I thought about Gruden and why this team continues to flounder at mediocrity. Is it his fault? Is it the organization's? Is it the players?
What I came up with is almost ironic or one could say MORONIC based on this team's record over the past 20 years - namely, that this team has failed largely due to stubborn pride.
How so?
Some examples:
1. Failing to recognize publicly that they fumbled the Kirk Cousins contract and not trading him in the 2017 off-season when the team could have recouped real value in a trade.
2. Refusing to admit that Josh Doctson, the
#22 overall pick in 2016 is a draft bust. No one needed to come out and say this in a press conference but going into the season counting on him to make a contribution was foolhardy. Want to keep him in 2018? Fine. But expect more of the same from him (until he shows otherwise) and protect the offense by going out and acquiring a veteran receiver with size who can be a consistent target for Alex Smith.
3. Keeping Josh Norman on the roster at his cap number. Norman has never lived up to the out-sized contract that the usually frugal and free agent allergic Bruce Allen coughed up in 2016 to bring him here from Carolina. Was he a good fit for this defense? Good question. But the other point I would make here is if a guy's
#1 priority in the off-season is Dancing With The Stars then perhaps that already tells us something about him. Note a lot of the athletes who have appeared on Dancing With the Stars were ex-players or guys in the very twilight of Hall of Fame careers. At 29/30 I would be concerned Norman doesn't appear to have anything else to prove on the football field now that he has been paid. He's certainly not a leader here.
4. Continuing to run the 3-4 defense that Jim Haslett brought here in 2010. Haslett has been gone for years but the folly of the switch to the 3-4 is still with us. We have ONE sack from our 'edge rushers' in 2018 through 4 games. Our sacks leader, Matt Ioannidis, is a rotation tackle. Gruden screwed the pooch here with a bad hire in Joe Barry and now in Year 2 it appears Gruden and Greg Manusky continue to drink the Kool Aid on a scheme the team isn't well suited to run. It would make more sense to move to a 4-3 and use Zach Brown as a third down rusher with his speed. With a four man line, Brown at 240 can hold up as a rusher. It seems clear that Ryan Anderson and Pernell McPhee are not going to do much to supplement Kerrigan and Smith.
The use of Ziggy Hood at NT for almost 2 years was beyond believable and while that bandaid on the wound has been fixed it's notable how long Hood was compromised playing out of position without much relief.
Any team could have made any one of these types of mistakes, what makes the Redskins errors particularly sharp is the TIME it took to admit a mistake had been made and to move on from it.