I should be the gm lol (common sense not so common)

[SkinsOrlando]

My 2 cents

Spurrier was touted heavily by all the media "experts" and actual football people to be the second coming of Bill Walsh and revolutionizing the game when he was hired. Snyder didn't ruin Spurrier's career in the NFL, his lackluster work ethic and general belief he could simply transfer his college offense without any twists and tweaks destroyed him. To say anything short of that is revisionist history in my books. Is Snyder at fault for hiring him, sure he made the decision but at the time it was made it sure seemed like a good thing to awhole hell of a lot of know it all's in the football world.

Gibbs: I don't consider Gibbs 2nd tenure a failure at all, we all wanted to believe he would bring us back to glory and quite frankly with the roster he inherited to start the 04 season, ugly. The fact we made the playoffs twice is in of itself and accomplishment considering the state of the NFC east where the Eagles were dominant, Dallas with Parcells was adequate and NY began to gel made this a difficult task. If Sean hadn't been murdered in 07 and Gibbs had remained in 08, that team would've been better and we'd be in better shape today. The best thing about the Gibbs hiring regardless of results was it felt GOOD to be a Redskins fan again. Gibbs also never blamed anyone but himself at the end of the day for the teams shortcomings.......unlike a certain someone

Zorn - total Snyder screw up, I don't buy the nobody wanted to work for him argument but seasoned coaches at that time began having all football related duties, was never going to happen with Cerrato still here.

Shanny - I didn't like the hire, I was in the Gruden boat at that time because he had a history with George Allen. The mistake Snyder made here was hiring him at all, the teams performance however falls at his feet.

I didn't list Schottenheimer because I think in my mind we'd have seen Andy Reid v.2, can get you to the playoffs with some consistency but can't win floppy donkey **** when it counts. I know the current adage, but we'd have gone to the playoffs more, yes and after 3-4 1st round exists would expect his ass canned.

The flashy stupid FA signings, Snyder signed the check, there's plenty of blame there, but I don't see where the current blown out of proportion non-sense everyone has been discussing falls at his feet. Jerry Jones is no different, when he was on the sidelines at the end of games and all that hoopla, he didn't get this much vitriol from the media. If Snyder wasn't so disliked in the press whether it be the name changing saga earlier this year or for reasons in the past, thats why this is headline material.

The success of the team ultimately falls at his feet, period. No argument there, but a lot of the posts around here lately just seem to be let's shovel more **** on the pile. Only one problem with that, eventually the pile gets so large everyone in town smells like **** too.

Ryman has been spot on for quite some time along with others, we need a football GM, a solid hierarchy structure with competent people, I can agree to blame Snyder for that as well. He is not however the beelzebub as some want to believe.

 

[fansince62]

silly discussion in many respects. yuppers, Zorn had no role in his failure: he knew when he accepted the HC job he was destined for glory! he was forced to sign that contract! he was a babe in the woods - no chance at all he thought through the down side!

in some respects, this is laughable. I seem to recall so many toward the end of last season: "we turned the corner"...."Shanahan has done wonders"...."Snyder has learned his lesson and allowed the adults to rule". "the roster really has improved". blah, blah, blah. and then, like quicksilver.....when the going gets tough! "quick...we need a target to vent our frustrations on!"

Snyder hasn't succeeded. no doubt. Snyder has contributed to much of the failure - it took him far too long to learn how the business rolls and what an owner's role ought to be. but things have been changing. I'm not defending him. and I'm not skewering him. we have a rookie of the year QB whose knee just about fell off the wagon - something the coach could have, perhaps, prevented. no way the QB was gonna perform to standard with no preseason and changes in the offense. the defense, which was bad the previous season, wasn't upgraded all that much. jeepers Mr Wilson, we're all surprised by the outcome this year? we shouldn't be. we were all, well a lot of us (not El!), drunk with the waters of success and expected better. we didn't really absorb the full import of what was going on during the off-season and into the pre-season. we had little idea of how RG's injury would impact his performance. we had no idea how the offense was going to change to accommodate his exposure - or how that would play into overall team weaknesses. we certainly had no idea just how awful this defense really could be. coaching has a lot to do with this. talent has a lot to do with it. but Snyder? he aint the one been running the show. it's been Allen and Shanahan. and the friggin arse-wipes in New York trying to submarine this franchise every chance they get. laying the blame on Snyder overly simplifies a situation in which there have been multiple internal and external variables.

