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Can someone explain a few things to me?

CounterTrey

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I should probably give a shot at making this a blog entry since it's got serious length potential. That said I do have some things that are grating at my nerves and have been since March or so.

I was willing to be open minded about the whole 3-4 thing even though we didn't have even close to the personnel for it, it was destroying our defensive line with the ostracization of AH (be real, if we hadn't made the switch AH would still be a bit of a bitch but he'd be playing a HELL of a lot more and better), and we had a perennial top 10 to top 5 D in the 4-3 when Haslett arrived.

I know it takes time to adjust and for the team to settle in but sorry I am officially off the 3-4 bandwagon. WTF...you take a top ten D and turn them into literally the worst D in the league. You can't even stop a one dimensional team that barely has about as much WR talent as we do? WTF Haslett!!!!!

Next point, did I miss something with CP this week? Did he roll up to Shanahan's house for dinner and take a dump on the table setting? Why the ever loving hell was he sitting on the sidelines while that scrub Williams blew play after play after play? Why was Williams or Torain even in the game when CP is averaging over 8 yards a carry? Why was Williams in the game on 3rd doing the pass blocking when we have literally the best pass blocking back in the league sitting there? Does anyone think CP would have blown that block that got McNabb dumped?

Why did we not stick with what was working....Cripes they couldn't stop our run game and we completely abandoned it and played backups!

I can't remember the last time a game pissed me off this much. I KNEW when this game started and the announcers threw out the 1-18 stat for St Louis that we'd be making it 2-18. Spurrier broke me of the whole passionate fan who lets a game ruin his night or the next week etc, but I can't help it here. There is NO EXCUSE for the crap that I blame the coaches for in this game. Just horrible, horrible coaching and decision making.

Help me out here.
 
Do what I do. Don't expect much, that way your blood pressure won't be so high.

When you don't expect the team to win more than six games (which I may have to revise downward) amazing things happen. Your TV is no longer covered in spit. You realize you have a family

Give it a whirl:)
 
That's generally what I do. Like I said, Spurrier "broke" me. But for some reason this particular game had me yelling at the TV like I haven't in many years. I guess they made me give a crap again, lesson learned. I've thought all along that 8-8 would have me thrilled this year, but like you I'm taking a serious look at revising that. I don't see how this D is going to stop the Packers, Colts, Eagles to name a few of our soon to be opponents. This team could be looking at a 4 or 5 win season again if the coaches don't "do some of that coaching stuff".
 
Do what I do. Don't expect much, that way your blood pressure won't be so high.

When you don't expect the team to win more than six games (which I may have to revise downward) amazing things happen. Your TV is no longer covered in spit. You realize you have a family

Give it a whirl:)

Expecting a win over the Rams is not expecting much. Yet somehow they couldn't even come close to managing that.

But I agree, it will be easier to spend more time with the family, because I know I won't be missing anything with the Redskins.
 
Well I'm in a pretty foul mood today after yesterdays game. I'm going to keep the faith on the teams direction although I'm at a loss trying to understand how the team had such a letdown against one of the easier teams.
I've been a fan since 72 so I'm accustomed to the up and downs. For the last few years I held little hope that things would get significantly better. I feel alot different this season.
I'm going to hope that what we are seeing is growing pains... the 3-4 transition looked pretty bleak for the Packers last season for the first 6 games or so and it turned out ok for them. So maybe thats the time frame.
The frustrating thing is the offense and defense are in transition.
 
That's generally what I do. Like I said, Spurrier "broke" me. But for some reason this particular game had me yelling at the TV like I haven't in many years. I guess they made me give a crap again, lesson learned. I've thought all along that 8-8 would have me thrilled this year, but like you I'm taking a serious look at revising that. I don't see how this D is going to stop the Packers, Colts, Eagles to name a few of our soon to be opponents. This team could be looking at a 4 or 5 win season again if the coaches don't "do some of that coaching stuff".

I'm just tired of all these 4 O'Clock start times. You can tell within 15 mins or less what kinda game it's gonna be most of the time. by half time I want the option to clear out and play some golf rather than watch buffoonery - I played a lot of Sunday golf last season!
 
Well I'm in a pretty foul mood today after yesterdays game. I'm going to keep the faith on the teams direction although I'm at a loss trying to understand how the team had such a letdown against one of the easier teams.
I've been a fan since 72 so I'm accustomed to the up and downs. For the last few years I held little hope that things would get significantly better. I feel alot different this season.
I'm going to hope that what we are seeing is growing pains... the 3-4 transition looked pretty bleak for the Packers last season for the first 6 games or so and it turned out ok for them. So maybe thats the time frame.
The frustrating thing is the offense and defense are in transition.


we don't have the talent on the d-line. this is gonna take a while. the problem is...though to a lesser degree...we don't have the talent on the o-line either. so how do you rebuild when you continue to give away draft picks? FA hasn't worked. This team is trapped by its past. One option is to blow it all up and do a complete rebuild over 3 years. but that is not the strategy Allen/Shanahan chose to follow.
 
