work under pressure when things look bleakest. As long as they are trying, you don't fire them.
Lesson plan for Dan Snyder
Daniel Snyder hasn't always made the best hire decision. His fire decisions haven't been too swift either. Snyder did not stand by Jim Fassel during the fan revolt when news of Fassel's imminent hire became public. In effect he fired Fassel before he was hired and after Snyder milked him for all his football ideas. The goat rodeo that followed led to the 12-20 finish in Jim Zorn's two-year run that thankfully ended Vinny Cerrato's association with the Redskins.
If given four years on the job, Zorn would have found his rhythm and a way to win with the Redskins. He would have done no worse than the last two years under Shanahan. That's not to say he would have made the playoffs.
Joe Gibbs was not fired and he was not making the best decisions as football leader. But, the Redskins improved under his second run here. Sean Taylor's death and a family medical emergency burned the coach out and he left a year before his contract expired. Ideally, The Redskins would have extended Gibbs contract, or retained his ready-made coaching staff of Gregg Williams and Al Saunders who would have done better with the talent at hand than Zorn did.
We just are not going to go into the whole Spurrier, Schottenheimer, and Turner history. The lesson is the same. 
There is too much talk now about "Shanahan's last chance" and "Shanahan must win to save his job." That is just the thinking Snyder should not want.
The Redskins do not need Shanahan to feel pressured to make tactical—short term—roster decisions. We need strategic decisions born of critical thinking about who can help the team now and in the future.
It was at a point like this when the Giants sat with Coughlin to help him become a better coach. The reward was now two Super Bowls. I don't think Snyder has the executive savvy or football smarts to help Shanahan become a better coach. But he can be an enormous help by telling (threatening?) Shanahan the football executive to make strategic roster decisions now because Shanahan will be here to fix the mistakes he makes.
Regardless of how the 'Skins finish the 2012 season, keeping Shanahan is the fastest way to the Super Bowl. Tom Coughlin can tell you all about it.
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*Age is of December 31, 2012
1. Josh Johnson, 26
2. Dennis Dixon, 27
3. Matt Flynn, 27
4. Caleb Hanie, 27
5. Chad Henne, 27
6. Brady Quinn, 28
7. Alex Smith, 28
8. Drew Stanton, 28
9. Derek Anderson, 29
10. Kellen Clemens, 29
11. Dan Orlovsky, 29
12. Vince Young, 29
13. Jason Campbell, 30
14. Kyle Orton, 30
15. Charlie Whitehurst, 30
16. Kyle Boller, 31
17. J.P. Losman, 31
18. Luke McCown, 31
19. Shaun Hill, 32
20. Rex Grossman, 32
21. Byron Leftwich, 32
22. Drew Brees, 33
23. David Carr, 33
24. Josh McCown, 33
25. David Garrard, 34
26. Sage Rosenfels, 34
27. A.J. Feeley, 35
28. Chris Redman, 35
29. Donovan McNabb, 36
30. Jake Delhomme, 37
31. Charlie Batch, 38 no comments
The Redskins Twitterverse has moved on from Robert Griffin 3rd...to Peyton Manning as the object of their quarterback affection.
Um, well, ok. There's really no point in commenting until after March 8. That's when the Indianapolis Colts must fish or cut bait on Peyton. They owe him $28 million by that date and the only way to avoid it is to release him or renegotiate the contract that gives all the advantage to Manning.
To understand the leverage, see Andrew Brandt's excellent two-part write up on the National Football Post. That deal may have something to do with Bill Polian's dismissal from the Colts.
The Washington Redskins figure in Peyton-mongering. It's the Redskins. Everybody links them to big-name stars from other teams coming to save the Redskins. Why? Because it's the Redskins. But, playing all the scenarios is a GM's job. Bruce Allen and his counterparts from in 22 other NFL teams would be derelict in their duty if they were not trying to figure out if the elder Manning makes sense for their team.
Allen should be working through all the scenarios to acquire players who can help the team. Yes, Redskins fans, that could mean another year of Rex Grossman even though the universe agrees that anyone, even an aging lazer rocket arm, would be better than Sexy Rexy.
