The Real Problem of the Redskins ...

There is an interesting piece in Sports Illustrated about how the smart choice in NFL coaching does not seem to the recycled "name' coach anymore. Looking at the successful playoff teams they are new breed coaches not retreads that have come out of retirement. I think canning Zorn and hiring a retread like Shannahan or Holmgren would be a mistake and current history seems to bear this out.
The problem with that is your really basing that off one year in the NFL and not the trend over a giving number of years. Just look at the last several SB winners Giants, Colts, Steelers, Pats, Pats, Tampa and the newest coach among them is Gruden. So history does not support your theory. It could also be siad that the Steelers coach (forgot his name) is playing with players he inherited from Cowher so its kind of hard to judge if he will be the next best coach in the NFL.

The problem with that is your really basing that off one year in the NFL and not the trend over a giving number of years. Just look at the last several SB winners Giants, Colts, Steelers, Pats, Pats, Tampa and the newest coach among them is Gruden. So history does not support your theory. It could also be siad that the Steelers coach (forgot his name) is playing with players he inherited from Cowher so its kind of hard to judge if he will be the next best coach in the NFL.

Its not my theory its what the author of the article said. Its an interesting article.

No. That is not how scouting works. Scouts are synthesizers. They watch thousands of plays and put together portfolios on players. They eliminate obvious "no"s and highlite obvious "yes"s. It is then up to the decision makers to poor over the synthesized data and watch pertinent film. VC probably had recomendatory responsibilities but in all reality does anyone think JG just let VC tell him who to pick? If that was the case then I lose a lot of respect for him. I doubt it worked that way though.

I just find it hard to believe that Gibbs had the time to make these decisions without heavy imput from Vinny. Gibbs even said it was all of us every time they added a player. I don't think Gibbs blindly followed Vinny's opinions but Vinny had a significant role in the Gibbs front office so it's foolish to think that his opinions were not heard and valued.

I love Gibbs as much as or more then anyone on this board...but he was a coach not a GM and that is what doomed Gibbs 2.0 to the moderate success it had.

There is an interesting piece in Sports Illustrated about how the smart choice in NFL coaching does not seem to the recycled "name' coach anymore. Looking at the successful playoff teams they are new breed coaches not retreads that have come out of retirement. I think canning Zorn and hiring a retread like Shannahan or Holmgren would be a mistake and current history seems to bear this out.

In most cases I may agree with you, but in the Redskins (really Snyder) case, there would need to be a larger than life presence for Snyder to really back off and cede all power to a 'football guy'. I just can't see him bringing in a regular GM and a regular coach and letting them revamp our football ops.

Kinda like with Gibbs-I'll give you all control out of deference and awe but when it came to last offseason he didn't entertain anyone outside the organization for a GM but was willing (reportedly) to give full power to Carroll or Cowher.

I'd respectfully disagree that we disagree. We agree that an elite QB solves many ills and can make a bad OL and mediocre WR into winners. Look at who's left standing in the playoffs. Outside of Fitzgerald, Boldin and Santonio Holmes there's not a WR out there that a GM would salivate over.

I think THE biggest mistake of the past 5 years was the Brunell trade, which by the way was all Gibbs. We could have had (at various times) Warner, Brees, Garcia, Pennington, Schaub to name a few and who knows what else may have materialized in the draft. Either way, we have consistently whiffed at getting a sure fire, elite QB. That above all coaching, coordinators and anything else has crippled our offense for the past 10 years.

Also keep in mind Gibbs always liked the older players that wouldn't make mental mistakes and cost the teams games. Even if the player was a mediocre player he found a way to have his team coach them up ie; Bugel. I don't know who his QB coach was during JG1 but if I remember correctly most of his QB's had a QB rating of like 70 something. Usually lower then all the other teams that made it into the play offs but some how Gibbs found a way to adjust his team to make take the win.

In most cases I may agree with you, but in the Redskins (really Snyder) case, there would need to be a larger than life presence for Snyder to really back off and cede all power to a 'football guy'. I just can't see him bringing in a regular GM and a regular coach and letting them revamp our football ops.

Kinda like with Gibbs-I'll give you all control out of deference and awe but when it came to last offseason he didn't entertain anyone outside the organization for a GM but was willing (reportedly) to give full power to Carroll or Cowher.

That's the reason why the Skins wont be successful with DS in charge. He wont let the football guys do their thing.

DS needs to get rid of VC and model our organization after the top franchises of the last 10 years. That would be Pitts, Indi, Pats, etc. Let a FO full of top football people hire their coach and run their system.

The funny part is that w/ a great FO this organization has the assets to be a top team year in and year out.

What scares me most as a Skins fan is that Snyder is right around my age, which means that as a fan, I may have to resign myself to rooting for a mediocre team for the rest of my life. During Gibbs 1.0, we won with dominant play on both lines of scrimmage. You can win with average QB's when the O line consistently knocks the opponent off the ball and protects the QB in the vertical passing game that requires a deeper dropback. Snyder clearly doesn't get this given the high draft choices and vast FA sums that he has poured into WRs (Rod Gardner, Laveranues Coles, Taylor Jacobs, Santana Moss, Antwaan Randle El, Brandon Lloyd, Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly) with little regard to building a team that dominates in the trenches.

Imagine this: what if we had done the right thing, and drafted Steve Hutchinson instead of Rod Gardner in the first round of the 2001 draft. We would have had Stephen Davis in his prime, running behind a young group led by Jon Jansen, Chris Samuels, and Hutchinson. That would have been a winning formula for years, but as usual picking a dominant G wasn't flashy enough for this FO.

What scares me most as a Skins fan is that Snyder is right around my age, which means that as a fan, I may have to resign myself to rooting for a mediocre team for the rest of my life. During Gibbs 1.0, we won with dominant play on both lines of scrimmage. You can win with average QB's when the O line consistently knocks the opponent off the ball and protects the QB in the vertical passing game that requires a deeper dropback. Snyder clearly doesn't get this given the high draft choices and vast FA sums that he has poured into WRs (Rod Gardner, Laveranues Coles, Taylor Jacobs, Santana Moss, Antwaan Randle El, Brandon Lloyd, Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly) with little regard to building a team that dominates in the trenches.

Imagine this: what if we had done the right thing, and drafte Steve Hutchinson instead of Rod Gardner in the first round of the 2001 draft. We would have had Stephen Davis in his prime, running behind a young group led by Jon Jansen, Chris Samuels, and Hutchinson. That would have been a winning formula for years, but as usual picking a dominant G wasn't flashy enough for this FO.

Let's disregard 2001 because that was clearly Marty's year and Cerrato wasn't even there.

But let's also not act like the Redskins are ignoring the lines either. You can make the argument that they're not effectively addressing the lines, but I think it's wrong to simply say they're ignoring them. Or to pretend that all we do is go after WRs

Dating back to 2002 we have drafted 4 WRs, 6 OL, and 4 DL.

Additionally, besides going after Moss, Patten, ARE, and Lloyd we have gone after Andre Carter, Pete Kendall, Jason Taylor, Todd Wade, Jason Fabini, Chris Wilson (plus UDFAs Alex Buzbee and Stephon Heyer)

All which leads me to two points

1. We are definitely not ignoring the trenches, we're just not addressing them correctly

2. Scott Campbell should be held largely accountable for a lot of the late round misses due to his time serving as the team's Director of College Scouting. So I'm not sure I can or should continue to defend his ascension up the Redskins food chain.

That's the reason why the Skins wont be successful with DS in charge. He wont let the football guys do their thing.

Errrr. We have to get 'football guys' first! I don't qualify Vinny for that!