It depends what you mean, Tom. This is definitely not the Redskins I grew up watching. That died right after my Senior year of High School and Joe Gibbs had his first retirement. The only thing in-common with those teams is the name and none of that will change as long as Dan Snyder owns this team. Just don't have the confidence in his ability to put the right people in-charge.
Nick
I hear ya, Gibbs' first retirement, free agency, salary cap, guaranteed money and parity have left me colder as well but I was a 'little' older when it happened so the emotional hit was probably less defining. (Otto Graham was coaching and RFK was called DC Stadium when I was a HS senior)
I generally still enjoy NFL games as a fan but the emotional intensity, when the Skins play, does peg the dial simply because they are still my Skins, even without the same attachment from years of old.
Yeah, Snyder has made a mess of it. The premise that actually paying players premium amounts would yield better results backfired. The players were happy, the agents were happy and Snyder could get 'his man' with the offers. Sometimes, however, 'getting paid' left the desire to perform on the field lacking. This is the character part of the equation of a player that I always concern myself with.
Some players have that 'want to' regardless of pay rate, they'll bust their asses to get ready, kill their asses on the field and keep on going thereafter.
Others get paid and that's it, they may have prepped their status with work to get paid but once there, they begin to slough-off the grind that got them there or they take on that do-it-their way or it ain't gonna get done. (entitlement).
I have no problem with Snyder paying his guys, actually like the idea. They've quite often misjudged who and when they pay, too many times it's been the latter type player. Most of the Gibbs1 guys seemed to be the former type, the lesser talents busted butts to stay on the team and the talented guys (and not all were boy scouts) busted their butts to stay on top and were ego driven enough to succeed at their game. (and all could be given walking papers with little to no compensation).
Finding those 'want to' talented guys is the biggie, getting them needs to be the new football guy's job, keeping them around might be Allen's forte'.
Who that football guy is, I don't know. Whether or not Snyder et. al. are capable of finding one... don't know either but I agree with the general consensus that one needs to be found.