Bruce Allen = Puppet? Scouting Department =Unchanged?

[Dead Money]

I read an article today http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/wp/2012/11/15/michael-lombardi-on-shanahan-the-gm/?wprss=rss_dc-sports-bog then listened to the pod cast mentioned http://httr24-7.com/?p=3435 then read the transcript to the podcast http://httr24-7.com/?p=3452. At the end of this I'm seeing that Lombardi thinks Bruce Allen is nothing but a puppet and just a capologist and PR guy, it seems??

This was more than a mild surprise to me. I had blind faith that he was more involved in personnel than whats been said here:

“Lets be real honest here Mike Shanahan runs the football operation and Bruce does what Mike wants him to do, Mike is in complete control of the organization. Bruce is operating under what Mike tells him and that is kinda how it is going to go."

I was COMPLETELY unaware that no money or work has been put into our personnel department or scouting department if you will... but reading this I'm a little bit outraged, are you? How many of you saw this? I didn't.

” That’s a great question..To me when they got hit with cap penalties and got hit with $36 million and lost $18 million your gonna have to figure out how to find players, your gonna have to figure it out because you have to find a solution. I've often said Daniel Snyder has made a mistake about putting money into players when he should of put $ 5 million dollars into having a state of the art personnel department, build the personnel department that”s the best in the league instead of spending money on one player that you’re never gonna see again so I think now is the time to do it. Its going to be a real challenge for Mike and its going to be difficult.”

and then this:

I think it’s going to be very difficult to improve the team in terms of finding new players, think they are going to have to work with the ones or find some ones that are young. I think it is a challenge because you don’t have a state of the art personnel department. You haven’t made those changes in the personnel department its still the same group, Vinny’s not there but it’s still the same people. Bruce isn’t personnel he does public relations, cap, and all those things. Bruce isn’t the true total GM in terms off breaking down teams and finding players.”

I guess some of your opinions of Mike Shanahan make a little more sense to me today. I follow my team more than I should but evidently not enough.

 

[CounterTrey]

It's so exhausting being a Skins fan. I gave my Cowboy game tix away, first time ever.

 

[Dead Money]

It's so exhausting being a Skins fan. I gave my Cowboy game tix away, first time ever.

It really is isn't it. I'm out in LA new in town wearing my gear and have to explain myself and give my opinions of what's wrong to somebody so often, I'm starting to leave my hat in the car from time to time. Exhausting is a term I never really thought about but you are so right!

 

[tshile]

I thought it was widely known he was here to negotiate contracts and handle non-football related things, but that he wasn't filling the role as a traditional GM?

There's a reason they call him the GM of pants and picnics. He decides what color pants the team wears, and when to schedule picnics for redskins alum, but otherwise has little to do with making decisions.

 

[Dead Money]

Never heard any of that either tshile. His father must be proud. thanks.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I thought it was well known that Allen was strictly a capologist, and Shanahan had full control over personnel.

 

[tshile]

Never heard any of that either tshile. His father must be proud. thanks.

Yeah there was even speculation that Shanahan told Snyder to hire Allen before hiring Shanahan. He wanted to work with Allen because he knew Allen would be just fine with working the contracts and letting Shanahan work the actual player acquisition.

So yeah, it's been like that from the start. To be fair many people complained, and still are. I had a huge problem with it when it first happened; I've since come off the ledge but I still recognize the conflict of interest when your head coach is your GM.

I think your head coach should be looking out for now, and your GM should be looking out for 3 years from now.

I guess knowing all that depends on what you listen to and where you're located. If you listen to sports talk radio in the DC area it's definitely talked about at least once a week by every show.

 

[Sarge]

It is distressing to know that after all these years, the danny still evidently has little use for a proper scouting department. That is one reason we sucked balls for the first few years after he caem along, because he fired most of the scouting department.

Again, disappointing, but not surprising that he hasn't built the department up

 

[Ax]

It is distressing to know that after all these years, the danny still evidently has little use for a proper scouting department. That is one reason we sucked balls for the first few years after he caem along, because he fired most of the scouting department.

Again, disappointing, but not surprising that he hasn't built the department up

If Shanny wanted it, he'd of gotten it.

At some point, it isn't Bush's fault anymore.

 

[Bulldog]

Allen was hired by Shanahan specifically because he was not going to act independently in the front office.

Recall that Snyder and Shanahan met and then Allen was hired.

 

[Dead Money]

I get that they were hired as a package deal or that Shanny pushed for Allen, but I missed that Allen had no dealings in personnel at all. I mean I realized that Shanahan had "final say" but a good coach and GM work together at these things and I thought that's what we got, a team. We had a kickass capologist before and decent PR people so I guess I'm baffled why Allen is even here, cause Shanny owed him a favor? This blew my mind today I know I don't live in the area but I read a lot and listen to a lot of DC radio online.

The tidbit about the scouting department has me furious. The fact that we don' have one of the top 5 groups of scouts that money can buy is just ****ing wrong. It has to be a symptom of these people not wanting to work for Snyder, Shanahan, Allen or all together right? It has to change if Lombard is right and he's one talking head I like and respect.

