With another disappointing Redskins season winding down, what do fans have to look forward to? Has this team bottomed out or is this team still in denial? The answer to this question has more to do with the team’s future than with their present. And that boils down to if its the Snyder/Allen/Gruden triumvirate from Fourth Ring of Hell or someone with new ideas, someone who won’t hold back to burn a franchise down to the ground and start anew. Someone like….the author of this piece.
“If The Author Was In Charge Of The Redskins: A Two Act Playlet”
Act 1: Ripping Off The Bandaid
Fox: Jon, come on in and sit down.
Gruden: Its Jay.
Fox: Whatever. Anyway, we all know that Bruce Allen snapped last week and has locked himself in a motel room in Tennessee with a midget. While the SWAT teams try to talk him into putting away the nunchucks, Mr. Snyder has put me in charge of the franchise.
Gruden: I thought Dan was also in a motel room with a midget…
Fox: Yes, well I had to get him out of the way also. So, it's just you and me and we’re going to fix this franchise right here, right now.
Gruden: Excellent, I have some thoughts written down about this, starting with giving Jim Haslett one more season to prove himself since he lost Orakpo and Hall to injury and that undermined a lot of what he was hoping to do. And next…
Fox: Can I see that?
Gruden: Sure (hands him the document)
Fox: (yelling) SEND IN THE GIMP!
(Larry Michael, former senior VP of the franchise, dressed as the gimp from ‘Pulp Fiction’ is led in by Joe Theismann, Fox hands him the memo)
Fox: Burn that gimp.
Larry Michael: (indistinct mumbling as he leaves the room)
Fox: Excellent. Ok, Jay I’ve already taken the liberty of making some cuts to the roster. It’s not like you’re winning much with these guys anyways.
Gruden: OK….can I have some input in th…
Fox: No. Here’s the list (hands it to Gruden)
(Gruden reads the list)
Gruden: You’re cutting the entire starting line!
Fox: I’m cutting 3 starters, letting one walk and trading the other.
Gruden: But..
Fox: And Foerster has to go as your line coach. I hired Mike Tice away from that mess in Atlanta. How good has your line done for you this year?
Gruden: Umm...
Fox: Excellent. Moving on. Jacksonville is giving us a high 2nd for Trent Williams. And if they re-sign him and he makes the Pro Bowl in 2015, we get their 1st in 2016. The Packers are giving us the rights to RT Don Barclay for a swap of 3rds.
Gruden: Well…
Fox: Or we can pay Trent $100+ million like he’ll demand after next season. It's up to you, but the money to pay for him will come out of the rest of the offensive line.
Gruden: You’re in charge.
Fox: You ain't kidding. And with those cuts and dumping the dead weight on the defense (Bowen, Hall and Riley), we’ve gone from $20 million in cap room to $37 million in cap room. Let’s go over the defense while we’re at it..(pushes a button on his desk and a projection of the starting defensive lineup comes up on an adjoining wall). Just to let you know, I told Haslett that he was fired. He objected and said that you would rehire him so I had him drugged and flown to northern Syria. Hopefully he’s persuasive enough to talk ISIS into hiring him as their head of defense so that the coalition forces can just run the same tactic at them over and over again until they’re totally defeated. I hired Wade Phillips as your new defensive coordinator. He attended most of the Skins’ games last season to look his son, your TEs coach work. He and I have come up with some signings for the defense. Kerrigan, Robinson and Murphy will stay at LB, only Wade wants Murphy to play the Brian Cushing role at ILB. Brooks Reed (4 years, $14 million) will be the new OLB to go with Kerrigan. Wade knows him very well. Wade and I both like Jason Hatcher and Chris Baker, but Cofield is a backup now frankly. We signed Dan Williams from Arizona (5 years, $26 million) and BJ Raji on a prove it to me deal (1 year, $4 million). Wade likes Breeland at one CB spot, but Amerson is a waste at CB. He’s moving to FS and we’ll get a strong safety in the draft. And we just signed Kareem Jackson (2 years, $8 million) and Patrick Robinson (3 years, $13 million) to team with Breeland. If Amerson struggles at FS, then we'll dump him and play Jackson at FS.
(Gruden pulls out a flask and takes a sip)
Gruden: Can we knock this off early, the racetrack casino is calling my name.
Fox: Soon Jo...Jay..soon. We have to discuss one major issue though.
Gruden: What?
Fox: Griffin.
Gruden: Oh.
Fox: Yes...well. Let me frame this dilemma with a question. We pick 6th right now. Mariota will just be another RG3 type guy for you. Winston might be Geno Smith 2.0. And that’s assuming we could get either. And the costless agency market pickings are rather slim unless you like Christian Ponder or Brian Hoyer. I’m not taking on Kaepernick or Jay Cutler’s contracts. So, tell me Jay: Who’s available as a better option at QB than RG3 right now?
Gruden: Andy Dalton.
