The Bombshell

burgold said:

The thought that occurred to me yesterday is that we may have reached the point where winning won't help. It won't help in terms of getting a new stadium or resolving the issues with the owners or making (most) fans come around on Dan. The wins become secondary to the larger fire. It's like "Yay! We saved the dog" and then turning around and seeing the house on fire with the kids trapped inside.

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I enjoyed the 2nd half. Nice to occasionally not end up depressed as hell on Sunday. But it's largely salve. Hey, a massage still feels pretty amazing, even if you have a terminal illness. Short some kind of miracle season the rest of the way, we know we don't have a top-tier QB, our coaching staff is just okay, our front office execs are NFL retreads who lack vision, and our owner imposes his uneducated will on most key decisions.

Without true top-tier talent in those spots who are left alone to sail the ship you get what we have gotten.

Boone said:

Anyone can misspell a name. The question is, how - knowing the fanbase is going to catch every error you make - can you continue to allow the mistakes to happen over and over again?

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This!

It's one thing to make a mistake. It's another to make them continually when you know you are under a microscope and every action is going to get more scrutiny than an IRS auditor gives a tax return.

It's even worse when you consider it's a multi-billion dollar operation. In my radio work, every word I wrote was reviewed by an editor and then passed on to a news director before it was allowed to move forward. The Commanders are not a one-man op. These things should be passing through several hands for quality control before they hit the printer. Even then, some mistakes will occasionally slip through, but they should be really rare.

To Boones point. They've (wright) has already come out on more than one botch, stating he didn't realize the fanbase would react so passionately about, what he wants to act like are, minor oversights.

The precedent has been set by his customer base that the expectation is as high as it is when it comes to former players, and history of the team.. I hate to say this but I have ZERO faith that we can expect anything better going forward

Boone said:

I enjoyed the 2nd half. Nice to occasionally not end up depressed as hell on Sunday. But it's largely salve. Hey, a massage still feels pretty amazing, even if you have a terminal illness. Short some kind of miracle season the rest of the way, we know we don't have a top-tier QB, our coaching staff is just okay, our front office execs are NFL retreads who lack vision, and our owner imposes his uneducated will on most key decisions.

Without true top-tier talent in those spots who are left alone to sail the ship you get what we have gotten.

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Ok, so NOW I’m depressed*. As a proud member of the Devil’s Advocate School of Conversation…I couldn’t even begin to argue the other side.

(* figuratively not literally, after all it’s only an interest not something seriously meaningful.)

Someday, sports historians will unearth this record and understand what it was like to be a Washington football fan in the Snyder Era. Our dragonfly in amber.

I added emphasis here--

Boone said:

I enjoyed the 2nd half. Nice to occasionally not end up depressed as hell on Sunday. But it's largely salve. Hey, a massage still feels pretty amazing, even if you have a terminal illness. Short some kind of miracle season the rest of the way, we know we don't have a top-tier QB, our coaching staff is just okay, our front office execs are NFL retreads who lack vision, and our owner imposes his uneducated will on most key decisions.

Without true top-tier talent in those spots who are left alone to sail the ship you get what we have gotten.

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I don't want to derail this particular thread, but I don't think Scott Turner is okay; the rest of the coaching staff, yes, but Ron for his loyalty to Scott, and then Scott on his own - they are not okay coaches. They are something below average. Scott simply does not know how to call a football game; he does not understand situational football at all especially as it pertains to the run.

At the end of the day, the only way this team gets to a super bowl is with a different owner and with a lot of luck. I don't think it happens EVER with Snyder, because he will always break his toy when it's fun. He just will, it's ingrained in his personality. I do think the team can get to the playoffs and win a game here and there in the postseason; pretty much what they have done in the past, although rarely. It's just that, in those cases, Snyder will again break his toy.

Right now, though - I think what is sad is that I just don't have any faith in the front office, and they are stained somewhat by their association with Rivera (which he no doubt sees as a strength). Respectful disagreement is KEY to intellectual growth and great decision making. Hiring yes-men, people who don't argue with you, that is convenient and easy, but it doesn't generally lead to superior results. It seems to me that Rivera prefers the latter to the former. I think that is why he prefers to have his buddies. I don't see a future with Rivera, which means so much of this staff has to be replaced. I think Rivera and his staff could be good enough (for Snyder, remember, I believe there is a strict ceiling anyway), except for his complete blindness to the Turner ineptitude, as evidenced by the Turner extension.

All of this to say: we are NOT reaching our LIMITED potential under Rivera (and particularly with Turner). We are NEVER reaching the promised land under Snyder. The sooner Snyder goes, the sooner we can find out if a new owner could help that situation.

However, I will always say: Snyder leaving HAS TO be about more than football. I don't think it's fair to talk about football as much when we talk about him leaving. Him leaving, for me, and I think for all of us really - should be about his transgressions as a business owner rather than anything specifically related to the on the field product. Those transgressions are disgusting and should be disqualifying to the league. We can continue to hope/dream; I am the most hopeful I have ever been, which doesn't actually mean "very hopeful" though. A sliver.

This is what tempers excitement. There's a lot of this stuff brewing around in the mix, as usual:

Report: Some owners fear Mary Jo White investigation will let Daniel Snyder off the hook - ProFootballTalk (nbcsports.com)

I don’t think there’s much distance between us on this. When I say our coaches are just ‘okay’ - that IS below average - this is the NFL where supposedly the best land.

