In Defense of Vinny Cerrato

Vinny Cerrato often gets assailed as Daniel Snyder's lapdog. I'm not sure why he is criticized so often.

In the last two seasons, among others we've acquired:

Laveranues Coles
Randy Thomas
Clinton Portis
Rock Cartwright
Ladell Betts

Cornelius Griffin
Marcus Washington
Shawn Springs
Sean Taylor
Ryan Clark

His questionable or bad moves are acquiring Mark Brunell, Patrick Ramsey (who I think was a good addition), Barrow, Trotter, and Bowen.

As far as I'm concerned, we've done a great job each offseason of putting together a great roster. It's up to the players and coaches to assemble a good team. So, in my mind Cerrato has done his job while others have failed.

See my whole thing is I've never understood what Cerrato's role is exactly. Is he a pro talent evaluator, is he a numbers guy? Is he a yes man?

smootsmack:

I suspect that the first time Vinny tells Danny Boy to get his own coffee or light his own cigar, Vinnie will be outta here in a flash. If Danny Boy ever stops short walking down a hallway, Cerrato will wind up with his head up Danny Boy's ass.



Ramseyfan:

Let's look at your list OBJECTIVELY for just a moment. When I say OBJECTIVELY, I mean let's look at what has happened with these acquisitions you asert have been so astute and not what we think will happen with them sometime in the future or what we imagine they might have done with just a break or two in the past. Look at the on-field performance:


Coles: Good season last year - except for one thing. He did not get in the end zone a whole lot. I suspect he is playing hurt more than the Skins have let on this year and so his value this year has been mediocre at best. Skins are paying a LOT of money for not a lot of production on the field.

Thomas: Solid performer. Not nearly the best OG in the NFC East but not the worst either. Definitely the best interior OL the Skins have. Good signing.

Portis: Cost the team a ton in terms of players and draft picks and salary. He needs to have about three monster years to make it worthwhile. He is having a very good season so far, but the jury is still out as to whether or not he was worth it. Looks good so far...

Cartwright: Lots of hustle; not a lot of talent and certainly not any on-field production to speak of. The next blitzing linebacker that he blocks will be the first one. The best thing you can say about him is that he does not cost them much in terms of cap room. If he were to cost them $1M in cap room, he'd have been gone in the second week of training camp. A special teamer at best.

Betts: Another guy who does not cost a lot. Hampered by recurring injuries. A question mark at best.

Griffin: A really worthwhile addition who has played above what his previous perfromances would have indicated. Assuming his current injury is nothing serious, a good signing.

Washington: The best acquisition they made in the last two years - bar none.

Springs: Costs a lot of cap room down the road so I'm not sure he's worth it. But after getting rid of Bailey in order to acquire Portis, they had to get a seasoned corner for that side of the field. They probably overpaid for Springs because the Portis deal left them over-the-barrel. But overpaying is nothing new to this FO.

Taylor: Lots of physical talent but a mental meathead. Be prepared to see him make some spectacular hits in the next few years and be prepared to revel in them because he will also give up lots of big plays and TDs. He's a headhunter and not a fundamentally sound safety. And I'm becoming convinced that he's not going to learn much more than he knows now...

Clark: A good value for the team because he does not cost a lot. But don't kid yourself that this is the reincarnation of Ronnie Lott.


I notice you neglected to put Philip Daniels on your list. Daniels has been an underchiever this year. I also notice you neglected to have Dave Fiore on your list. Unfortunately, injuries intervened to make him unable to perform, but that was not a great team addition. I see that Professor Morton is not ou your list either. His contributions on the field for the past year and a half would fit in a thimble. You also neglected to mention John Hall who was a good addition who has unfortunately been injured but who has been very effective when healthy..

Let's look at the others on your list

Brunell: They wanted/needed a veteran QB. Showing no patience, the FO raced out to get someone as soon as free agency opened up so that they could make a big spalsh and get Danny Boy a press conference opportunity to see himnself on TV and in the papers. They paid a lot of money for a guy who was being thrown to the curb by a 5-11 team. The outcome of that move has been way less than positive; in fact it ranks up there with the Jeff George signing in terms of boneheadedness.