I'm super disappointed about this and can now understand why some of you here hate Shanny so much now.

I'm still not ready to pull the plug because we are like buying a condo across the street from Chernobyl -nobody in their right mind is gonna do it. If anything needs to be done immediately its gotta be to make some dramatic ****ing changes to 2 areas, scouting and our medical/training staff.

 

[Rymanofthenorth]

this was brought up in year one by seevral of us who remembered when our scout dept was awesome. I brought up the fact that at every edmonton eskimos game I would see the redskins scouts and the redskins always seemed to find guys as udfa and out of the CFL back then. but after gibbs 1 left town our scout dept went downhill fast.

 

[Boone]

So, we're all just making the assumption that Allen is a genius when it comes to personnel and that we'd be so much better off if he was driving decision-making, not Shanahan?

Dunno if I buy that. I'll also add that while we've blown some pretty major pickups (McNabb, McRib, and others), the cap penalty 'surprise' was a devastating blow. We might be in a lot better position were it not for that BS. The price we paid for RG3 is going to make it even tougher over the next several years.

 

[CounterTrey]

I know that's not my sentiment Boone but the lack of ANY progress whatsoever in the scouting department is very disturbing.

 

[Goaldeje]

The lack of a state of the art scouting dept is a perfect example of penny wise, pound foolish. Not a lot of profit can be directly traced back to it, yet it is proving to be monumentally important to winning. How Snyder hasn't figured it out after a decade+ of owning the team is beyond me.

 

[KDawg]

Bruce Allen has a place in this franchise's front office, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind. However, it is not as a personnel man. Furthermore, I don't think it matters too much who our scouting department has in it as long as Shanahan is in charge. Shanahan has an ego, and while I can't claim that I know that Shanahan doesn't listen to his scouts, I do know that he likes to watch cut ups of each guy that the team is interested in and decide on who he likes. If a scout thinks they found a diamond in the rough but his film doesn't jump out to Shanahan, then that guy is likely to be outcast.

There is certain positions that I believe Mike Shanahan is a mad genius. Running back is one of them. He finds guys who just pan out. He's a running back finding genius. Everywhere else? Not so much. I've never been enamored with his choices at wide receiver. His offensive lines were always much better off with Alex Gibbs in charge of them. His defenses have good players in certain positions, but they've never been good. His quarterback choices haven't been great up until RG3. He signed with the Broncos when Elway was already the QB.

I think we mucked up this Shanahan thing. I've been on the fence about him since his post game comments, and more and more I find less to blame on Shanahan and more to blame on the circumstances in which he was hired. Guaranteed five years (poor move, even if it's not a "real" guarantee), bringing his son in as OC (who I like, by the way, but nepotism is bad), GM and Head Coach (I think this set up works, but with Shanahan I think his ego may get in the way more often than not).

I love Bruce Allen being a part of our front office structure, but he's not a GM. We need to overhaul our scouting department, and PAY THEM. I think Bruce could be a good guy to oversee finding a personnel guy to play the real role of GM. That new guy could hire the new head coach (you'd need one because Shanahan wouldn't stay on), and new scouting staff (or keep parts of it, some of the guys we have are very good).

I'm so up in the air.

We need continuity, but it's never okay to have continuity just for the sake of having it. It has to mean something. I like a lot of what Shanahan has done. And there are other things that I think have been detrimental.

 

[Henry]

I hate to sound like Ryman but this is something I was harping on from the beginning. Allen was obviously brought in as a condition for hiring Shanahan.

I don't think Snyder has ever understood the importance of having a real GM here. Either his coach is a newbie and Snyder runs all over him until the coach's credibility is gone, or his coach is an old established guy with total control. I fear that until we actually have someone here with an eye on the Long Term we will continue to spin our wheels.

At least we seem to have a QB, so there's that.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I just don't understand how someone can do something wrong for 10+ years, and not learn from his mistakes. It started to seem like he was learning, but with this news about the scouting department, WTF?

 

[KDawg]

I just don't understand how someone can do something wrong for 10+ years, and not learn from his mistakes. It started to seem like he was learning, but with this news about the scouting department, WTF?

I'd argue that he is learning. But through learning he makes new mistakes.

Too fast to fire Marty.

Too fast to hire Spurrier.

Made a good moves in Gibbs but made a mistake in keeping Vinny.

Hired a lame duck in Zorn but finally allowed Vinny to be sent packing.

Hired a respected football mind but gave him too much power.

He's certainly learning. Not at a quick pace. But the organizational structure has gotten better in the last three years.

But there is still room for improvement.

 

[Ax]

I just don't understand how someone can do something wrong for 10+ years, and not learn from his mistakes. It started to seem like he was learning, but with this news about the scouting department, WTF?

If Shanny wanted it, he'd of gotten it.

At some point, it isn't Bush's fault anymore.

I agree Ax. When will Shamahan have to take ownership of his dismal performance?