Only luke warm defense of Scott Turner I’ll give is, he’s never, not even once had a consistently good QB to work with. That only explains some issues to be sure. But not having a really good QB is a huge deal. We also tend to make him and him alone the blame holder when things go wrong, but give him no credit for anything that goes right. When Heinicke wins it’s all about TH as if Turner is inconsequential. When things go wrong it’s Turner. I know all the responses already but you can’t deny there’s some truth to this

If you take away Rivera's first season as coach in Carolina when he inherited a mess and that outlier 15-1 season in 2015 when they overachieved, Ron's record as Head Coach is just a tad below .500.

So, yes, he's average. Almost average to the mean

I would rate Turner as below average. I think he gets less out of the talent at hand than other coordinators would. He hasn't been given Aaron Rodgers in his prime to work with, but his playcalling for Wentz, Heinicke this season has seemingly ignored their strengths and the weaknesses up front in the OL.

I can't believe we are not seeing Taylor on the edge on planned rollouts and keepers. We are potentially leaving yards on the field by having him operate exclusively from the pocket.

On defense, Del Rio has only sporadically been able to rally his charges to play solid football. It comes in waves of 5-6 games and then mysteriously goes away again.

The front office? Whatever skills the scouts and others may have Ron's decision-making makes it an over-traditional and plodding operation.

We never can seem to close the deal on key trades and free agent moves and the draft picks tend to be hit or miss.

We draft a Dotson who seems to be a keeper but then we took Jamin Davis the year before who still to me is a big question mark. #19 overall picks should NOT be question marks as to position and expected contribution.

Boone said:

I don’t think there’s much distance between us on this. When I say our coaches are just ‘okay’ - that IS below average - this is the NFL where supposedly the best land.

Only luke warm defense of Scott Turner I’ll give is, he’s never, not even once had a consistently good QB to work with. That only explains some issues to be sure. But not having a really good QB is a huge deal. We also tend to make him and him alone the blame holder when things go wrong, but give him no credit for anything that goes right. When Heinicke wins it’s all about TH as if Turner is inconsequential. When things go wrong it’s Turner. I know all the responses already but you can’t deny there’s some truth to this

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Haha, I hear you! However, speaking only for myself, I can say I was actually a fan of Turner in his first year. Funny, right? I defended him quite a bit, not on the internet mind you (I just wasn't logged in as much at that time), but with friends. I pointed out, his schemes were getting players open which is not a given. People were complaining about the lack of running game back then, and I said much the same as you at the time. In that first year, and even last year, I was actually on his side.

Where I really shifted was after the win streak last year. That is where it honestly appeared that Turner went away from something that was working. What I noticed this year, and to my eye it seems a little different from previous years (but I have now seen where analysts did point it out in the past) - the WRs are getting bunched a bit. There are some noticeable formation issues. Even there, though, I think that's nitpicking. My beef is kept simple on purpose, because that's where fair criticism resides. There are *obvious* run situations that are not being respected. Creativity in the run playcalling is severely lacking. That's pretty much it. It's a big issue in this team though.

When Taylor wins it has often been the result of him making plays on his own once things in the pocket break down so in that regard no I don't give Turner that much credit for the wins in the past.

This year I would say that Turner scheming to keep Taylor in the pocket throwing the ball over the line 25-30 times a game is probably not the best strategy for a quarterback for whom mobility is such an asset.

At some point the playbook has to reflect the talent on the field.

You wouldn't give Lamar Jackson the exact plays to run that Patrick Mahomes does because Mahomes sees the entire field and can read defenses at an advanced level.

You don’t give him ANY credit This is the first year I feel like we have very good offensive talent on the field - save QB still being an open question. one could argue Turner has coached the shit out of Heinicke (he’s literally the reason Heinicke is in DC at all). I have a lot of the same issues you guys do on Turner, but I think we overstate those issues and that a really good QB would change a lot.

On letting Heinicke use his feet, he is definitely more effective when that’s a factor but he’s also reckless and prone to fumbling on contact.. We’ve already got one QB on IR, I’m not sure letting TH take off multiple times a game is the smartest strategy when we are actually still a playoff contender. I can at least see why they aren’t using him that way even if, as a fan I know he can be electric as a dual threat and want to see it.

We are in agreement, if Washington had Patrick Mahomes or a healthy Justin Herbert I think Turner could successfully work with him

Bulldog said:

We are in agreement, if Washington had Patrick Mahomes or a healthy Justin Herbert I think Turner could successfully work with him

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That's pretty damning. If Turner had the "best" QBs in the league he "could" successfully work with them. If his scheme can only work with a top five QB then his scheme isn't working.

All of us here lived through the Gibbs Glory Years and in my case, right or wrong, it’s what I use to measure any coach that’s here.

Scott Turner’s greatest football sin is his inability to understand his players’ strengths and scheme towards them.

The result of that flaw is the disjointed offense you see today.

Admire Boone’s effort to defend Scott but as for me, the torch is lit and the pitchfork is by the door…..

I’m trying to add a little balance. The idea that only Mahommes or Josh Allen could be productive in a Turner offense is ridiculous.

I don’t know how the Bombshell thread got into this area but let’s return it to that subject…God knows fans hating on Scott Turner is no Bombshell…

It's ironic that Washington had Shanahan, McVay, LaFleur in the house several years ago and we end up with the 'runt' of the bonus baby coordinators - Scott Turner.

Bulldog said:

It's ironic that Washington had Shanahan, McVay, LaFleur in the house several years ago and we end up with the 'runt' of the bonus baby coordinators - Scott Turner.

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Based on how the coaches have done here, do you actually think any one of those guys would be successful? Speaking of, how is LaFluer doing with the Packers this year with a sure fire HOF QB? Not good. Because there is a lot more going on that is affecting his success. The same things that happen here and it all stems from the top.