I'm not a big Snyder fan. and I have about reached my limit with this team's sorry performance year after year. but when the analytic side of me looks at what facts are available to me, I find it very difficult to localize blame anywhere. Snyder doesn't miss tackles. Snyder doesn't drop passes. Snyder doesn't call for a run play on 4th and 6. Snyder does't throw the ball in the dirt or over the head. Snyder doesn't shank the punt 20 yards. Snyder doesn't kick-off and not reach the end-zone. Snyder isn't a turnstile at RT. That's coaching. that's personnel selection. that's a bunch of players without pride. lest we forget..prior to the season...the talk was all about how tight the locker-room was and how the culture had truly changed. well, we aren't the Skins of previous years where money guys looking out for themselves were the order of the day, but we have learned something about team character during this losing run. no one seems anxious to examine this interesting bit of reality.

here's a start:

- a QB started who was totally unprepared. he wasn't mentally ready. he had no real work with his receivers. heck, he hadn't even worked out how he was going to slide yet! so the offense was doomed to be throttled from the git go. no changes whatsoever were made on the o-line. 3 alternatives to Polumbus were brought in and none of them stuck!

- the defense remained weak in the secondary. the d-line lost depth for 4 weeks and was another year older and slower. the d-line wasn't upgraded one iota.

fill in some of the other failures. all the things we missed early on cuz we were blinded by last season's success. we missed what was really the true state of this team.

 

[Henry]

Spurrier was a huge cluster**** from day one and it was largely on Snyder.

First of all, we already had a coach. An established guy who was just beginning to rebuild the team. He wasn't perfect but he'd only been here a year. Then Spurrier announces he's available and ... oh my goodness look at that! Our coach gets fired. Like a day later Spurrier is signed for an insanely lucrative contract.

I don't think it can be overstated, the long-term damage it can do to a team to drastically switch philosophies three times in three years. From Norv's run-heavy long pass offense-first to Schottenheimer's defense-first field-position game, to Spurrier's wide-open pass-crazy offense ... and that's if everyone involved is competent. Snyder was like a child grabbing every shiny new to as soon as it hit the shelves. It killed this team.

Signing Gibbs definitely helped stabilize things, but they had gotten SO bad before that. And of course, Gibbs dramatically changed things AGAIN. You just can't. Do that. Gibbs deserves a medal for getting us to the playoffs given the crap this team was dealing with during that time, but that crap didn't go away. We were still grabbing shiny new toys off the shelf during the Gibbs years. Dithcing guys like Pierce and Clark and grabbing up Archulletta and Lloyd. Maybe some of you want to hang that all on Gibbs. I'm not sure I do.

Anyway, looking at the individual coaches and saying 'well that made sense at the time' is the problem. It's Snyder's problem. It's not 'at the time' that he should be looking at. It's 'for the long haul.' We need an overaching consistent philosophy that stays with this team from one coach to the next. I didn't see that type of thinking in evidence when Shanahan was hired. I hope we see it when he's fired.

But I'm not going to believe it until I actually see it.

 

[Goaldeje]

My problem with Snyder is something Henry sort of alluded to. His problems are cumulative. So I have no problem alleviating a lot of the blame for the mistake Shanahan has made from Snyder's shoulders. However, Snyder effed up the Zorn hire so badly, AND saddled him with bug-eyes, which meant that not only was the coaching sub-standard, but so were personnel decisions. I keep going back in my mind to the outrage that was evident during Zorn's last weeks. There were legitimate talks of boycotts, marches, etc by Skins fans. It. Was. Ugly.

So Snyder over-reacted. Again. Firing Vinny and Zorn was the right move, and I could even be convinced that bringing Mike and Kyle along was the right move as well, as coaches. But he took it too far by giving Mikey control over personnel, despite consistent and definitive evidence that setup does not work. It was almost as if Snyder was saying directly to the fans, "look, look, look, I know you're mad, but I'm giving up all control to a two time SB winning coach, this is what you want, right? This makes everything better, right?"

He over-corrected. So no, I don't blame Snyder for McNabb or Jamaal Brown or McRib or Griff's knee or any of the other bad decisions that have been made over the past four years. But I do blame him for putting the team in the position where those things were bound to happen. The coach and GM should be at war with each other, antithetical in a sense, which can not happen if they are the same person. That's on Snyder.

 

[tshile]

Yeah, I find it incredibly hard to give Snyder the benefit of the doubt that he'll do things right. There's just a significantly longer track record of him provenly doing things wrong (he's treated every. single. coach. like. shit. except for gibbs) than there is of him doing things right (and I think at this point we're still making assumptions that he did do things right.)

