Marching Orders... Interesting Points

http://www.thewarpath.net/506536-post7.html

Scouting is a concern I think I brought up two or three years ago, and I believe they actually made a lot of changes at the lower levels last spring/summer so we'll see if it pays off.



Great point. I seem to remember reading somewhere about a year ago that our scouts are amont the lowest-paid in the league. considering how much Snyder constantly spent on his players and coaches, it didnt make sense to me that we wouldnt "splurge" on the best scouts money could buy. seriously, theres no salary cap on the scouting department and i'm sure few if any lowerlevel scouts make anywhere near 6 figures. if we're willing to garauntee huge sums of money to clinton portis and randy thomas, why not lure some of new englands or phillys scouts by offering to pay them 20% more to come here?

Also, on an unrelated topic, why doesnt the salary cap relate only to players currently on a teams active roster? One would think both the owners and the NFLPA would benefit from a system where a guy like Portis or Thomas could be cut/traded to another team if:

1) the player still got the garaunted portion of their salary.
2) the team did not take a cap hit for a player no longer on the team.

Lets take Randy Thomas, for example. We are on the hook to pay him something like 13M more garaunteed, if i remember correctly. Whether he's on the team or not, theyre going to pay him the money. If we could cut him without a cap penalty, we could benefit ourselves by freeing up a roster spot and have more cash on hand to find his replacement. Since he would be cut with a garaunteed payout from us, he could take the money and immediately go work for another team. Its a win/win situation. I'm sure there must be some reason why the salary cap rules dont work this way... so what am i missing?

Thanks Smootsmack - it is unbelievable that we got so many of the Hogs and defensive lineman as late as you pointed out. Also - interesting to see that some of the picks you pointed out were beyond the 7th rounds, so in todays world that would be undrafted!

perhaps one reason we havent drafted any O-linemen (except Rinehart) in the top rounds of the draft in recent years is because the team had joe bugel as Oline coach and Gibbs/Cerrato/Danny all beleived he was a miracleworker - able to turn any old schmoe into an all-star lineman. Perhaps Bugels just not as good at coaching these guys up anymore...

Great point. I seem to remember reading somewhere about a year ago that our scouts are amont the lowest-paid in the league. considering how much Snyder constantly spent on his players and coaches, it didnt make sense to me that we wouldnt "splurge" on the best scouts money could buy. seriously, theres no salary cap on the scouting department and i'm sure few if any lowerlevel scouts make anywhere near 6 figures. if we're willing to garauntee huge sums of money to clinton portis and randy thomas, why not lure some of new englands or phillys scouts by offering to pay them 20% more to come here?

Also, on an unrelated topic, why doesnt the salary cap relate only to players currently on a teams active roster? One would think both the owners and the NFLPA would benefit from a system where a guy like Portis or Thomas could be cut/traded to another team if:

1) the player still got the garaunted portion of their salary.
2) the team did not take a cap hit for a player no longer on the team.

Lets take Randy Thomas, for example. We are on the hook to pay him something like 13M more garaunteed, if i remember correctly. Whether he's on the team or not, theyre going to pay him the money. If we could cut him without a cap penalty, we could benefit ourselves by freeing up a roster spot and have more cash on hand to find his replacement. Since he would be cut with a garaunteed payout from us, he could take the money and immediately go work for another team. Its a win/win situation. I'm sure there must be some reason why the salary cap rules dont work this way... so what am i missing?


BHA - I like your idea of stealing the other teams best scouting personal - I have never understood why Synder did not employ this strategy before.

Also - to anyone that may have insight - I remember that at one point in the past Bobby Bethard was being considered being brought back to be the teams GM but that Synder said he decided against it because of "salary" considerations - I have a hard time beliving this as he gave gobs of money to Gibbs and Spurrier and other assistant coaches and my belief is Bethard did not come back because Bethard did not want Synder having any major influence on player personal decision making - am I off base with this assumption or does any of the insiders on this site have any info on why Bethard was not brought back?

1. The Over The Hill Gang was here under the regime of George Allen and not Joe Gibbs.


2. For those of you who argue that two dynamic wide receivers are needed in order to make a playoff run, please consider that the Redskins have now gone 32 straight games with the starting tandem of receivers as Santana Moss, Antwaan Randle-El and James Thrash. If anyone thinks that any of those three compare in any meaningful way to Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, then you are probably ingesting an illegal substance.