Ramsey: Was he a first round pick or merely the first pick that the Skins had that year? Compare him to other QBs taken in the first/second rounds of the draft after being in the NFL for two and a half years. I'll be polite and say that he is "behind the curve".

Barrow: Who knows if this guy is a good player or a bad player because he has not played yet? Wasn't he on the Giants team that went to the Super Bowl? If so, he can't be a total stiff...

Trotter: The Redskins gave him a $35M total package with something like a $7M signing bonus. He is now playing back in Philly on a one year deal worth less than $1M in base salary. Do you think the Skins overpaid by just a tad?

Bowen: A mediocre player who got paid a mediocre salary. He was neither a positive nor a negative.


You also have conveniently left off your list totally some disastrous acquisitions such as Regan Upshaw, Jermaine Haley, Darryl Russell, Lionel Daulton and that other useless DT that they had last year whose name escapes me at the moment. None of the five of these guys were a good acquisition. Upshaw was the best of the lot and he was pretty much "useless".

Care to evaluate Man-Mountain Kenyatta in this context? How about Ray Brown?

You said you were not sure why Cerrato and the FO is "criticized so often". I hope I have explained...

Hindsight can be a wonderful thing not every pick up is going to work out and sometimes picks flame out spectaculary although i do not belive anyone belived Brunell would have done so so badly. Thing is to say it was becasue the FO was impatient if the FO had sat on its hands and done nothing we could have picked up a gem like Warner or Garcia or even Vinny T because thier teams are doing so much better than us.

We have never been through the pain of restucturing ala San fran because every couple of years we have a cheap year cut away the dead wood. Okay we have not had a winning season in a while (10-6) in 1999 but that is more to do with the turmoil in the coachng than the talent on the field. And rember just how horrible Norv was here Marty spent most of the second part of the season developing a rift between himself and the FO and Spurrier just up and quit.

Brunell is Gibbs baby.

Vinny does a lot of college scouting tours. He's always talking to Elliot about them.

SC, I like your breakdown but I would switch your analysis on Washington and Griffin. Right now Griffin is our defensive MVP by far. Washington was a very solid signing but he hasn't had quite the impact that Griffin has.

Just my two cents.

Vinny Cerrato often gets assailed as Daniel Snyder's lapdog. I'm not sure why he is criticized so often.

In the last two seasons, among others we've acquired:

Laveranues Coles
Randy Thomas
Clinton Portis
Rock Cartwright
Ladell Betts

Cornelius Griffin
Marcus Washington
Shawn Springs
Sean Taylor
Ryan Clark

His questionable or bad moves are acquiring Mark Brunell, Patrick Ramsey (who I think was a good addition), Barrow, Trotter, and Bowen.

As far as I'm concerned, we've done a great job each offseason of putting together a great roster. It's up to the players and coaches to assemble a good team. So, in my mind Cerrato has done his job while others have failed.

I think you are wrong to assume Vinny Cerrato made those picks or decides who gets signed. V.C. is basically an overpaid talent scout. He has very little to do with the actual final decsion. He makes recommendations on the guys he likes, but the final descion comes down to D. Snyder and as of recent Joe Gibbs. Cerrato does not have the authority to pick anyone. There is not a single player on our roster where you can say 'Vinny found this guy and picked him.' Snyder will not give him that much authority.

Regarding your confussion as to what VC to not be very well liked...In speaking for myself, I never liked him since back when he was with San Fransico. If I recall correctly he took over a talented Superbowl team and overspent like crazy. I might be wrong but he was GM spent themselves into the mess they are in now.