I think CP was benched for his quarterback slide. When he did it yelled 'what the hell are you doing?' I do not ever remember seeing a running back slide that was not trying to run out the clock. I am sure Shannahan did not like this and he was benched.

One thing about Shannahan so far. No matter who you are, he is not afraid to bench you, even if it negatively effects the team.
 
You’ve already hit on some of my concerns from the game. Here are my thoughts.

First a couple of positives, we’re taking our shots downfield and the running game looked much better. Both Portis and Torain looked good. My problem? Fourteen carries is still not enough. I realize we dug a hole for ourselves early, but we’d dug out and were close to taking control IMO. The offense just can’t quite get over the hump.

Our defense is bad. We can all see that now and there isn’t any sense in trying to flower that up. Is it the scheme or is it that we have players not doing what they are supposed to do in the scheme? I can’t answer that. Whatever the issue is we’re not going to win many (any) games if they can’t get right on that side of the ball. We have some players making great individual efforts and it was definitely good to see Kareem Moore back but they are just not playing well as a team. What is the strength of this defense? I have no idea.

I knew it was going to take five or six games for the defense to get right. Logic tells me to be patient and that the defense will come around. It’s just hard to watch winnable games slip through the cracks in the meantime and this one was one we should have won. You could see it in the faces of the Ram players when we took the lead. They were ready to give up, and we didn’t give them that chance.
 
we don't have the talent on the d-line. this is gonna take a while. the problem is...though to a lesser degree...we don't have the talent on the o-line either. so how do you rebuild when you continue to give away draft picks? FA hasn't worked. This team is trapped by its past. One option is to blow it all up and do a complete rebuild over 3 years. but that is not the strategy Allen/Shanahan chose to follow.


Patience. He rebuilt the bookends in one off season through the draft and FA. I agree the interior is rough, but I have a feeling we will be addressing that in the off season.

The defense is more puzzling to me, though I think I know what the problem is. With Fat Al refusing to play NT, the scheme was shot. If we had a healthy, happy and productive AH playing NT, our D looks a bit different. Instead though, he is a petulant child, and not in shape, and the D suffers.

What was apparent to me yesterday is that we got NO QB pressure. None. I am confused why Haslett elected to blitz the hell out of Romo, allowing them to march down the field, as escaping the pocket is the one thing Romo excels at, and then sit back and let a rookie pick us apart?

If they are committed to the 3-4, so be it. But how do we not make in-game adjustments like that?
 
I hear some here that feel we went the wrong way with fielding a team. Remarks like "we should blow up the team and rebuild through the draft..." That sounds like a decent plan except for a few things
1) The team has been mismanaged for a long time leaving the Skins with few players that have alot of trade value.
a) They are always hovering around the cap limit
b) They have deferred bonuses and restructured contracts to aging veterans
2) They didn't have a starting qb or a functioning Oline
3) the Cba is scheduled to expire at seasons end
They hired Allen at Gm and Shanny at headcoach so the evolution process is in play. Who knows? Perhaps they plan to blow it up in the next season or three. There were only so many options available this offseason...blowing it up and starting from scratch wasn't a reasonable option. I'm not a capologist but I'm fairly certain the guaranteed portion of the signing bonus is in play even if the player is no longer on the team. Ala the Deion Sanders deal. He was on our books for a few years after he was gone if I'm not mistaken.
 
Yeah I agree. I posted something on this last week. "Blowing it all up" is just not a viable plan in today's NFL for lots of reasons, including the ones you listed.

I couldn’t think of one example in the Salary Cap Era where a team did a blow-up style rebuild. The model is more feasible in other sports like hockey or baseball where you can stockpile and develop young talent in the minor leagues. You can’t do that in the NFL. A first or second round draft pick has to contribute now. One guy can turn around a franchise in the NBA. One or two or even three guys can’t turn around a whole NFL team.

No, it takes two plans in the NFL today, a long term plan and a right now plan. What team in today’s NFL is so dominant that they can’t be beaten on any given weekend? I can’t think of any. Why dismiss the chance to win now? You have to keep an eye on building for the future but you must give the team you field now every chance to win, preferably without mortgaging the future. We’ve definitely been guilty of doing that in the past. I think Allen and Shanny are trying to do the right things here.

This loss was bad but it’s not the end of the season by a long shot. This team will get better.
 
Are you guys suggesting we had no choice but to continue to trade away our draft picks for veteran players this offseason?

Maybe NFL teams aren't built like hockey or baseball teams, but plenty of other teams actually use their draft picks rather than trade them away.

It would be really cool if we started doing that too.
 
I think the Shanahans thought they could compete quickly with McNabb. And maybe we can, our season isn't over, it's game three. I find it discouraging that our personnel aren't (apparently) picking up the 3-4 at all yet, and that Haslett doesn't seem willing or able to make adjustments. And as said above, i find it maddening that we didn't blitz Bradford that much.

