what in the hell are they thinking at redskin park?

A bandwagon needs several things to run effectively. First it needs wheels, and the wheels fell off of our bandwagon nearly 15 years ago. Secondly, it needs a driver and while it would appear that we have one in Gibbs, unfortunately we also have a backseat driver in Snyder who apparently isn't going to stop until he puts this team in salary cap hell through the next 5 presidential administrations. And I was raised by my grandmother to love this team even when they were the "deadskins" before Gibbs. My loyalty to this team never came into doubt until I began to doubt this team's loyalty to itself and its traditions of intelligent drafting, power football and pride in the uniform, none of which seem to be in abundance at this moment. You are right, we didn't get the egotistical loud mouth Winslow with the great bloodlines. We got the loudmouth, egotistical and drunk Taylor who apparently now wants to hold out after one above average rookie season. I repeat myself, the only member of a defensive backfield that has any business holding out for any reason is a young Ronnie Lott with superbowl rings in hand. Last year we also got the egotistical and loud mouth Coles, who actually managed to get himself kicked out of FSU. God only knows how many RICO indictments you have to be facing before Bowden finally drops the axe on you. And no Winslow didn't get his "revenge" on us personally last year due to his broken leg. I guess he'll just have to settle for going to six or seven pro-bowls in the next 10 years while our tight end, by the way who the hell does play tight end for us, puts up pathetically average numbers like the ones we are going to get this year from Moss (another loud mouthed egotistical Miami player who gleefully displays all of the character traits you despise in Winslow), Patten and Rod Lardrner, not Gardner, who's contributions last year were about as valuable as those of a pot-bellied pig for dinner at the end of fasting for Ramadaan.

winslow would have been a wasted pick, he does not fit into gibbs offense. he is better suited for a throw first offense, not a run first offense. he's not even a top 10 te in the nfl, why you love him so much is really disturbing to me.
in the past dan snyder did overpay for players and the skins are now paying for it. since gibbs has taken over, dan has been much more tight with his money and thats the way it needs to be. the skins cannot afford to overpay the way they used to.
as for paying champ bailey, he was offered plenty, he did not want to stay in washington regardless of the offer . good ridence to him. he made me sick, he would get burnt for a td at least 4 times a year. the skins defense was better without him. springs is just as good, if not better. smoot was not better than bailey or springs or carlos rogers for that matter. his #1 mistake is he confided in bailey.
back to the subject of off-season additions to the offense , patten and moss are upgrades when compared to coles and gardner. they also got casey raback, plus the return of john jansen. the offense should be better this season.
defense wins championships and the skins had to do what was necassary to keep it up to par. mike williams was less important to the skins when compared to carlose rogers. the skins do not need another rod gardner on the team. he's big and slow. i would rather the skins use mccants more this year than draft williams.

When a few days ago they made the trade for the 25th pick no one in the league, the press, or the fans could figure out what they were doing. And now that it is over I still can't figure out what they are doing. Even if you take for granted that we needed another QB and that Campbell is the:
1)QB of the future
2)best QB of the draft
3)the Messiah
How can you say we needed to give up a 1st, 3rd and 4th for him, when I think he would have been there in the 2nd round.

Yeah... I agree. So, they used 3 draft picks to pick up a QB that easily would be no more than a second round draft pick?? Huh? Also, I have to laugh at Gibbs as he justified this pick as investment in the future... and said this was no reflection on Ramsey. Of course, it all depends on his progress and performance, but i thought RAMSEY was the future investment for QB position.

This has been the worst offseason that I can remember... Losing important players and using the high draft picks to just replace or just add players. I don't see where they improved at all... And now that they have no dominant WR to speak of, I can't see their passing game improving much from last year.

I usually look at the Skins optimiscally.... but after this offseason I'm pessimistic as hell for next season.

EXIT0 your just used to all the high profile players that the skins have been getting since danny snyder took over. your used to the redskins winning the off season superbowl. finally things are getting back to normal in dc.
just relax and enjoy this ride as gibbs returns this organization into a winning one.

Yeah... I agree. So, they used 3 draft picks to pick up a QB that easily would be no more than a second round draft pick?? Huh? Also, I have to laugh at Gibbs as he justified this pick as investment in the future... and said this was no reflection on Ramsey. Of course, it all depends on his progress and performance, but i thought RAMSEY was the future investment for QB position.

This has been the worst offseason that I can remember... Losing important players and using the high draft picks to just replace or just add players. I don't see where they improved at all... And now that they have no dominant WR to speak of, I can't see their passing game improving much from last year.

I usually look at the Skins optimiscally.... but after this offseason I'm pessimistic as hell for next season.