The alternate reality
That's why I liked the mock draft put together by Russ Lande. We summarize the Redskins' moves here and show the link below.
Lande sees the St. Louis Rams keeping their Draft pick (second overall) and the Seattle Seahawks leapfrogging everyone in a Trade with Minnesota to snatch RG3.
Lande thinks the Redskins will select CB Morris Claiborne (LSU) with the sixth pick and then giving up their second and maybe third round pick to move back in the first round to select QB Brandon Weeden (Ok State).
I LOVE THIS; not that I advocate it, but because I know the front office is working through their Plan B if they cannot get Griffin III. Make that Plan C if the Redskins are serious about Manning.
Go to russlande.com to see his guess at all the first round selections, or trades, for all the teams. Here's the link: http://www.russlande.com/2012-mock-draft/.
Go take a look. We will be here when you get back.
This should caution everyone that anything could happen on Draft Day. The Redskins cannot just "trade up" and get Griffin. They have to have a willing trade partner and a competing offer.
The Cleveland Browns are playing with free money, thanks to all the Draft picks received from Atlanta who moved up to take Julio Jones. Nobody is going to outbid Cleveland if the Browns really want Griffin.
The Jones trade is also instructive. The Falcons mortgaged the future to get a wide receiver playmaker—the last piece of the puzzle—to make the Super Bowl. Jones was a strong performer in his rookie year. Yet, Atlanta could not defend its division title.
Lessons from the Julio Jones trade:
- There is no one player that can save the Redskins and there is no such thing as a "must have" player.
- There is no such thing as instant results. Players need a season to jell with their team. (See the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles who will have a monster 2012 season)
- Even if the Redskins get their man, it may not work any better than Julion Jones worked for the Falcons.
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It is Super Bowl Week. Yet, guesswork about Peyton Manning's whereabouts in 2012 sucks the oxygen away from the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Hog Heaven won't get into Manning's future until March 9, although we see no reason to think he will be available for another team, or able to play at all this season.
The wishful thinking about Manning in a Redskins uniform got us to wondering, are the Washington Redskins a Peyton-ready team?
The numbers suggest that the 'Skins are not so far off. Fortunately, we have the Brett Favre experience as a model.
Favre was 38 years old when the Packers channeled him to the New York Jets in 2007 and 39 when he got to his target team, the Minnesota Vikings in 2008. So, how does the 2011 Redskins' offense compare to the pre-Favre 2007 Jets and 2008 Vikings?
Here's a quick check of the pre-Favre offensive rank, wide receiver performance and offensive line rank of the Jets and Vikings with the 2011 Redskins for comparison:
Offensive Rank| TEAM | POINTS | YARDS |
| 2007 Jets | 25 | 26 |
| 2008 Vikings | 12 | 17 |
| 2011 Redskins | 26 | 16 |
Top Two Wide Receiver Performance
We disregard backs and tight ends to look at wide-outs who should be the prime targets for big plays. For the Jets, that was Jericho Cotchery and Laveranues Coles. For the Vikings that was Bernard Berrian and Bobby Wade and for the Redskins Jabar Gaffney and Santana Moss.
| TEAM | REC | TARGETS | PERCENT | AVERAGE | TDs |
| 2007 Jets | 147 | 216 | 68 | 12.1 | 8 |
| 2008 Vikings | 101 | 184 | 55 | 15.9 | 9 |
| 2011 Redskins | 114 | 211 | 54 | 13.4 | 8 |
Offensive Line Rank
We pulled this from Football Outsiders' DVOA rankings.
| TEAM | RUN BLOCKING | PASS BLOCKING |
| 2007 Jets | 23 | 30 |
| 2008 Vikings | 12 | 28 |
| 2011 Redskins | 10 | 15 |
Adrian Peterson helped the Vikings rank high in run blocking. The Redskins do not have an Adrian Peterson, yet their much maligned O-Line was more effective than the pre-Favre Jets or Vikings.
Whoa! Maybe Peyton Manning could play behind that line.