I think it's still highly questionable whether he 'Gets It' or not.

Add in his non-team related spats with the media and all that stuff and he's just a shitty guy that I have no problem skewering whenever it's convenient. That's what happens when you're a shitty person. You get thought of and treated like that. And it's no one's fault but your own.

"I've changed"

Too little, too late.

 

[Dead Money]

I think I've finally arrived at "don't know...don't particularly care"

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[Henry]

I think I've finally arrived at "don't know...don't particularly care"

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[Lanky Livingston]

Exactly, Goaldie. His mistakes are cumulative because he's incapable of learning from his mistakes.

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[CounterTrey]

My problem with Snyder is something Henry sort of alluded to. His problems are cumulative. So I have no problem alleviating a lot of the blame for the mistake Shanahan has made from Snyder's shoulders. However, Snyder effed up the Zorn hire so badly, AND saddled him with bug-eyes, which meant that not only was the coaching sub-standard, but so were personnel decisions. I keep going back in my mind to the outrage that was evident during Zorn's last weeks. There were legitimate talks of boycotts, marches, etc by Skins fans. It. Was. Ugly.

So Snyder over-reacted. Again. Firing Vinny and Zorn was the right move, and I could even be convinced that bringing Mike and Kyle along was the right move as well, as coaches. But he took it too far by giving Mikey control over personnel, despite consistent and definitive evidence that setup does not work. It was almost as if Snyder was saying directly to the fans, "look, look, look, I know you're mad, but I'm giving up all control to a two time SB winning coach, this is what you want, right? This makes everything better, right?"

He over-corrected. So no, I don't blame Snyder for McNabb or Jamaal Brown or McRib or Griff's knee or any of the other bad decisions that have been made over the past four years. But I do blame him for putting the team in the position where those things were bound to happen. The coach and GM should be at war with each other, antithetical in a sense, which can not happen if they are the same person. That's on Snyder.

This entire sentiment just kills me. How long does the guy have to go and establish a track record of doing exactly what everyone one wants in terms of hiring experienced Football guys with supposedly sterling résumés (Allen and Shanahan) before he stops getting just brutalized for crap he did years ago? A decade...two? I get it, seriously I do, but this is the kind of stuff that just drives people like me into hiding from other Redskins fans. I'm as bummed as anyone about the current state but if we have to debate Snyder and talk about his deeds from 3, 4 and 5 coaches ago every time a coach is on the hot seat or we have a bad season I just have to cry Uncle and call it a day. To me those issues are irrelevant when he's got a 4 year track record that proves he's literally turned over a new leaf as an owner. He may still be the prick many loathe personally but as an owner of the Redskins he's done everything anyone could ask but promote a guy to president, hire a real GM and let them hire a coach who will work for and answer to them. I'd bet a paycheck that happens next. Either way I just don't have it in me to hold a grudge that long, even with a little stain like Snyder...actions do speak pretty loud to me and that 4 year track record is significant.

The facts here are pretty clear to the point that people with inside dish are openly laughing at him in the press. Shanahan's 100% responsible for everything that's happened with this organization the last 4 years, to keep hammering Snyder for this does 2 things:

1. it creates mass distraction and acrimony amongst us fans thereby accomplishing exactly what Shanahan wants: a deflection of where the blame really lies...with him.

2. unfairly prevents Snyder from moving on from this disaster that nearly everyone from pro athletes to other owners, to other coaches thought was a great idea given the state of our franchise when he came in...in desperate need of some discipline, a purge of turd athletes and a franchise run by professionals from top to bottom.

Unfortunately many poor hires (that Snyder had zero control over and wouldn't have even with a GM in place) and personnel choices ruined whatever plan was there. Even with this disastrous end I still am very confident about our owner's ability to play the owner game the way you're supposed to...sign the checks and GTFO the way.

 

[Rymanofthenorth]

All of us, except Ryman. It has to be so Henry. Because if it's not, it kind of undermines his 'I'm Nostradamus' storyline.

feel free to repost or bump any threads, I dont remember too many guys backing me up when I said I didnt want shannhan, I was on board with him for about 15 minutes right up until he announced he was forcing a 3-4 and hiring haslett. I am pretty sure I was in the minority and by minority i think serv, and fansince were the only other guys openly anti shannhan

 

[Rymanofthenorth]

I was good natured for the past 4 years about ebing called eeyore for being a realist, now you guys can be good natured about being told I told you so, believe me its the only upside to this gong show for me, I am NOT happy about being right.

