Our Mistakes....

From reading earlier posts and threads, it got me thinking of where our actions have really hurt us in the past 5 years. I thought of 4 main categories of issues...

1. Wrong Coaches/Too many
2. Bad Drafts
3. Bad FA acquisitions/trades
4. Lack of stability on the front office

If I was to rank what has hurt us most...

a. We have done an absolutely horrible job in hiring coaches. Marty and specially Spurrier were absolute busts. However, Marty at least had capable assistants, where Spurrier IMO had the league's worst coaching staff, he coudln't have won with the patriots last year.

b. We have made some real blunders in Free Agency and Trades but I don't think that they were dramtically worst than other teams. We have also made some real awsome moves like Randy Thomas and Coles. You can't bat 1000%!

c. Though I have stated previously that I think we have had good drafts, I hold that true for only the first 2 rounds. We have done a horrible job in rounds 3 and later, by either drafting the wrong player or giving the pick away.

d. I am not so sure the overall impact of the revolving front office. However, I do have the highest of respect for Serrato (sp?). His job is to acquire palyers to work within the coaches' system. He has done that with three completely different systems, that of Marty:Flush: , Spurrier :Flush: , and now Gibbs. Having said all that, the front office is at fault for the revolving door in the head coaching position.

So I would rank bad coaches/wrong coaches as the main culprit, with the other three items also a problem but at a much lesser degree. This is why Gibbs will make such an immidiate impact, he instantly corrects the main culprit. :)

Leadership.

Finally it seems Snyder has recognized the need to co-operate, to recognize that as owner he is meant to be a steward and to play a role but not to dominate others.

With Coach Joe Gibbs, we have new leadership.

Leadership, stability and direction are the three areas the franchise has been seriously lacking in since Snyder took over. Gibbs will remedy all three areas and get this organization headed back in the right direction.

You know, I was excited when Spurrier was coming in. I really thought we'd be able to develop a Ram-esque speed offensive game and bringing in Trotter and Armstead along with our good DBs would make us a true contender in a couple years. It just seems that for whatever reason Spurrier couldn't or just didn't want to adapt. He probably believed his own press and got used to being able to win with the best talent. Just shows how solid the NFL as a league is in general. You can't buck the system.

The other big, big blunder was letting Stephen Davis go. Blocking was bad last season, but without the threat of a running threat it was just constant pounding from opposing defenses. I think that Gibbs is smart enough to block, to run and to adapt when something isn't working out right.

I don't have a prob. with our recent draft's, free agent's? Yes, deion, george, to name a couple, I just think we can't judge the talent we have,{which I believe is a lot} until we have a chance to see them perform with a real coach in a real system, anything that was done under SS goes by the way side, I can't judge a player when he was in such a chaotic system as our team was last 2 year's, as Gibb's said he has seen some player's that he felt could really help us who really did nothing for us last year, as well parcell's said we had the most talent in the NFC east last year, coaching is the name of the game, at least snyder doesn't keep a coach around when it's apparent he's really going no where.

I have always felt the single most important ingredient in building a winning team was the head coach. So I do not disagree with your assessment there. And since Bobby Beathard left, the team has been HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE at drafting after the first round. And for the first several years after he left, their first round was HORRIBLE also. I believe these two problems, along with the totally disorganized front office has made it impossible to win. It looks like Snyder is finally turning over some decision making to the guys with the knowledge, so it may get better now!!

I do have to disagree with the free agent assessment, at least generally. I agree there were several poor choices there, but we got some excellent players this route. Coles and Hall to name a couple. Going back farther, don't let Bruce Smith's actions this past season make you forget - he had 2 very nice seasons here when he first arrived. But guys like Bowens and a couple OL's we snagged have been very nice pickups. And, although this year's moves still have to be proven, they look one heck of a lot better than previous years' moves.

Our draft havent had depth because of our moves in free agency. How many picks did we give up for DT's in the last two years? and how many of them are still here. I tihnk Haley is the only one. It was usually a lot of 6th and 7th rounders, but still. We also have given up the middle of our draft for players that are going to be cut soon. We gave up a first for Coles, which was probably a great move because I wouldnt have but it past us to have drafted Jacobs with the 13th pick last year. I think the only reason that we have had any good moves prior to this year was because we took the machine gun approach and your bound to hit something, you cant play competive football like that. I hope this year we dont have the same thing happen, we'd like to think that it wont but we've got a ton of new starters and ya never know.

I feel the exact same way as you. I thought Spurrier was a really good choice at the time but he seemed to lose interest... and I think the players felt this and this was evident in all the penalties and sloppy playing.

Although, as much as I like Stephen Davis and he would be perfect under the Gibbs offense, at the time I also agreed with letting him go. He was starting to get injury prone and seemed to start fumbling the ball at the worst times. Plus, at his age and salary, this is just the way of the NFL now. At this stage in their careers, I would rather have Portis than Davis as my starter.

You know, I was excited when Spurrier was coming in. I really thought we'd be able to develop a Ram-esque speed offensive game and bringing in Trotter and Armstead along with our good DBs would make us a true contender in a couple years. It just seems that for whatever reason Spurrier couldn't or just didn't want to adapt. He probably believed his own press and got used to being able to win with the best talent. Just shows how solid the NFL as a league is in general. You can't buck the system.

The other big, big blunder was letting Stephen Davis go. Blocking was bad last season, but without the threat of a running threat it was just constant pounding from opposing defenses. I think that Gibbs is smart enough to block, to run and to adapt when something isn't working out right.

yea Davis had to go. Im thrilled that we have Portis now to. Hes younger and has more upside. Davis was great last year but he wouldnt have had the same success with out oline and under Spurrier. If we have Spurrier as a coach it was smart for us to commit to his shitty system to atleast give it a chance. We've had a bad run the last ten years but we've got some great talent to show for it with those early picks, hopefully Gibbs can step in and take advantage of that fact.

SkinsnCanes, yes we got some good players for picks - I also made the point for Coles, etc. - that was free agent acquisitions. We still had horrible DRAFTS with the picks we had. Actually, the premise for this thread, the previous 5 years performance (5 drafts from 1999 through 2003), surprisingly, we had started with 30 picks from rounds 2-7, and ENDED UP with 30 picks in those rounds, even after all the free agency moves. So how did we do with our 30 picks? We have 2 proven starters. That's terrible. We got Smoot and Jansen - good players, but the other 28 are not starting for anyone. (It is possible a third starter will turn up out of the other 28 - either McCants or Jacobs - but not much hope beyond that). The successful teams do MUCH better than this after round 1. Hopefully, this year will see the start of the turnaround of this bad track record. Let's hope Bugel got us another Jacoby or two in those 2 late round picks!!