[sportscurmudgeon]

Instead of expressing shock and horror that someone - OK it's me - might suggest that the on-field talent is deficient, please explain to me how:

If the WR corps is "one of the best in the league" AND

If Patrick Ramsey is bordering on greatness with his courage and strong arm

The Redskins scored two field goals yesterday? TWO DAMNED FIELD GOALS!


By the way, the Redskins are now the lowest scoring team in the NFL - lower than the Miami Dolphins and the SF 49ers!! We KNOW that those teams have talent problems but for some reason when it comes to Washington, it isn't the talent on the field; it is something else. Wanna buy some beachfront property in Nebraska?


The offensive line - which is satisfactory to many here - generated all of 51 yards rushing yesterday. Remember, the weakness of the Eagles' defense was supposed to be that you could run on them. What happened?


It isn't worth the trouble to go and look up the exact numbers here but there have been 10 games so far this year. My guess is that the entire wide receiver corps has less than 10 TDs. I know Gardner has 4 or 5 and Cooley has 3 or 4 and Coles has 1. That's it; that's the list; none of the others has produced a point. Note, I'm being generous here and adding Cooley into the wide receiver stats so that they are not really embarrassing.


If I go to some other team websites, how many of them will have fewer than 10 TD by their WRs for the season now? A dozen? I'm not sure it is that high but it isn't worth the effort to go and check it out. We do know that the Eagles will not be one of the teams below 10 TD receptions because their lead receiver has 13 TDs this year and the Skins' lead receiver has 1. That's some kind of disparity.



Ramseyfan:


I wish you were right and that I was Danny Boy Snyder. The first thing I'd do is take a trip around the world and start enjoying my wealth instead of trying to meddle in a football team that I obviously know nothing about and making myself look like the village idiot. Correction, make that the metropolitan idiot!


The point is that the team has a lot of money invested in and tied up in players who are good - but not good enough. If they were good enough they would be just a tad better than 8 - 18 in the past two seasons.


The secret to winning in a salary cap era for more than one year is to be able to identify and sign and train YOUNG talented football players who do not cost much versus the cap. Then you can sign some "high paid talent" - and it damned well better be the right ones - and you can blend them together. When one of the guys who has played well but not great for you wants a big contract, you thank him for his services and release him. When one of the guys who has played really well for you has time left on his deal, you get him signed to a long term cap-freindly deal. That's how it's done and it all begins with the identification of young talent.

Note, young talent is often low round picks and undrafted free agents and not big-name draft picks that get a lot of play on the mock draft boards. The Eagles starting DTs yesterday were both undrafted free agents. They were spelled by another DT who was an undrafted free agent and a first round draft pick. They do not have a lot of money tied up there, but they have played decently, this year, no? Or would you argue that the Redskins' DL is better than the Eagles' DL?

And that is what has been in short supply here for the past 5-8 years and that is why the records in that period of time have been "discouraging". And the only way to change it is to start getting many more young players who are much more capable and starting the blending process with those high paid vets who are worth retaining.

Does that sound like "blowing up the team"? It should. Because that's probably what it's gonna take. But there are all those folks who think the Skins are one or at most two players short of being a Super Bowl contender, and so to keep them happy, maybe all we need to do is sign a couple of glitzy free agents in March and draft someone we can fly in on a helicopter in April and then go 5-11 again next year.