 

[Rymanofthenorth]

i always looked at the coach and gm dynamic the same way , I want there to be arguments because a coach should be all about winning now, even if you gotta use smoke and mirrors, he should be making all his calls on WHATS BEST FOR US TO WIN RIGHT NOW. a GM however needs to be looking long term as well as short term, he is the one who should be buying the groceries because he will look at both sides. besides a gm should be able to say " OC you suck, you have 4 games to get your shit together or its NFL not for long" does anyone think any competant GM would have made the switch to a 3-4 and then done nothing to bring in players to fit it? a real GM would have stayed 4-3 and tweaked it, then brought in a coach and made the call and got the players to fit what they wanted to do. an idiot just hires a yes man and then forces a dont fit scheme, and he odes it because there is no accountability. a GM run team would have skidded haslett after year 2 and thats if they even hired him in the first place.

 

[SkinsFTW]

Exactly, Goaldie. His mistakes are cumulative because he's incapable of learning from his mistakes.

Yep, and as many bad decisions as he's made it's very likely that keeping Shanahan and hoping for a FA/Draft/RG3 miracle next year is the safe bet. Imagine if we really did get a 1st for Cousins.

Odds are he's not hiring a real GM and more than likely the next coach will be another teams OC this year, a guy who can promise to make RG3 into Rodgers 2.0, so basically an upgraded version of Zorn. Looks like a sequel to me. Maybe this time it'll be the Seahawks OC instead of their QB coach though.

 

[McD5]

Yep, and as many bad decisions as he's made it's very likely that keeping Shanahan and hoping for a FA/Draft/RG3 miracle next year is the safe bet. Imagine if we really did get a 1st for Cousins.

Odds are he's not hiring a real GM and more than likely the next coach will be another teams OC this year, a guy who can promise to make RG3 into Rodgers 2.0, so basically an upgraded version of Zorn. Looks like a sequel to me. Maybe this time it'll be the Seahawks OC instead of their QB coach though.

It's pretty easy to see who that guy is.

 

[tshile]

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[Henry]

feel free to repost or bump any threads, I dont remember too many guys backing me up when I said I didnt want shannhan, I was on board with him for about 15 minutes right up until he announced he was forcing a 3-4 and hiring haslett. I am pretty sure I was in the minority and by minority i think serv, and fansince were the only other guys openly anti shannhan

A thread was posted about two days ago doing just that. I even pointed out that my "he's not my first choice but ok" post was one of the more ringing endorsements.

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[tshile]

feel free to repost or bump any threads, I dont remember too many guys backing me up when I said I didnt want shannhan, I was on board with him for about 15 minutes right up until he announced he was forcing a 3-4 and hiring haslett. I am pretty sure I was in the minority and by minority i think serv, and fansince were the only other guys openly anti shannhan

they've been posted.

even i posted in my blognostication last year that i was anti-shanahan, but had changed my mind. ax made a post pointing out that it was the media that was strongly in favor of the move, highlighting the irony that they're now the ones leading the circus parade. maybe that's why you feel like you're in such a minority. there were absolutely many redskins fans that were not exactly thrilled about it. hence us having so many people openly say 'well, i guess i was wrong' when the team looked as good as it did last year.

you were right thinking the optimism last year was premature and over the top. but you were not in a minority in questioning, or outright hating, the hiring of shanahan when it originally happened.

 

[fansince62]

Exactly, Goaldie. His mistakes are cumulative because he's incapable of learning from his mistakes.

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and your evidence would be? "he's incapable of learning...." this is the sort of universal generalization that folks with a bent for the "facts" (as you like to call them) find troubling. there clearly have been changes. Snyder may not be a paragon of virtue - but he's not the same sort of owner he was when he started. again, I'm not defending or condemning him. I'm assessing the current situation, understanding it's very different from the past, and making some projections on what needs to be done to move forward.

yup...Shanahan...a two time SB winner....is just so stupid, greedy and arrogant that he went ahead and signed up for the gig anyway...knowing the owner was "...incapable of...."

sorry....pissing into the wind over the past doesn't solve anything. Snyder isn't going anywhere. we have concrete evidence - locked into a contract - that he has changed. whether that is enough - don't know. I do know the goal is to move forward.

we can all be frustrated. we can all be angry (I am). but, no one forces any of you to hang around the B&G bar.

some folks look through the small end of the telescope.....some folks look through the large end.

 

[tshile]

which end is the right end?

 

[Shi no Tenshi]

which end is the right end?

Well, you can totally fry ants with it one way...