Half Assed Rebuilding Mode

Anyone else notice the bipolar nature of our front office?<sarcasm> I can't get my head around the moves we appear to be making. On one hand, we make insanely large "win now" type deals, where we sign the biggest free agent on the market and give Hall a huge deal. We patch the oline where possible, instead of drafting to fix it long term. We openly court an unhappy pro bowl qb, effectively showing a lack of confidence in our own first rounder from a few years back. All of those moves seem to say that the front office thinks we're ready to win now.

Contrary to that, we are now apparently ready to start over (again) at the qb position and put ourselves in a position where we will be starting a rookie qb and potentially a 2nd year virtual rookie at wr in either kelly or thomas. I don't get it. Are we rebuilding or going for it all? Seems to me that the teams that are successful in transforming from below average to a contender go full throttle and blow things up, starting from scratch. The fact that the Skins live in this constant state of self delusion is going to doom us to more and more seasons of mediocrity (at best). At this point, I don't care what we do personnel wise so long as we can see some discernible plan. Until that happens, we're spinning our wheels.

If we draft Sanchez, I'd like to see the following moves:

1) Trade any senior veteran with value whose cap hit is not prohibitive. Honestly, I think we need to consider 28 and older "senior."

2) Focus playing time on developing younger players at the expense of playing time for vets. It's the only way we're going to grow our own guys and see if they're worth anything.

3) Commit to the head coach for the next 5 years.

Basically, this is the scorched earth approach to rebuilding.

Would you guys rather see us keep bailing water, hoping for the odd 9-7/10-6 trip to the playoffs or do you think we're better off blowing it up and starting over?

Anyone else notice the bipolar nature of our front office?<sarcasm> I can't get my head around the moves we appear to be making. On one hand, we make insanely large "win now" type deals, where we sign the biggest free agent on the market and give Hall a huge deal. We patch the oline where possible, instead of drafting to fix it long term. We openly court an unhappy pro bowl qb, effectively showing a lack of confidence in our own first rounder from a few years back. All of those moves seem to say that the front office thinks we're ready to win now.

Contrary to that, we are now apparently ready to start over (again) at the qb position and put ourselves in a position where we will be starting a rookie qb and potentially a 2nd year virtual rookie at wr in either kelly or thomas. I don't get it. Are we rebuilding or going for it all? Seems to me that the teams that are successful in transforming from below average to a contender go full throttle and blow things up, starting from scratch. The fact that the Skins live in this constant state of self delusion is going to doom us to more and more seasons of mediocrity (at best). At this point, I don't care what we do personnel wise so long as we can see some discernible plan. Until that happens, we're spinning our wheels.

If we draft Sanchez, I'd like to see the following moves:

1) Trade any senior veteran with value whose cap hit is not prohibitive. Honestly, I think we need to consider 28 and older "senior."

2) Focus playing time on developing younger players at the expense of playing time for vets. It's the only way we're going to grow our own guys and see if they're worth anything.

3) Commit to the head coach for the next 5 years.

Basically, this is the scorched earth approach to rebuilding.

Would you guys rather see us keep bailing water, hoping for the odd 9-7/10-6 trip to the playoffs or do you think we're better off blowing it up and starting over?


Well said about the direction or lack of direction our front office appears to be headed in.
If we do in fact give up something to move up and take Sanchez than he must be our starter for this coming season. JC has to be out of here via trade. With that said than we should just trade a veteran that is not in our long term future plans ( Jansen,Betts, ARE,C.Griffth,Smoot) for future picks.
I also agree to let the young WR and TE (Davis) play as much as possible. The Redskins are always looking for the short cut to success which doesn't work in the NFL. Check out Indy before Peyton and his Rookie year record.

I think we (fans and front office) have to be willing to be terrible for the sake of long term success. Like the Cowboys of the late 80s/early 90s before their run. I don't know that we are willing.

Anyone else notice the bipolar nature of our front office?<sarcasm> I can't get my head around the moves we appear to be making. On one hand, we make insanely large "win now" type deals, where we sign the biggest free agent on the market and give Hall a huge deal. We patch the oline where possible, instead of drafting to fix it long term. We openly court an unhappy pro bowl qb, effectively showing a lack of confidence in our own first rounder from a few years back. All of those moves seem to say that the front office thinks we're ready to win now.