What if god forbid something terrible happened to Ramsey next year. Then we would have been stuck with Brunell and forced to draft a quarterback out of need and probably tried to trade up and seriously overpaid to get someone.

This was an investment pick. It is an insurance pick. Gibbs likes this guy because he fits our system and will begin his career learning and develping slowly.

Granted we could have drafted Adrian McPhereson in a later round, but he doesn't have the cleanest track record and is definately and uncut diamond. But even the best jewlers can ruin a diamond.

Our defense was already more than up to par. It was a championship defense and as you pointed out, Springs was more than adequate as a replacement for Bailey. All of this means that we didn't need to look for a franchise corner (which rogers isn't) at 9 b/c we didn't even need one. All we needed out of this draft was another starting corner. And we probably couldv'e gotten Rogers later anyway. Look at the draft order. The next corner back wasn't taken until the Raiders took Fabian Washington at 23. If we had taken Williams at 9, Carlos Rogers and Fabian Washington would have fallen to the mid 20's, where they would have been solid picks and we would have ended up with one of them anyway. Then we could've gotten Campbell in the later rounds and not had to pay him starter's money just b/c we took him in the first round. And I can't repeat this enough. MWillams is not Michael Westbrook. He's not Keyshawn Johnson. He's the best, big, physical play-maker with super hands to come out since Michael Irvin (I know he played for Dallas but you can't argue with his talent or effectiveness. Ask the speedy Darrel Green or Deion Sanders how much fun it was trying to cover Irvin for 60 minutes.) and he's going to be better than Michael Irvin ever was. And Rod Lardner and this McCants guy would sell their souls to the devil to be as good as MWilliams was in high school.
Moss is not an upgrade over Coles. They are both whining spoiled prima-donnas who have blazing speed that they use only to dazzle GM's with but they will never play up to their potential. And after getting completely hosed by the Jets in the first Coles deal, I would be very reticent to make another one with them. If you bought a crappy car from me that only broke down and never ran right, would you really feel confident trading that same crappy car back to me for another one of the crappy cars on my lot? Probably not. The only reason Winslow isn't one of the best TE's in the league is b/c he didn't play last year. And if guys like Joe Caravello, Terry Orr and Clint Didier were effective w/Gibbs, can you imagine what a real TE/H-Back like Winslow would do? Especially if defenses had to account for both he and Williams. The bottom line here is that we could have done everything we did in the draft this year and still gotten Mike Williams but we decided to take Rogers about 12-15 picks instead of where he should've been selected and then we compounded that mistake by taking Campbell about 25-30 spots in front of where he should've gone and we'll be paying for that for years to come. All of which leaves us about where we were this time last year; with a superb, fast and physical defense but without one single player on the offensive side of the ball that will command a double team or create any real match up problems for the opposing defense. We shouldn't just be right back where you started from after having two lottery picks in two years...Unless we've become the New Orleans Saints or the Bengals or something.

if we would have taken williams at 9, then carlos rogers
( who , in my opinion, was a much greater need and a much, much, much better player than williams will ever be) would not have been available at 25. if we took campell at 25 after wasting 9 on williams, we would never have gotten a good cb. we didn't pick again until round 4. if we would have taken another player at 25 after wasting 9 on williams, we would never have gotten campbell, he would have been drafted by miami,cleveland or tampa bay with their next pick.
i know you will disagree with me and thats fine. thank you for the good debate.

formerskinsfan, if you have not done so already, i suggest you go to hailredskins.com and read the BOSWEL article from the Wash. post. it gives a good picture as to why the skins drafted rogers and campbel instead of williams.

The Boswell article was a very good one. He is right. Only time will tell. So that said, Rogers had better fly around like a wasp and sting everything in sight for the next 10 years. Why? Because we gave up about 60-80 touchdowns over the next five or six years to get him so he damn well better stop that many from getting past him. I understand everything you guys are all saying about defense. I do. But in the end, you have to create mis-matches on offense to win. This isn't soccer. You have to score the ball. And right now, I don't see anyone on the offensive side of the ball who's effectiveness can't be curtailed or flat out eliminated by a good defensive scheme (like the ones we will see from Dallas and Philly). And having seen Williams w/my own eyes and talking to people in the SC program, I know for sure, there is no curtailing MWilliams. He is a force of nature. That being said, I hope to hell that I'm wrong and I'll gladly suffer all of your slings and arrows if this team goes 12-4 and wins the NFC east. Right now, I just don't think I'm going to have to do that.

It's funny how so many people have taken to the likes of Mike Williams when the fact remains that he has been out of football for over a year. Who's to say Williams is going to live up to all the hype. People have already treated the guy like some hall of fame player before he has even stepped out onto the field. Desmond Howard was a number draft pick, Michael Westbrook was a number one guy as well I believe...yet where are they now?