One last thing about Coles...

Daseal - I don't dispute that Coles recalls it that way. There is a difference between "feeling good coming out of the meeting" and being ready to move forward as a Redskin. The goal of Gibbs, Snyder, and everyone involved with personnel decisions should be to have a roster full of people who are excited to be a part of the team, or at least want to be there. Coles may have said he would continue to work hard as a Redskin, but since the coaching staff and Coles clearly had issues during the season, perhaps another year of the status quo wasn't appealing to the Front Office.

Please don't consider this a defense of the "F--- me? F--- you!" tactics employed by Snyder in this instance. Though I found the exchange amusing, it was anything but productive.

Hey, Coles wanted to leave, we granted that freedom...like or not, Coles is gone; end of story.

[QUOTE=TheMalcolmConnection]In case this hasn't already been posted, I got this over at Tandler's Redskins Blog:

"Coles' main complaint about Gibbs was the coach's inflexible nature. "I didn't feel respected as a player," Coles said. "I know everything changed [when Gibbs succeeded Spurrier] but when you feel like you're one of the best players at your position, you'd think you could talk to a coach about the play-calling. We didn't have that situation. He called the plays. We ran them. That's where things fell off with me. I realize it's a dictatorship but there's only so much you can take."

http://redskinsblog.blogspot.com/[/QUOTE

First I dont have anything really against Coles. He played well for us for TWO seasons. But comments like the ones above do kill a team. I do recall him (as alot of our WR's did last year) dropping balls alot. He also ranked 7th in the entire NFL with 90 receptions but only gained 950 yards. Every time you watch any sport, and I mean any sport what is the comment you here? "You need to put the ball into the hands of your playmakers", well the Redskins did that 90 times last year and he was not much of a play maker.
Look at Moss he caught half the passes (45) for 838 yards just 112 yads short of LC, and he had the weak armed Chad Pentigon throwint to him. Chad's longest past last year was 48 yds, Ramsey's was 51 and guess who caught that ball not LC but Rod Gardner.
Yes the coach did call the plays and he called Coles's number alot, but Coles just could not come up with the big play, he was not a threat to go deep. I beleive he would return to form if he got that TOE fixed.

Most definitely. And I do apologize to everyone for reposting part of this article. TAFKAS informed me that it was in another post...

We'll see how Coles fares in New York next year...

I am just saying I dont beleive he truley wanted to be a Redskin. I remember seeing his former Jet team mate Randy Thomas on the NFL network saying he was very vocal in the locker room and Randy also said you are either a Redskin or not and if you are not then Bye....

Exactly the kind of attitude that will infect whatever team he is on like ebola. Good riddance you craptastic jerk. Too bad your attitude is going to doom your career in spite of the fact that you have loads of talent. Every team he has been on in the last 7 years has booted his ass out the door. That's telling when you consider it. I mean he couldn't stay on at FSU where they only thing that gets you off the team is murder. Warrick even was given the benefit of the doubt and allowed back. Not Coles though. Then he was ushered out the door unceremoniously in NY the first time with some nice comments from Herm Edwards who wouldn't say a bad thing about Hitler. The question is though...why did they take him back?

I want to clear up some things about your post. First of all, Warrick apologized, Coles didn't think he did anything wrong. They went into a department store and were looking to purchase a lot of clothes, when the guy at the register rang it up, he told them like $25 or something. It was wrong because they were benefiting from fame as amateurs, which is not allowed by the NCAA. They paid what the guy at the register told them to...I wouldn't apologize either.

The Jets wanted to re-sign Coles, but they couldn't. They never said they didn't want him back, they couldn't afford to bring him back. And if they hated him so damn much then why did they work so hard to get him back via the trade?

With the Skins he thought he had worked out an agreement where he would forfeit his bonus if given his release. He wanted to be a free agents so when the Skins said they would trade him, he decided not to. He wanted to be a free agent and find his own team, if he was traded he couldn't do that, so he didn't forfeit the money. A lot of this is the Skins fault.

I'm happy we got Moss, but part of the reason that Coles had such a low yds per catch average is the inordinate amount of busted wide receiver screens we ran last year. Not many offenses survive by throwing five yard outs and asking the wideout to "make a play" but that seemed to be our offense last year.

I think the idea of having everyone happy and excited to be a Redskin is a little unrealistic, especially when we haven't had a winning season in 5 years. I think this is actually more proof of why we have been losing so much, it's like our front office has ADD. Each year the plan changes, the roster changes (SIGNIFICANTLY) and each year we lose more games than we win.

I refuse to believe that our front office is blameless in all of this, just as I refuse to believe that our only recourse with Coles was to trade him for Moss. Yes, Coles had the possibility of being a locker room cancer, but why? Now all of a sudden he's a bad guy, for what? For saying that Gibbs wouldn't listen to his suggestions? I love Gibbs, think he's one of the best coaches of all time, but we have to trade a guy who called the coach inflexible? Then we pay the guy $5 mil, are preparing to sign his replacement to a big money deal, and consequently lose two guys because we're sticking to a salary structure?

I don't buy any of it. All I want is the Skins to win games, and to me it seems like that's what Coles wanted as well. He was already getting paid, so what was his motivation for wanting to give input on playcalling? Coles was the toughest SOB on the squad the last two years, bar none. Everyone in here complained about the offense last season, but Coles is not allowed to speak up? And he was unhappy ALL SEASON LONG, did anyone get the impression that he was ever giving less than his best?

Off topic a bit. But lets trade Brunell to the Texans for Charlie Casserly. I see two positives here. We maintain the ongoing goal of making sure that the state of Texas never has a decent football program again. And we get our boy back.

Coles is gone we should just move on.

I still don't understand someone who defends Coles, but whatever.

Bridaman - could his 90 catches with a low YPC have to do with an anemic offensive scheme? I think so! You can only make so many yards on WR screens.

Matty - Sorry I don't jump off liking a guy to hating him in three instants. I think a lot of things happened behind the scenes that we can't see and who are we to demonize Coles?