The clincher is that both the Jets and the Vikings showed dramatic improvement on offense the year Favre joined them. The 2008 Jets offense ranked ninth in points and 16th in yards and finished with a 9-7 record. Ironically, the Dolphins won the division with Jets castoff Chad Pennington.
The Jets went the Draft route in 2009 with Mark Sanchez whose performance has yet to match Favre's.
The 2009 Vikings fared better, finishing in the top five in points and yards. Favre led the 12-4 Vikings to the conference championship game against the New Orleans Saints. His fourth-quarter interception ended Minnesota's shot at the Super Bowl. Favre's 2010 campaign was a disaster.
Here are the takeaway points:
1. Peyton Manning, if healthy (a BIG if), would be a more impactful addition to a QB-challenged team than a top Draft pick rookie would be. The Colts are as aware of that as anyone. Even with his contract, consider it a red flag if the Colts release Manning.
2. Manning's age (36) may not be an issue, provided his skills have not deteriorated. (Call that the McNabb corollary.) John Elway was 38 when he led the Broncos to their first Super Bowl win. Mike Shanahan is as aware of that as anyone. That might explain the persistent rumors of the Redskins interest in Manning. Shanahan will not shy from Manning's age.
3. An elder quarterback on a new team is a one-year wonder. See: Chad Pennington—2008 Dolphins; Mark Brunell—Redskins 2005. The Chiefs got two good years from Joe Montana in 1993 and 1994, although he was modestly less productive than his 49er years. I'll get back to you on Matt Hasselbeck and the Titans.
Manning would be a "win now" tactic for any team that signs him. The Redskins are not so far off that signing Manning would be a wasted move. It would not be a strategic move with a five or six year benefit. Hog Heaven advocates strategic roster moves. We are looking for perennial contenders here.
Yes, that's movement from "hell no" to "maybe so" for Hog Heaven's thinking about the Peytonskins. Washington would still need a playmaking wide receiver for Manning to have any shot to match his 2010 performance. A team is still more than one man.
One thing Hog Heaven consistently said about the 2011 Washington Redskins is that there would be a lot to like about this team even if they finished with the same record as 2010.
The 'Skins finished with five wins, two games worse than we expected. Like everyone else, we are not happy with quarterback play. Two years and three players later, Washington is worse off than if Mike Shanahan stuck with Jason Campbell for two seasons until he could get the quarterback of his dreams.
Shanahan's second offseason in Washington was much more successful than his first. He found a budding star in LB Ryan Kerrigan and a high potential defensive lineman in Jarvis Jenkins. Leonard Hankerson's one good game before injury is a tease for improvement in the passing game. Though Roy Helu and Evan Royster have yet to show playmaker potential, Washington does have a solid running game with them.
Free agent additions Christ Chester, Stephen Bowen, Barry Cofield and Jabar Gaffney filled holes in the roster. Free agent role players who fit your system, what a concept change for a team that signed Albert Haynesworth to lead the flock to the Promised Land.
Yes indeed, the Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen's astute moves in 2011 gave us lots to like about the Redskins. It set the bar for them to pull off more magic this offseason. We will spend a lot of ink, or pixels, on that over the next few months, especially between the start of free agency on March 13 and the 2012 NFL Draft on April 26.
Looking back at 2010
Why didn't Shanallenhan make those astute moves in when they arrived in 2010? They could not. Their hands were tied. Two things brought that home to me.
The first is that Shanahan acknowledged what longtime Redskins fans already knew. "We didn't have a lot of depth when I first came in," Shanahan acknowledged in an NFL.com Video ahead of the Senior Bowl. Shanahan also alluded to the restrictive free agency rules in place in the uncapped last year of the CBA.
That revealing bit of candor is a complete reversal of what Shanahan told fans in 2010. Back then he said that he was trying to win now with players like McNabb and Haynesworth, as if the 'Skins were one or two players away from contention.
Lack of depth was truthful, but saying so then would have undercut the team's effort to sell tickets.
The second item was Shanahan's comments about Tim Tebow after a campus to visit to Florida before the 2010 NFL Draft.