Man you have simply ignored 75% of the personnel moves made in the Cerrato era. Since he has been here(minus one year when Marty got him pushed out) they have yet to have a good draft.
A look at our drafts since Snyder and Cerrato have been here
99
Bailey Jansen Stimson D Smith Jeff Hall T Alexander
00
Arrington Samuels L Harrison M Moore Q Sanders T Husak D Cowsette E Howell
01(Marty ball)
Gardner Smoot S Rosenfels McCants M Monds
02
Ramsey Betts Bauman Russell Lott Royal R Coleman J Grau G Scott Cartwright
03
Jacobs Dockery Hamdan
04
Taylor Cooley Wilson Molinaro

So can any of us say any of those are impressive? Don't think so. We can withhold judgment on 04 and probably 03 but 03 only had 3 picks so how good can it be. It is pretty easy to make the first and second round picks. It's the 3-4-5 picks that we either didn't have or did a poor job of using. SO our drafts have been average at best. Now lets examine some free agent moves we made under the good ole Cerrato reign.
I'll only list the free agents that are of note for this discussion. If they aren't listed assume they either didn't make the team or were totaly insiginificant
99
Traded for B Johnson S Shade
00
J George D Sanders B Smith A Murrell K Mitchell M Carrier
01 Marty ball
B Barker B Conway D Greer K Lockett W Rasby
02
Wuerfell Anthony Green Armstead Trotter
03
Coles Morton J Hall Noble Fiore Thomas Bowen
04
Barrow Washington Daniels Griffin Springs Raymer Right Tackles Galore Portis Brunell


Wow...I left off a ton of guys who I guess were marginally important..guys like backup OLMs who ended up playing some. The point was that base on the list aboev I can't say we have done well in Free Agency. We ahd some good years(2003) and some and(2002) but at the end of the day there are too many over the ehill of of the road type guys. I haven't even gone into the guys we lost. If you look at it objectively we just have not had a quality personnel guy since Casserly.

I think you are wrong to assume Vinny Cerrato made those picks or decides who gets signed. V.C. is basically an overpaid talent scout. He has very little to do with the actual final decsion. He makes recommendations on the guys he likes, but the final descion comes down to D. Snyder and as of recent Joe Gibbs. Cerrato does not have the authority to pick anyone. There is not a single player on our roster where you can say 'Vinny found this guy and picked him.' Snyder will not give him that much authority.

Regarding your confussion as to what VC to not be very well liked...In speaking for myself, I never liked him since back when he was with San Fransico. If I recall correctly he took over a talented Superbowl team and overspent like crazy. I might be wrong but he was GM spent themselves into the mess they are in now.
Are you out of your mind??!! Cerrato until Gibbs showed up was the main guy telling Synder waht to do. Plain and simple. It is documented that he is Synder's guy. Hell, he even REHIRED him after Marty left. True Cerrato does not make the final decision but you can't find any eveidence that the Skins ever made a pick that Cerrato didn't agree to. Cerrato IS NOT just a talent evaluator for Synder he is is SYnder's football guy who guided him through the first couple years and is the MAIN guy telling Synder what to do. You are fooing yourself if you think Synder just keeps him on the get his opinion and then discard it.

I think you are wrong to assume Vinny Cerrato made those picks or decides who gets signed. V.C. is basically an overpaid talent scout. He has very little to do with the actual final decsion. He makes recommendations on the guys he likes, but the final descion comes down to D. Snyder and as of recent Joe Gibbs. Cerrato does not have the authority to pick anyone. There is not a single player on our roster where you can say 'Vinny found this guy and picked him.' Snyder will not give him that much authority.

Regarding your confussion as to what VC to not be very well liked...In speaking for myself, I never liked him since back when he was with San Fransico. If I recall correctly he took over a talented Superbowl team and overspent like crazy. I might be wrong but he was GM spent themselves into the mess they are in now.


Actually, Cerrato and Coach vote, with Snyder casting the deciding vote. This was the setup under Spurrier as well, and I believe Turner before that. Only Schotty had full control, and I think that drove Dan nuts. So Cerrato has considerable influence, and is trusted in his evaluations.

But the point I wanted to make was this: If you go and sign every big free agent that's available, of course some will be succesfull, well others will bust. And that's what we do, year in and year out. This year its worked out ok, but I think that's alot of luck.

I think a much better index of Cerrato's GM acumen is our record in the draft, and its troubling. While we have done well with top 5 picks so far, I believe we would all agree that our record in later records, where teams seperate themselves, has been suspect at best.

Cerrato ain't Bethard, that's for sure.