[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

What the Pats and Eagles do (and to a lesser extent the Packers, Titans, Colts, and Chargers) with fiscal responsibility is really just a microchosm of a grander scheme of understanding why teams win, and adjusting their team building properties accordingly.

To be honest, the Skins aren't THAT far off the pace of those teams, and share a lot of the same philosophies. The Skins actually adhere to many principles of fiscal responsibility, and really try to attack the market when it is weakest.

The way we attack the cap is by design, but the plan has gone critically wrong at a few key steps which has prevented this team from getting to the top of the league. Namely, if Lloyd and Archuleta had even a small percentage of a positive effect on the overall on-field talent, those contracts would look great in hindsight. The fact that they were both useless players absoulely backed this team up to the brink of disaster.

Here's the only difference in philosophy between us and New England: When the Pats miss, it's on a second round receiver like Bethel Johnson or Chad Jackson who plays three seasons and then gets cut. When we miss, it costs the team $15 million in cap dollars and triple that in oppertunity costs/draft picks.

Basically, I'm saying the "Redskins way" will work as soon as the team stops missing so badly on a couple of players. Then again, the team is one critical miss away from being so capped out that they have to dismantle the whole thing. Thus...forced to draft smartly.

This jives with my thinking. The way we do things is not the problem. It has been the talent evaluation that has caused problems. If Arch is the player they thought he was then that move looks like a bargain at this point. Same with Lloyd. I actually like the way we approach things except for one fact. We need to start drafting linemen and using FA as the way to add skill. Skill players are pretty hit and miss mostly while linemen, bot defense and offense, are much easier to scout and usually come cheaper. If we start picking linemen with our good picks we'd be in better shape.