"I like everything about him," Shanahan said. "If you can't root for a guy like Tebow, man, you don't like your [own] kids."Here's a guy to me that brings everything to the table. He'll interview with 30 people, work out for everybody [and] when you're with him, he's just an off-the-chart guy," Shanahan said. "Those guys don't come around all the time. Especially with the success that he's had." (Rick Maese, The Insider, March 24, 2010)
After reading that story, 'Skins fans wondered if Shanahan would use Washington's second round Draft pick on the Tebow. Tebow was considered a reach for Washington's fourth overall pick. the pre-Draft debate was whether he would be on the board in the second round.
No depth, no free agent talent, minimal Draft picks; Shanahan jumped, or was pushed, to one big gambit for McNabb. Thus, leaving the Redskins to select these players in 2010:
| RD1, 4th overall | Trent Williams, OT |
| RD2, 37th overall | Traded to Philadelphia for Donovan McNabb |
| Rd 3 | None, used in the 2009 Supplemental Draft, Vinny Cerrato selected Kevin Barnes, CB |
| RD 4, 103 overall | Perry Riley, LB |
| RD 5, 135 overall | Traded to St. Louis along with the 7th Round, 211 overall, for DE Adam Carriker and a fifth-round pick the Rams acquired from the Eagles. Washington traded this pick for a 6th Round pick, 174th overall, and a 7th Round pick, 219, overall) |
| RD 6, 174th overall | Dennis Morris, TE |
| RD 7th, 219 overall | Terrence Austin, WR |
Key Undrafted Free Agents
Brandon Banks, Return specialist
Keiland Williams, RB
Logan Paulsen, TE
The Broncos selected Tebow with the 25th pick of the first round. That was controversial, but Tebow delivered his value to Denver with his inelegant playoff run.
How might Washington's Draft look if Shanahan selected Tebow with the fourth overall pick? They might have kept Jason Campbell rather than trade for McNabb and backfilled the tackle position with someone like Charles Brown who was selected by the Saints late in the second round. Brown showed some talent before he was placed on Injured Reserve, but he is no Trent Williams.
Jammal Brown might have moved to left tackle and Stephon Heyer on the right.
Thus, the Redskins would have been left with a starting quarterback the owner did not believe in, a high potential back up with high development needs and a still challenged O-line in need of talent. But Campbell-Tebow would have been a better QB combination than Grossman-Beck.
That's a hypothetical. The reality is that Shanallenhan passed on a high profile quarterback (as he did in 2011), invested the first round on a grunt that blocks, traded for a role-playing contributor (Carriker), picked an eventual starter in Perry Riley, a potential contributor in Terrence Austin and found rookie free agent nuggets in Banks and Paulsen. Washington and every other team missed on wide receiver Antonio Brown for fives rounds.
We didn't see it at the time, thanks to the glare of the McNabb trade, but Shanahan's Draft moves presaged his 2011 Draft. Both Drafts years found players who started within a year.
It's all but certain that Shanahan will attempt to move up to draft a top-tier quarterback who, this year, can only be the third version of Robert Griffin. That is still the "one great player" mentality that has plagued Washington in the Snyder era. Shanahan has to keep faith with fans by going for RG3. He will have to out bid the Browns and the Dolphins to get him. If that fails, as is likely, there are still lots to like in Shanahan's approach to the Draft.
How soon before Draft Day?
no commentsThe assumption would be that because player salary and wins are uncorrelated, there is no on-field advantage to working with deep pockets. I am going to explain why I believe that is not true. The Redskins should have an advantage over teams like the Vikings, Jaguars, Chargers, and Buccaneers. The Redskins have, unfortunately, been doing it wrong for a long time with their player salaries.
A small market football team has only a couple different ways of competing in the current NFL climate. Teams like the Bills and Bengals are typically working with stripped down coaching and scouting budgets, and typically have to honor labor contracts they sign because of their inability to eat the contract and make a competitive offer to a better option. With those stripped down budgets, the only way to compete with teams with larger budgets is to set up a system of internal continuity, which has typically been defined as a coaching staff and a quarterback and a system and a (small) group of core guys.
