do we show our hand to soon (Barrow allowed to seek trade)

The Redskins have recently given Barrow permission to seek a trade, there is likely to be no intrest and result in his release.

This causes me to ask the question do the redskins as a team tip their hands to early on what moves they will make with players. I feel they do for two reasons

1. Rod Gardner: we made it very clear that he will no longer be on the team and given him permission to seek a trade; however he gets no suitors. This is because of the fact that everyone knows we don't want him, so sooner or later we will release him. Why exchange a pick or compensation for someone, that eventually they will get for free later.

2. Barrow: many believed we would release him and if he's treated like Gardner he will soon have no value to us. So I ask why not just release him.

I don't like the way that Gibbs is handling this, it seems like he doesn't know what he is doing as a GM. To me he is tipping his hand either way to early or way to late. With Gardner it was simply too early because everyone in the league knew we had no value in the wideout and therefore won't give us a dime in return for him. They are willing to holdout until we release him.

While with barrow on the other hand its was way to late... we should of found a trade that we liked and used him as trade bait. Maybe they want to send him to the patriots or something

either way I think when you tell players to seek a trade, it sends the message that we don't want him, please take him. if we showed value in our players or atleast acted like we had value in them by letting them come to camp or make it seem like they will participate in camp I think we would get more trade offers... what do you guys think?


FINALLY! Yes, our front office IS to blame for the way they have bungled one situation after another! Why even sign Barrow, 35, to a 6 year 13 million dollar dealt to begin with! And why would you tell Lavernous Coles that you will trade him and suffer such a huge cap hit? This team needs a GM. Those of us that are old school remember when the GM was Bobby Beatherd and the team thrived with its personnell, now we flounder. Gibbs has proven he's a great coach, but he needs someone else to be the devil's advocate on personnell decisions, just like Beatherd was in the old days. Vinny Cerrato is NOT the answer, we need a GM that will work with the coach, and disagree with him when it is necessary. Yes, they have picked up a few good free agents in Marcus Washington and Cornelius, but for the most part our team is in disarray when it comes to the draft and free agency. Look at Darnerian McCants, signed him to a deal, gave him a nice sigining bonus, then sat his ass on the bench all of last season. We traded like a 3rd round pick for Brunnell who would've been cut anyway, then we trade Champ AND a draft pick for Portis. I know some of you guys don't like to criticize our team, but the fact of the matter is that our front office has made the Skins a laughing stock on most websites. We need a GM.

I could not find any news that we wanted to trade Barrow. Where did this come from?

Check the news wire

http://www.thewarpath.net/showthread.php?threadid=6921

Right. Eventually Rod will just have to take what he can getg.

FINALLY! Yes, our front office IS to blame for the way they have bungled one situation after another! Why even sign Barrow, 35, to a 6 year 13 million dollar dealt to begin with! And why would you tell Lavernous Coles that you will trade him and suffer such a huge cap hit? This team needs a GM. Those of us that are old school remember when the GM was Bobby Beatherd and the team thrived with its personnell, now we flounder. Gibbs has proven he's a great coach, but he needs someone else to be the devil's advocate on personnell decisions, just like Beatherd was in the old days. Vinny Cerrato is NOT the answer, we need a GM that will work with the coach, and disagree with him when it is necessary. Yes, they have picked up a few good free agents in Marcus Washington and Cornelius, but for the most part our team is in disarray when it comes to the draft and free agency. Look at Darnerian McCants, signed him to a deal, gave him a nice sigining bonus, then sat his ass on the bench all of last season. We traded like a 3rd round pick for Brunnell who would've been cut anyway, then we trade Champ AND a draft pick for Portis. I know some of you guys don't like to criticize our team, but the fact of the matter is that our front office has made the Skins a laughing stock on most websites. We need a GM.

Actually I don't think that anyone would laugh at our offseason decisions last year. We had two people come in and play at a Pro Bowl level (Springs and Griffin). Who was to know Barrow would have that injury? Portis is doing better for us than Champ is for Denver. I don't see your point?

In trying to get rid of either player, how would you suggest we proceed? We are allowing them to seek employment elsewhere, which would allow us to possibly get some compensation for their release. If the decision is made to get rid of Barrow (which likely means they have seen good things from a new addition, so that's a plus), then releasing him or trading him doesn't affect our cap situation either way. If someone is willing to part with a 5th rounder, then great. If not, it would allow us to hold onto Gardner until someone is willing to trade for him, rather than cutting him to sign draft picks.

This is the nature of football. How often are trades ever made? Not often compared to other sports. Why? Because the nature of the salary cap and team's reluctance to make moves based on chemistry reasons means it is difficult to get a trade worked out. It is common in the NFL for teams to allow players to seek trades such as in the case of 50/50. The reason they do this is because teams know that with the cap if a team is looking to get rid of a guy they're 95% going to simply release him when it becomes advantageous. Therefore the only way to actually consumate a trade is to get the player to agree to a long term deal so it is in the other team's interest to actually trade for the player rather waiting for him to hit the market and then be faced with competition. To get a long term deal the player has to be involved and it is in no way in the player's benefit to stay quiet about this. There is no "better way" to deal with this issue.

Its sad to say but our best senario is that a teem has an injury to a WR very early in training camp. That may give use some negotiating power. I would not wish injury on anyone.

FINALLY! Yes, our front office IS to blame for the way they have bungled one situation after another! Why even sign Barrow, 35, to a 6 year 13 million dollar dealt to begin with! And why would you tell Lavernous Coles that you will trade him and suffer such a huge cap hit? This team needs a GM. Those of us that are old school remember when the GM was Bobby Beatherd and the team thrived with its personnell, now we flounder. Gibbs has proven he's a great coach, but he needs someone else to be the devil's advocate on personnell decisions, just like Beatherd was in the old days. Vinny Cerrato is NOT the answer, we need a GM that will work with the coach, and disagree with him when it is necessary. Yes, they have picked up a few good free agents in Marcus Washington and Cornelius, but for the most part our team is in disarray when it comes to the draft and free agency. Look at Darnerian McCants, signed him to a deal, gave him a nice sigining bonus, then sat his ass on the bench all of last season. We traded like a 3rd round pick for Brunnell who would've been cut anyway, then we trade Champ AND a draft pick for Portis. I know some of you guys don't like to criticize our team, but the fact of the matter is that our front office has made the Skins a laughing stock on most websites. We need a GM.
Wow! those are points no one has ever brought up before! I am surprised we hadn't thought of them.
I don't know if I'll ever get tired of hearing how bad our front office is. I mean the world wouldn't be complete without some know-it-all proclaiming that he thinks we should have handled something differently. 20-20 is hindsight and the decisions made are counter to the decisions made in the past. Note: we haven't won a playoff game since 1991...maybe the decisions in the past we pretty poor and the new dirction is the right way.
As for why we signed Barrow:
Because Barrow had missed like 1 game in the last 8 years and was NOT A INJURY RISK when signed. His situation simply turned out to be bad luck. He was a stud Pro Bowl linebacker with no injury history to speak of. It was a quality signing that didn't work out. The 6 year deal was actually more like a 3 year deal and they got him for decent money. They could not reasonably expected him to never play when he never had any injuries before. Just plain old bad luck.

Here is one problem that our front office created and could have avoided, that contributed to this situation:
Given our salary cap situation, we do not have enough space to sign our rookies. We have to get rid of someone to sign our rookies and this telegraphs to all the other teams that we HAVE to get rid of someone.
So other teams will just sit back and wait for these players and get them for free; rather offer up valuable draft picks.
We have to dump the salary of RG and MB. Every team in the NFL knows this. We will not anything for them.