Fox: Yeah, I talked to them. They want RG3 and a swap of firsts for him. Thats not happening.
Gruden: I honestly don’t think that RG3 will be a consistently effective QB for my offense in the next 2-3 seasons.
Fox: And you may be right. I don’t know what RG3 is. You don’t know what RG3 is. With the offensive line you had last season, what could you really know about what RG3 or any QB could be? I’ll make you this deal Jay. If you roll with RG3, a vet like Shaun Hill (1 year, 2 $million) and a Day 2 rookie draft pick, the QB situation won’t reflect on you at all. And if this doesn’t work out, we roll with the rookie in 2016 or sign someone like Sam Bradford or Nick Foles...deal?
Gruden: Ok, I’ll be fine with that.
Fox: Ok, I’ll see you in the war room on draft day.
Act 2: Is There A Draft In Here?
(April 30th, 2015)
Fox, Gruden, Wade Phillips, Mike Tice and Sean McVay all sit around the Redskins war room. Fox is going through the draft board with the coaches and picks up the phone. He dials the number for the Redskins’ representative on the floor of the draft.
Fox: Brandon Scherff, OT Iowa.
Tice: I like him. Nasty mauler of a guy and doesn’t have to learn the basics. He’s the LT of the future.
(May 1st 2015)
The same coaches are sitting around the war room. Wade is flipping through Twitter.
Fox: Stay frosty Wade, I’m getting you a safety tonight.
Fox picks up the phone and dials the number for the floor representative..
Fox: AJ Cann, OG South Carolina.
Gruden: Didn’t you go to South Carolina also?
Fox: I did, but name a more experienced guard out there. Four year starter, amazing run blocker and does well in the phone booth.
Gruden: Good point, but I need a center out there also.
Fox: It’s coming Jay.
Tice: This kid Cann could be this year’s Warford or Gabe Jackson.
(30 minutes later)
Fox: Wade, this pick is for you. (picks up the phone and dials the floor rep) Cody Prewitt, S Ole Miss.
Wade: Oh yeah.
Gruden: Nasty player, I love it.
(2 hours later)
Fox: This is for our deal Jay.
(Fox picks up the phone and dials the floor rep again)
Fox: Sean Mannion, QB Oregon State.
McVay: Not the best prospect, but Jay and I can work with him. I worry about his consistency but he has a live arm and good accuracy.
Fox: He just struggles when rushed as Southern Cal can attest, but we’re fixing the line for him and Robert.
(1 hour later)
Fox: Max Garcia, OL Florida
McVay: Interesting.
Tice: Could be a center, could be a guard. Smart and tough. Just struggles with quickness under him.
(May 2nd 2015)
Fifth round:
Fox: Nick Martin, OL Notre Dame.
Tice: I’m loving this draft.
Gruden: Yeah, we’re fixing the offensive line very quickly.
McVay: He’s Zach Martin’s little brother, and he is a smart tough player like his brother. Just more inconsistent.
6th round:
Fox: Geneo Grissom, OLB Oklahoma
Phillips: More rushers. More speed. That's what we need!
Fox: This is about lottery tickets. Grissom probably will bust out, but it’d be great if he pushed for sub package playing time.
7th round:
Fox: Kevin White, CB TCU
Gruden: The WR?
Wade: No, but the same name. He faced the WVU WR of the same name in October and did well to slow him down. A project but we can do something with him.
End
This was of course fantasy, but how real is it? The question really comes down to one question: who are the Redskins blaming for this season? If the answer is anything other than “we all failed” then the franchise still hasn’t hit rock bottom. And for an indication of this, look at their body language and comments versus the Bears (who are also having an awful season). The Bears are frustrated and know that the blame is going to fall on the players and coaches. All the Redskins’ players talk about is how they were close or that they didn’t get any help from the refs. No one is afraid. None of the players are, none of the coaches are and why should they be? If you’re bad as a coach or player, but you’re a team favorite (read: informer and/or won’t go running to the media) nothing will happen to you. There’s five essential truths that the fans of the team and the Redskins have to accept if they want to move forward:
1. The franchise is broken from top to bottom. However they organize everything, from how they draft players, to how they’re developed, to how they’re coached to how they play on the field isn’t working. Bacarri Rambo was a joke in Washington. He was a safety who couldn’t cover an elderly woman with the flu on the field. In his first real extended action for his new team, the Bills, he picked off Aaron Rodgers twice. After the game he was asked what was the difference between Buffalo and DC, he said: “they require us to look game film here.” If the Redskins’ defense isn’t requiring its players to look film, which is standard even for big time high school teams, then there needs to be a total change in the culture of the franchise.