Indianapolis, and to a lesser extent, San Diego, is/are probably the gold standard for small market success in the NFL, although I have to qualify that by saying that the Colts were not required to function according to small market rules when they employed the game's biggest star. They were able to fund and build a new stadium in downtown Indianapolis. They employed the same quarterback and team president from 1998 through last month. Everything those teams did sat nicely within the context of one player, one system. The Colts did it very differently from the Chargers: the Colts always leaned towards a stars/scrubs approach and a ton of cap dollars towards the top of the roster and then system development on the other side. The Chargers just kept adding value to value in an attempt to load the roster with heavy talent so that they could withstand the test of time.
What is remarkable about a lot of smaller market teams is how much they typically struggle on special teams. Even with player salaries a non-factor in determining who wins or loses games, teams like Indianapolis, San Diego, Minnesota, St. Louis, and Jacksonville are pretty much at the bottom of the league in special teams every year. Buffalo was a consistently good special teams unit under coach Bobby April, but they've trended towards the bottom since he left after the 2009 season. Consistently at the top every season: Chicago, the Jets, Cleveland, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, New England, Tennessee, and Phildelphia of recent.
No one would ever suggest that you need to spend more on player salary in order to field a good special teams unit, but it's clear that it is much easier for the teams with greater means (coaching and scouting) to excel on special teams than it is for teams that work on tighter margins. The Redskins, however, are consistently below average at special teams, despite enjoying the advantages that seem to correlate best with excelling on special teams. The Redskins have never been a consistently bad defense, but when compounded by all the offensive personnel mistakes the Redskins have made over the years, being weak on special teams is completely unnecessary. For all his faults, Vinny Cerrato specifically used to draft players with the idea of having specialists to play once every four downs, though typically since these players rarely made the roster, it may not have been the best way to go about things. Dallas is a team who, for all their faults under Jerry Jones, typically covers kicks quite well every season.
The crux of the argument for large market teams is that they have the advantage of never having to stay the course if the current course of action is negative. In theory, a team like the Redskins can always have the best coach available for the current roster because they can pay buyouts instead of honoring contracts. Whether or not you create a negative culture in your organization by haphazardly firing people without cause is always a concern of a big market owner. You don't want to make stupid moves simply because you have money. But having money should give a team an advantage of making the right move.
Dan Snyder's ownership of the Redskins has been highly criticized for making too many changes. It's a valid criticism that he's been too happy to change things that may be working, but if the criticism is preventing Snyder from doing the best thing for the Redskins in the present day, that might be worse. The Redskins cannot expect to be great on offense all of a sudden in 2012, but they need to stop struggling on special teams, and finally learn to excel on defense. The Redskins aren't far away in those two facets of the game, and can reach the levels they need to under the current coaching staff.
The other point is that it seems that the current model for making deep playoff runs on a year to year basis appears to be that once you get your coach and your franchise quarterback, everything else will follow. Let's examine this closer. That is probably close to the only way for a resource-limited organization to compete, which is why San Diego was near the bottom of the league when run by Doug Flutie and Mike Riley and why the Colts couldn't sustain success with Jim Harbaugh and Jim Mora. It's not that those players were inadequate, but they need a strong support system that couldn't be found in San Diego and Indianapolis. Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning, Marty Schottenheimer, and Tony Dungy were precisely the kind of picks and hires those teams needed to overcome their other shortcomings.
In theory though, the Redskins should be able to compete year in and year out on coaching alone. A ten loss season is pretty inexcusable for a team like the Redskins, quarterback or no quarterback. Schottenheimer needed about five games in 2001 to change the structure of the on-field operation so that the Redskins could compete with and beat teams without a quarterback. Norv Turner was a great source of organizational dysfunction for the Redskins and consistently struggled to produce competent special teams. And yet, the Turner era was a great example of how the Redskins were able to maintain high expectations for their team in the salary cap era. The NFL salary cap didn't change the Redskins advantages over other teams such as the Cardinals. The Turner era produced wild inconsistencies in week to week and season to season results, but the Redskins were more or less a .500 team under Turner (looking at years 2-7), under Gibbs 2.0, and were exactly a .500 team under Schottenheimer.