Contrary to that, we are now apparently ready to start over (again) at the qb position and put ourselves in a position where we will be starting a rookie qb and potentially a 2nd year virtual rookie at wr in either kelly or thomas. I don't get it. Are we rebuilding or going for it all? Seems to me that the teams that are successful in transforming from below average to a contender go full throttle and blow things up, starting from scratch. The fact that the Skins live in this constant state of self delusion is going to doom us to more and more seasons of mediocrity (at best). At this point, I don't care what we do personnel wise so long as we can see some discernible plan. Until that happens, we're spinning our wheels.

If we draft Sanchez, I'd like to see the following moves:

1) Trade any senior veteran with value whose cap hit is not prohibitive. Honestly, I think we need to consider 28 and older "senior."

2) Focus playing time on developing younger players at the expense of playing time for vets. It's the only way we're going to grow our own guys and see if they're worth anything.

3) Commit to the head coach for the next 5 years.

Basically, this is the scorched earth approach to rebuilding.

Would you guys rather see us keep bailing water, hoping for the odd 9-7/10-6 trip to the playoffs or do you think we're better off blowing it up and starting over?

This is really an excellent point. If the interest in Sanchez is true, which it appears to be -- I don't think we're playing an elaborate game of 'possum here -- then Snyder and Cerrato don't have a clue.

In their eyes though, they might see this Sanchez move as something similar to Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh or Rivers in San Diego -- putting a young, talented quarterback in the hands of a team that's almost there. They probably feel that we are a championship team in the waiting and a better QB is all that's needed.

Again, they haven't a clue.

I think we (fans and front office) have to be willing to be terrible for the sake of long term success. Like the Cowboys of the late 80s/early 90s before their run. I don't know that we are willing.

I'd be more willing if I wasn't convinced that every other year we'd restart the whole process. If we ever actually tried to rebuild in a real way it'd be by spending 3 straight years of fully complimented drafts executed well. That's all it takes.

I have been a big DS backer but even I am getting wary of his inability (apparently) to understand how this league works. There isn't a single team out there that has built a consistent winner by trading away draft picks. Free agency has it's place...as a compliment to building your team solidly through drafting. The dalliance with Sanchez is baffling to me.

What if all of this is just smoke screen and we are really not interested in Sanchez, but we are interested in what we can get for Sanchez or the position to draft him and possibly Campbell on draft day. (Keeping 3 way trade in mind)

Maybe the FO really likes Colt in the long term? Oh crap wait, just saying that makes me part of some frowned upon cult now.

I am just trying to understand this whole fiasco, because acquiring Sanchez just does not make sense. Risking letting Campbell go by trying to acquire Sanchez makes even less sense unless we believe that we have a QB on the roster now. Even the Almighty Sanchez cannot block for himself.

Even the Almighty Sanchez cannot block for himself.[/QUOTE]
~~~~~~~~~

Aint that the truth!

BleedBurgundy, I think your observations are right on the money. That's why, in my frustration, I started a thread asking someone to please try to convince me that the FO knows what it's doing.

Over the last few months, I have come to believe that Vinny and his staff do know what they're doing. Now I believe that the problem is Dan Snyder alone.

I think that Snyder just cannot resist injecting himself - in a bad way - into what should be the orderly process of building a contender. Possibly DS is just too impatient to go through the process or perhaps he just thinks that he knows better than the professionals he hired. Maybe he just enjoys being large and in charge. I don't know why but I can't envision him changing anytime soon.

They say that even a blind hog can find an acorn now and then. So let's all hope that Snyder is that hog and that Sanchez is that acorn because I believe that DS will do everything he can to land Sanchez in this draft regardless of whatever plan that Vinny and his staff may think they are implementing.

The impatience of the front office in the past would make it hard to believe that they would be able to tolerate losing seasons in order to "get better in the end".

The FO mentality seems to be like a gardner who plants a tree one week and then digs it up every other week for the next year to see how the roots are developing. That gardner knows just enough to be dangerous; he knows that without a solid root system, the tree will die. What he does not realize is that by "inspecting" the root system he prevents the tree from developing properly.

Before anyone thinks this comment is some kind of "hate message" for Danny Boy and Vinnie Boombatz, it is not. It simply reflects how this franchise has done business for the last decade. And it has not worked all that well...

I give it another 5 years years before it finally dawns on the rest of the fanbase just how inept Snyder is as an owner. He'd make a great CFO for the team, but not an owner. The franchise will continue to make loads of money and continue to be a mediocre team.