2. Despite Snyder being portrayed as a monster/ogre/micro manager, no one is held accountable for their failures. From Dan Snyder to RG3 to Jay Gruden all the way down to the newest intern and lowliest practice squad player: if you’re a team favorite (read: informer to Snyder and/or won’t run to the media with your grievances), there’s almost nothing that you can do to get cut or let walk. Redskins fans have joked for years about players like Reed Doughty, Phillip Daniels, etc who seem to always have a roster spot no matter how bad that they looked on the field. And this is also an essential problem with the team: no one-especially the players-play like they’re scared for their jobs. Jay Gruden came in claiming that he wouldn’t backbite the players in the media (in a direct shot to Mike Shanahan) and would hold players accountable for their play on the field. In his 14 games as the Redskins coach, he’s benched precisely three players (to be fair, he could have benched some others, but only three are directly attributable to him): Robert Griffin III, Kirk Cousins and Tyler Polumbus. That’s it. No matter how bad the rest of the team has looked, no one has been benched-even when there’s rookies or young players waiting behind them-or held accountable.
3. The Redskins are also stuck in a loop where they only care about fooling their fans into thinking that they have a playoff team in the summer. And sadly the fans fall for this every. single. season. The best example of the team playing to this is the 2014 offseason: you have a new head coach, a new GM (sort of) and a lot of public statements about how Shanahan’s leadership and decisions just weren’t working. Combine this with a decent amount of cap room, and this would have been the perfect spring to gut the team and start again. Very few fans would have complained if they went for the total rebuild and intentionally went after a 3-4 win season. Especially with Gruden’s comments about building up RG3 as a pocket passer. Instead, they went for the non-rebuild rebuild, throwing a bunch of cash into players who didn’t deserve it in an attempt to fool people into thinking(including this author) into 8+ wins. Snyder’s finally gotten the fanbase that he’s always wanted and they’re all trapped in another logical loop together: the fans (and team) expect the new QB to fix all the problems with the team, he’s not good enough to overcome the horrible team and the fans blame him for the losses. The team then gets a new QB and the loop starts anew. RG3 is stuck in this loop right now, and he’s joined a club which started with Brad Johnson in 2000. And this creation of false excitement is probably intentional. Snyder ultimately only cares about his bottom line and getting tickets and merchandise sold. If he gets the November and December tickets sold, even if there’s empty stadiums for those games and you can buy the tickets on stubhub for 5 bucks, then he’s happy. If you want to send a message to The Danny, don’t buy any tickets and make him choke.
4. There’s only two players worth keeping on this roster (Kerrigan and DeSean Jackson). RG3 is still a question mark. The team has some young players that could emerge (Trent Murphy and Keenan Robinson for example), but none of them are worth keeping if someone made them a good trade offer. Even Trent Williams should be shuffled off for a high pick before he demands a fortune in costless agency after 2015. The rot on this team isn’t just with the leadership and coaching. The roster is poor across the board.
5. It’s a long term project to fix the team. And it’s only going to really start when Snyder goes in front of the cameras and personally takes blame for the failures of the franchise. No matter what else he does as the owner, nothing is going to change until the fans get a mea culpa from him. Then, after the roster is stripped bare of dead weight, it’s going to be be much like Bill Simmons’ expansion franchise idea: a few years of bad results until the foundation is built.
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Going back to the issue of blame, it’s going to be easy to figure out where the franchise is going. If RG3 is sniped at in the media as the “problem” with the 2014 Redskins and the awful coaching staff is retained (especially Jim Haslett), then the Redskins still haven’t hit rock bottom. Even if they dump Jim HasIett, that's only part of the problem and he could be the scapegoat (no matter firing him would be so overdue) as well. Ironically, with so much retention of Mike Shanahan’s coaches (and players), if this happens then one could make the case that the 2014 season is merely an extension of the Mike Shanahan years only with Gruden in charge and Shanahan made the scapegoat to distract from the larger problem than his failures. Time will tell, of course, but there’s no reason to believe that the Redskins will make the right move, which is very sad for the fans of a once proud franchise.
Are there any indications of which way that the Redskins will go (and potentially overreact to)? So far, the early signs are not good for Redskins fans. It looks like the Redskins have decided on the status quo. There are reports that the defensive staff will be retained for “one more season.” And as many defensive players that can be retained will be, including Ryan Clark and Brian Orakpo. On the offensive side of the ball, on 12/17 Jay Gruden said on local DC radio that he felt that the “offensive line was receiving too much blame” for the offensive struggles. That same offensive line is responsible for giving up over 160 hits and sacks on the QB this season and no QB can do particularly better in this department. So Gruden doesn’t think that they need a major rebuild of the offensive line. And it also appears that Gruden and RG3 are stuck with each other in 2015 in what appears to be a deteriorating personal relationship (both are taking veiled shots at each other in their public statements). In the front office, there are multiple rumors that former Chargers GM AJ Smith (aka “The Lord of No Rings”) will be replacing Bruce Allen as GM (Allen would be staying on as Team President) in name alone. Allen and his lackeys in the front office would still be in actual control according to the rumors. In short, the Redskins have become a frozen kingdom (or at least headed that way) and it doesn’t look likely that things will change anytime in the near future.