The Redskins "fired" Steve Spurrier and fired Jim Zorn because it was clear they could not compete on the support system and coaching alone, despite significant financial advantages. And the fact that the Redskins still have these advantages that the Cowboys enjoy.
It should be said that in many ways, the Redskins have been very competitive over the course of the Mike Shanahan era. Clearly, they have not been as competitive as they need to be to make noise in the NFC East and the Redskins -79 point differential is the worst figure since 2003 under Steve Spurrier, but the Redskins haven't been a -100 point differential team since 1998, one of only 2 seasons where the Redskins lost by an average of a touchdown per week since Vince Lombardi was coach of the Redskins. If you don't believe the Redskins financial advantages have aided the Redskins, consider that the Redskins have never selected first in the NFL draft since the merger. In fact, they have picked in the top three (excluding the 2000 draft where they had all those extra picks) just once since the merger, in 1994.
Even when you look through the worst post-merger seasons in Redskins history; 1993, 1994, 1998, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010, the Redskins have never been in the running for worst team in the league. They simply enjoy too many advanages to ever be a historically awful team. It's the same thing for the Dallas Cowboys. It's the same thing for the New York Giants or New England Patriots. Those teams can have really bad years. But really bad should never result in worse than 10 or 11 losses. Because there are smaller market teams that when having a bad season, simply lack the means to get the ship righted and continue to spiral out of control towards the no. 1 overall pick. The Redskins are cursed in that things can never seem to bottom out.
But if the Redskins can't use their advantages to their own advantage, then they don't deserve to ever make the playoffs again. Look, the Redskins are simply too talent laden in most years (with 2011 being an obvious departure from the norm) to land in a position where they get a franchise quarterback handed to them. The Redskins should be able to create the idea of a franchise quarterback like the Houston Texans have, or like the Baltimore Ravens have, or like the Philadelphia Eagles have done with multiple guys, or even like the Minnesota Vikings did during the Daunte Culpepper days. The Redskins have become the Miami Dolphins, except that they didn't have a Dan Marino to replace: they do everything they can to sell themselves on the idea that their next quarterback is someone else not on their roster.
The Redskins should be easily able to recreate Mark Rypien, or at least Brad Johnson, through strong quarterback coaching and a decent supporting cast, particuarly a ravanous defense and special teams that can put points up on the board. The Redskins do not need to believe in having a single franchise quarterback. They do need to start believing that their quarterback can help them win games. They didn't always believe in Jason Campbell's ability to do that. Mark Brunell probably was believed to be too old to carry a team. Joe Gibbs couldn't trust Patrick Ramsey. Mike Shanahan actively took the game out of Donovan McNabb's hands to put it in Rex Grossman. The Redskins coaches are largely contributing to the concept that the Redskins are lacking a franchise quarterback, even though the Redskins obviously have the resources to overcome. None of those guys (well, Ramsey is the exception) have had less impressive careers than either Rypien (MVP) or Johnson (super bowl title). But the Redskins couldn't even go .500 with any of them. That's embarrasing work by whoever is in charge of this operation.
The Redskins do not need Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin to win games in 2012. They do need to be better on three sides of the ball. But more importantly, they need to to what it takes to land punches with the big dogs of the NFL and blow out the little guys who the Redskins should be blowing out through physical domination in the trenches and precision on the outsides. And if the Redskins can't do that in 2012, then they need to find coaches and a front office who can do it for us in 2013. no comments
BCS Champion Alabama Crimson Tide recruited Chris Samuels for a second run in his college career, this time as the assistant offensive line coach on Nick Saban's staff. WaPOST's Mike Jones broke the story on The Insider yesterday.
Samuels, a fan favorite and six-time Pro Bowler for the Washington Redskins, was named a first team All-America and first team All-SEC selectee for the Crimson Tide. He won the 1999 Outland Trophy presented annually to the best college offensive lineman.