3. It will be difficult for the team to "commit to the draft" in 2009 and use it to get younger and get stronger. The team has a total of 4 draft picks this year. They might get more if they get some compensatory picks, but other than that...


4. For the team to have the 2009 draft make meaningful contributions to getting younger, they will have to do something they did not do much of last year and that is to draft guys who can actually be put in uniform on Sundays and be allowed on the field for something other than Suicide Squad duty on kickoff coverage. Drafting 4 "projects" won't help all that much; they pretty much drafted a half-dozen of those last year.


5. For those who think that Danny Boy will read these kinds of stories/reports and have some kind of epiphany experience, please ask yourself why he might do that now when the same kinds of stories have been written for him to read and internalize for at least the last 5 years and maybe the last 8 years. To make this change in philosophy, Danny Boy will have to - wait for it - admit he has been wrong for the last ten years and that his entire approach to running the Redskins has been a failure. Please do not hold your breath waiting for that to happen; it would definitely be dangerous to your health.


6. I for one will NOT be surprised to see Joe Gibbs return to the Redskins yet one more time in some capacity - - perhaps even head coach once again - - if the Skins do not make the playoffs in either of the next two seasons.

I totally agree with #4. The Skins need to draft guys that can actually come in and play right away not in 4 years.

B-Mitch actually said something during tonight's recap show on 980 Sports that I have been saying for a while. I'm not usually a big fan of his, but he said something to the extent of:

When the Skins had dominant O and D lines back in the day - the Hogs and guys like Mann, Butz, Manley, etc on the D-line, it didn't matter who they put behind those lines. It seemed like every QB and RB did well (Theismann, Williams, Schroeder, Rypien, Riggs, Rogers, Byner, Sanders, Ervins) and little receivers like the Smurfs got the job done.

I think it's one of the single most impressive accomplishments that Gibbs won 3 Super Bowls with 3 different QBs. Noll only won with Bradshaw, Shannihan only won with Elway, Walsh only won with Montana and watch how many Belichik wins without Brady.

It was Gibbs, but it was also the Skins organization and their commitment to building from the lines out. Good line play makes everyone else look better.

Conversely, you can have (as Mitchell said) Darrell Green on one side, Deion Sanders on the other (in their prime) and Ed Reed and Troy Polamalu as your safeties, but if you can't pressue the opposing QB, even they will get picked apart.

I like playmakers as much as the next guy, but I can get behind a model like the Titans have. If not for some uncharacteristic turnovers, they would have been playing in the AFC championship last week. We had as good as or better talent at the skill positions.

Great post Deezel. Our 2 biggest gripes this year were 1- We can't protect the QB 2- We can't sack the QB. As others have pointed out, the Hogs were not all high draft picks, but they were good picks. We need to evaluate talent better and make more picks for the lines. Drafting one linemen a year isn't going to cut it. Some other teams have drafted 3 or more linemen in 1 year. When's the last time we've done that? It seems like we trade our picks away or make picks in other areas, then take 1 or 2 token linemen. How hard is it to understand the importance of a strong line on both sides of the ball? It wouldn't bother me if we spent most of our picks the next 2 years on linemen. I love Marcus Washington and would hate to see him leave because I don't think he's done yet. But for the good of the team, we can't keep handcuffing ourselves with trying to hold on to aging players with high salaries who can't perform because of nagging injuries. I would really like to see us use our higher picks on linemen and then either use the lower picks on some other needs or address them through FA's. And I don't mean FA's who are now looking for the biggest paydays of their career.

We are the oldest team in the NFl and we have one of the highest payrolls. We have to stop bringing in old FA's. We have to stop renegotiating contracts of old players just to get below the cap, get rid of the old over paid players. Stop trading high draft picks for 34 year old FA's. But we always revert back to these bad practices because it is less painful. We build this team to win today, not to win for tomorrow.

Great post Defensewins. We bring young guys in from the draft but we still sell our future away by trading picks for older veterans with the idea that "We have a shot at the Super Bowl this year". Most teams have a "shot", but a legitimate shot? I don't think so.