[sportscurmudgeon]

Maybe - just maybe - part of the reason that people here are quick to jump on players who leave for larger contracts is that they have become accustomed to gloating when players leave other teams to come to the Redskins for larger contracts. When that happens, people here say that Danny Boy is all about winning and the other owner is a cheapskate who doesn't know sh*t from applebutter. Now things are happening in the other direction. So there's no chance to gloat about some other organization being a bunch of cheapskates, and so people need to find a scapegoat.

Just a thought to keep in mind: If you want to build a team of "core Redskins" - or "core Seahawks" in Seattle - you're going to have to do a lot of player searching because "core Whatevers" and "mercenaries" don't go together. When any team goes and hires a lot of mercenaries, it's hard for anyone in that locker room to feel that anything is more important than the value of the contract and the money going into the checking account. On the assumption that Joe Gibbs is trying to change all that, you will have to give him some time, because the Washington Redskins team he inherited was mostly mercenaries - people who came here only because Danny Boy had a big check for them.

I'm very glad to see that people are stating that they don't wish for car crashes or career ending injuries to befall ex-Redskin players - or any other players for that matter. That is a bit over the top.

I will make only one "excuse" for Coles. There was a point in the soap opera where he evidently agreed to forego his $5M bonus in exchange for his release - not a trade, his release. Then "things changed" and everyone got really pissy. Here's why I think the Skins FO made a mistake.

If they had just released Coles and saved the $5M, they would have had added cap room in 2005 - I calculate it to be about $3M but I defer to Crazy Canuck if he says I'm wrong here. Instead, they managed to spend $3M in cap room to get Santana Moss who is a player they probably aren't going to turn inot a #3M/year player. I think the FO's tactics here were very counter-productive and I don't think they were Coles' fault.

Whatever. It's water over the dam now. What's iomportant now is finding a way to assure that Patrick Ramsey is protected in 2006...