“I learned a lot from the Redskins and the Shanahans,” Samuels added. “They taught me a lot about how to shift different personnel groupings in, setting up plays, different concepts in the passing game...I thought it would be easy to do all that, but it’s not....Now to go up to Alabama, they’re very successful coaches, and coach Saban is one of the hot coaches around. It’s definitely going to be a blessing for me.”
Shanahan and Saban? Not Gibbs and Bugel?
Gibbs and Buges link to Samuels' playing days. Samuels spent the 2010 season as a coaching intern on Mike Shanahan's staff. Samuels has said that he would like to make a career of coaching. If he wants to coach in the NFL, he should make the jump to the pros early. College football and pro football are the same sport, but they are not the same game.
Samuels and Saban yesterday visited Shanahan and the Redskins' coaching staff at the practice for the South team in the 2012 Senior Bowl.
Future Redskins head coach candidate?
It worked for Russ Grimm. Oh. Wait. No it didn't.
They are burying Joe Pa today. What an exit.
Joe Paterno's misfortune is that he passed away before the final chapters of his story are written. Paterno is not around to answer the great mystery of the Jerry Sandusky scandal that roils Pennsylvania State University.
That mystery is this, how did an incident described by eyewitness and assistant coach Mike McQueary as the appearance of sex with a child morph to a description of "horsing around?"
Rape requires aggressive intervention. Horsing around demands aggressive supervision. Paterno is the nexus of the question. His full, cross-examined testimony at trial could have informed how to judge Penn State executives Tim Curley and Gary Schultz.
Paterno's legacy will be forever plagued by the Richard Nixon question: What did he know and when did he know it?
Penn State fired Curley, the athletic director, and Schultz, vice president of business and development, after a Grand Jury indicted the pair for perjury. The grand jury found the pair not credible and uncooperative.
McQueary denies ever describing the 2002 Sandusky incident as anal sex, but saw circumstantial, visual evidence to suggest that very act. (Um, WHAT?) McQueary wasn't quite sure what he saw and like anyone else (That would be you and me, brother.), he did not immediately call the police. Instead, he turned to the elders around him, his Dad and his coach, for guidance.
Paterno said he did not quite comprehend what McQuery described to him, but informed Curley that McQueary was quite shaken by whatever it was. I suspect Paterno's age played a role—not his calendar age, but his coming of age. Such matters were always hidden in the 1940s when Paterno reached his manhood and for decades thereafter.
When Paterno said he did not know what to do, I am inclined to believe him.
Penn State President Graham Spanier expressed support for Curley and Schultz immediately after the grand jury indictments. Had he learned nothing from the Catholic Church scandals where the hierarchy appeared clueless—and calloused—about child endangerment?
Molesting little boys was a crime. Covering it up was the scandal that did lasting damage. The Church is a values institution whose cover-up betrayed its teaching about children [Matthew 19:14] and choices [Mark 8:36].
Gordon Gee did the same in the unfolding swag for tats scandal at Ohio State, thereby impugning the sense that OSU could be trusted to investigate itself. Prof. Spanier, meet Prof. Gee.
We do not know what Sandusky did, only what is alleged. We sense that the University hid something, perhaps for fear of offending Paterno. Penn State's football revenue exceeds $100 million per year. Joe Paterno was the one man whose word would have made it OK to risk that by a full investigation of whatever occurred in the athletics building. At the critical moment, and counter to everything he stood for, the coach punted the ball.
Penn State's alumni, especially the football alumni, are irate that the university dumped Paterno so abruptly. They should be cautious. There is only one conclusion when the four top executives of a values institution are swept from office for failing to provide oversight. There's another shoe to drop. I think that university Trustees know it and, by now, know what it is.
It might be that Paterno is in a better place.
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John Wooden's admonition that more games are lost than won applies to the Baltimore Ravens this morning. The Ravens had the favored New England Patriots on the ropes in yesterday's AFC Title game. Baltimore outgained New England by 42 offensive yards and dominated time of possession 33:33 to 26:27. Joe Flacco flat outplayed Tom Brady.
Baltimore's last shot ended when kicker Billy Cundiff's chip shot field goal attempt missed wide left. Cundiff must feel terrible this morning, but he had help losing the game.