If I had to guess, Henry, I would guess their plan was/is to milk 2-4 years out of McNabb, and build around him, trying to win now, and maybe even catch lightening in a bottle. In the meantime, we will be drafting a QB in the next two years to groom behind McNabb for the future. For this year, i think they overestimated the defenses ability to adjust to a new scheme, which is unfortunate given the offensive powerhouses we play early. I would say 7-9 wins this year is still possible. If that happens, i would think they draft/acquire some O-line help, and a few more pieces on the D in the off season.

Are you suggesting we just blow everything up all together? I think that would be a mistake. I don't think we are two or three players away, but i do think we are two or three years away, not five or six. Besides which, we don't have lots of draft picks or desirable players to get more draft picks with. How would you retool?
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Well, if I remember correctly there was a pretty long thread about this during the offseason. I'm not sure I want to go through that again. :)

Let's just say I'd prefer to err on the side of blowing everything up. I've always thought we were 2-3 years away, which is why I've repeatedly wondered why we spent picks on a QB that will most likely only be here for 2-3 years. I had, before the season started, resigned myself to the direction our front office had chosen and hoped for the best. This game was downright fugly, and is at least a glimpse of my worst fears going in. I honestly didn't expect it from a well-coached team with a good QB, regardless of the surrounding talent level.

I thought we'd be a 9-win team on the outside and now maybe I'd downshift that to 7 or so.
 
Are you guys suggesting we had no choice but to continue to trade away our draft picks for veteran players this offseason?

Maybe NFL teams aren't built like hockey or baseball teams, but plenty of other teams actually use their draft picks rather than trade them away.

It would be really cool if we started doing that too.

I agree that there needs to be a focus on the draft. It's the single biggest thing that has held the team back for so many years.

I'll contradict myself here is saying that the only exception to that rule is QB. Without a QB in place you've got no chance. There isn't much sense in making plans for more than 3-4 years in the future anyway. There are just too many variables.
 
With respect, we could be right where we are now with Sexy Rexy playing QB for this team along with whoever we would have drafted with that 2nd round pick this last spring.

Guys still on the board who could have helped out the defensive switch include Sergio Kindle (much better option than Carter at OLB), Terrence Cody (probably a better NT option than Kemo or Al) and Javier Arenas (who could have served as both a nickle back and punt returner).

Not to say I think McNabb is the problem at the moment. I really don't. The issue is so far his play alone hasn't been enough to win a game for us. His presence has not sufficiently elevated the play of the offense as a whole so as to make what we gave up for him worth it or to cover for the poor defense in the last two games. In fact, I think you can make the argument that right now Trent Williams is more important to the unit than McNabb.

And I have think that the more this team struggles, especially on the defensive side, the more wearing purple next year looks better to Donovan.

Of course, these are just observations. I think the offense can turn it around in the coming weeks. Much more so than I see this defense playing well. On that side of the ball we have fewer professionals and more guys who just want to do what they do . . . like Haynesworth (although I think he should be in the game more) and Hall. We also more guys who I just don't think can get the job being asked of them done . . . like Carter and Kemo.

*shrug*

That plus a buck will get you cup of coffee.
 
I understand being disgusted by the game yesterday, but aren't we forgetting the week before? You know, 425 passing yards for McNabb? Why he struggled so much against the Lambs, I don't know. Seems to me that we still tend to play up or down to our opponents, which means this season will be completely unpredictable,

Is this game the norm or an aberration? I know on the eve of a difficult loss how I tend to think, but it may be we are over reacting some? I'm willing to give it a couple more games to see for sure.
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Not sure why everyone thinks the Vikings are the answer for McNabb. I'm thinking he is looking at the crap-fest that is Minnesota so far and is not longing to be there.

And i don't buy for a minute that switching Favre and McNabb means all is right in the land of 1000 ponds.
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Lots of valid points from both sides but I think we can all agree that a head coach only has a few years to prove his worth. So the winning now or at least some degree of competetiveness is todays reality.
The last team I can recall that blew up the team and started over with success was the Cowboys but they traded Herschel Walker for a boat loads of picks. We had the same opportunity when we traded away Ricky Williams to the Saints but I'd hardly call that one succesful.
I think of alot of teams that blew up their teams and built through the draft. Browns, Lions, Raiders, Broncos, Houston (by becoming a new team), Buffalo, and Kc. all with mixed results.
The most succesful teams in the last decade or so have been NE, Colts, Pitt and NO's
I'm certain one might have a valid point suggesting all 4 of the above teams have built through the draft...I'd suggest that building through the draft is only succesful when the Front offices have thier stuff in one sock. They also mix in free agent acquisitions and know when to trade a prime player while he has value.
So unless a competent and functional front office is in place it doesn't really matter what strategy they use does it? I'm hoping thats what we have here in Allen and Shanny. BTW Our picks that were traded this season were excellent value and I'm excited that Mcnabb is here.
 

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