4 years ago we were going into an off-season after a terribly disappointing 4-12 campaign. Al Galdi and Chris Cooley were on the radio posing the question to fans..."If you were Dan Snyder what would you do?"
I called in and said, "I'd fire up Redskins One and fly to the Northwest to hire Scott MacGloughan!" They kinda laughed it off, I'm not sure they even knew who he was. Cooley's response was, "How cool would it be to have your own plane."
A week later when I saw we'd actually have a real GM to evaluate, and acquire talent, someone with a track record of building quality teams, I was ecstatic...until a couple weeks after we'd hired him I saw him drinking a beer in an interview. That concerned me, but I thought it could work. The first sign that it wouldn't work was when we hired Joe Barry, a Gruden and Bruce Allen guy when Wade Phillips had interviewed for the position of DC. Not gonna say I knew it at the time, I say that in retrospect.
We all saw how that played out, Scott Mac can claim drinking wasn't the problem, but we could all see it in his physical appearance he was not on top of his game, his drinking was getting the better of him, and his relationship with Allen and Snyder had failed.
Fast forward to today. We are in year 5 of the Jay Gruden experiment and it's failing. Yeah, I hear the pundits discuss injuries, as if the real problems with Jay Gruden are not on full display in a loss like last night's. In 5 years, we've seen enough to know that we will never be good enough to win it all with Gruden, and we've probably seen enough.
So, unless this team goes out and surprises us with 4-1 record down the road or more likely 3-2, 8-8 should get Gruden fired considering the competition level of the rest of the schedule. I think this team can win 4 more games, but if we don't...Gruden has had plenty of time.
So where does that leave us in the grand scheme if Gruden is fired? Well...I'd hope that Snyder is willing to walk away from Bruce Allen, too. It's time...and the answer is not Doug Williams. We need to hire someone from a winning organization, someone who has seen tremendous success under a great leader, evaluator of talent.
So, posed with that same question Galdi and Cooley posed 4 years ago, at the end of this season, barring any surprises like actually winning the division we so handily controlled just 2 weeks ago, "If I were Dan Snyder, what would I do?"
Well, I'd hire Nick Caserio as the GM, fire Bruce Allen and Jay Gruden and every other coach, training staff, water carrier on the team and let him start from complete scratch in the FO. If he felt there was anyone worth rehiring, I'd leave that to him. I'd let him hire the head coach he thinks could win (not force him to go with an offensive minded coach only), and let him have complete autonomy. Sign both he and the coach to a 5 year contract and let them see what they can do. They have 5 years.
5 years is plenty of time for anyone who can be successful, to be successful. Gruden is what he is...Allen has had 10 years and is pretty much on par to do what Vinny Cerrato was able to do here in Washington...about the same winning percentages. We need to move on...and I'm afraid if we win the division, we'll see another 2 years of the same mediocrity with Gruden and Allen.