Two plays earlier, wide receiver Lee Evans had the game-winning touchdown in his hands before DB Sterling Moore stripped it away. Baltimore's O-line failed to measure up. New England laid three sacks, five tackles for losses and seven quarterback hits on the Ravens.
When Baltimore signed Lee Evans, I believed that the Washington Redskins missed the shot to upgrade its receiving corps. Evans delivered a nice performance on the day up until his fourth-quarter flub. His three receptions nearly duplicated his entire regular season performance (4 receptions, 79 yards) and his missed catch would have been his first score of the season.
Washington got a better performance from Jabar Gaffney who, like Rex Grossman, had the best year of his career in Mike Shanahan's offense. Gaffney's 68 receptions and five touchdowns profile him as a good No. 2 wide receiver on any other team. The No. 1 wide receiver on a pro team should deliver 90 receptions and 10 touchdowns.
Fans appreciate Gaffney's performance and effort, but the entire passing game—passing, catching, blocking— was not good enough to compete in the NFL East. Nothing about Evan's performance in the title game or over the season suggests that he would have been better than Gaffney. I don't think the Bills miss Evans much, either.
New England DT Vince Wilfork had a monster day at nose tackle, which got me wondering. Why did Bill Belichick need Albert Haynesworth in the first place? Can we all agree now that the Tennessee Titans made Haynesworth great and not the other way around?
Belichick did what Mike Shanahan did not do in 2010. He dumped Haynesworth as soon as it became clear that he was not a contributor.
I feel badly for ex-Redskins DE Andre Carter, a major contributor to the Pats' success. He is finally on a Super Bowl team, but injury prevents him from playing. Good guy. Good player. Deserved to go. Another former 'Skins player who starts for another Super Bowl caliber team.
Washington gets good players—and good coaches. Something happens to them when they get here; something about how they are managed. The Redskins title drought has more to do with boring organizational flaws than with the athletes.
Three of the four teams in the conference title games are known for stability in the front office and the coaching staff. Those owners pick the right people in the first place and stick with them in good times and bad. Toughening it out in the bad times is part of the process.
Just saying.
Rivalry? What rivalry?
Hog Heaven has been a consistent denier of a Ravens-Redskins rivalry. We argue that any resemblance of such has more to do with Baltimore's cultural antipathy to Washington that predates the Civil War. That one-sided feeling expresses itself in both football and baseball. And we always said it was one-sided. Most of the Baltimoronic statements about it betray an inferiorty complex that I never understood. I like Baltimore, especially the Inner Harbor waterfront.
There is some canard that Jack Kent Cooke had somethind to do with keeping the NFL out of Baltimore after the Colts abandoned the city. I defy anyone to find a single shred of evidence of that. Most of the origins of this unrequited rivalry lay in Baltimore's proud blue collar heritage and the Washington area's white collar government class. Hey, we didn't vote all those people here because...District of columbia residents cannot vote.
Things may be changing. There was lots of discussion on sports talk radio on whether it is proper for Redskins fans to root for the Ravens against the Patriots. It was a silly thought. The Ravens loss does no more to make the Redskins better than sweeping the Giants makes the Redskins better. Either way, Washington lost to nine of 13 teams they faced. The Redskins have to win fan allegiance on their own.
If fans have an adult memory of the Redskins last Super Bowl win after the 1992 season, then they are lifers even if they now keep their wallets shut. Anyone under age 39 is fair game for Baltimore and every other NFL team, thanks to the Internet.
That's the way it's supposed to be. Allegiance is more than customer loyalty. Baltimore may win DC customer loyalty for a period until the Redskins start winning again. If the Redskins keep losing, some of that Ravens loyalty will (and should) flip to fan allegiance and the 'Skins will never get them back. Winning keeps that from happening. After a decade of Snyderrato, even diehards know how hard that is to do. There are no short cuts to building perennial contenders. it cannot be properly done in one or three seasons. You do it by taking the right steps over time, like Baltimore has done since their arrival in Maryland.
Next year, the Redskins should forget about sweeping the Giants. Win all the home games instead. The Ravens are on the home schedule, by the way.
