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OF: A Work in Progress

Om

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By the time you read this, the Washington Redskins will have spent a very long week stewing over their embarrassing 59-28 nationally televised home loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, and turned their attention to the Tennessee Titans.

The Redskins will have either lost their third straight game, fallen to 4-6 and seen any realistic shot at a late-season wildcard playoff run disappear, or they will have somehow upset the Titans, leveled their record at 5-5 and stayed alive for at least one more week.

In the grand scheme of things, though, it doesn’t really matter. Barring some miraculous turnaround, some unexpected catalyst, the Redskins’ chances of establishing genuine January NFL relevance in 2010 dissolved in a rain of Philadelphia touchdowns on Monday Night Football two weekends ago. They just plain do not have the talent to make real noise in the playoffs.

It may be too soon to close the book entirely on the 2010 Redskins however...

More...
 
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Stop being a homer, Om.

The score was 59-28. :D
 
................

****!
 
**snort**

The team is still headed for .500, just as I expected. Didn't matter to me which games were wins and losses. We always have our share of unexpected turnouts, just like every other team. My .500 wasn't a cover-your-ass .500, but what I expected of a 4-12 team entering the season with better coaching, but new systems.
 
Snort away, brother. If you weren't among the pitchfork crowd last week following 59-28, the piece really wasn't aimed at you. It was a look back at the thrashings the Redskins have taken in isolated instances for the past few years triggered by what happened against the Eagles.

Based on how ugly that affair was, I think maybe I needed the reassurance myself.
 
Snort away, brother. If you weren't among the pitchfork crowd last week following 59-28, the piece really wasn't aimed at you. It was a look back at the thrashings the Redskins have taken in isolated instances for the past few years triggered by what happened against the Eagles.

Based on how ugly that affair was, I think maybe I needed the reassurance myself.

I wasnt snorting at the article, I was snorting at the ribbing from Henry over the score... ;)

I was upset, but not as upset as some. It seems I've unfortunately come to expect that one good drubbing the team seems to take every season, which your article actually highlights. We've improved in many ways this season, but how could we not? Next year will be the year we really see if this dog will hunt.
 
Well, as a member of the pitchfork crowd, my biggest beef was that I thought the point of continuing to trade away picks was to mitigate the team's crapulence during the rebuilding phase. And if that's the case, embarrassments the magnitude of which we saw last Monday really need to stop. Immediately.

Otherwise, blow the team up and rebuild for real. Then brutal losses are completely understandable.

But I know you know this. And I know you know that I know you know this. So I'm going to stop talking now. :)
 
stupid Om and his stupid well written logical and well thought out blog. as a card carrying member of the pitch fork crowd, I would just like to say I picked up my pitchfork last year during the offseason, the eagles beatdown was just among the last straws for me. if we hadnt beaten them badly the first time, it wouldnt be so bad , but to me when you beat a team once and then get beat down really badly it speaks more to preparation and coaching than player talent. correct me if I am wrong but that 73 point beatdown by the bears had a lot of similiarities, we had beaten them in the game before in a convincing fashion, but were completely unprepared for the \T formation and got taken completely by surprise and then got dominated in every facet of the game. sounds remarkably like the Eagles game.
 
Well, as a member of the pitchfork crowd, my biggest beef was that I thought the point of continuing to trade away picks was to mitigate the team's crapulence during the rebuilding phase. And if that's the case, embarrassments the magnitude of which we saw last Monday really need to stop. Immediately.

Otherwise, blow the team up and rebuild for real. Then brutal losses are completely understandable.

But I know you know this. And I know you know that I know you know this. So I'm going to stop talking now. :)


Henry is winning me over :paranoid:

I guess I feel like there isn't a great plan in place. They seem to be sending conflicting signals anyway, from my limited perspective. It's not that I want to fire everyone on the coaching staff, but just am frustrated by some of the decisions and moves so far.

I may post more on this later, I got defensive when I read this for some reason. Need to get rid of that, then post (somewhat) intelligently (for me).
 
I guess I feel like there isn't a great plan in place. They seem to be sending conflicting signals anyway, from my limited perspective. It's not that I want to fire everyone on the coaching staff, but just am frustrated by some of the decisions and moves so far.

I'd like to reiterate this. I don't want anyone fired either. I just really hope the people in charge know what they are doing, because I don't. That's it.
 
Henry's one of the smartest, most level-headed guys I know.

Which is why I'm struggling with the apparent fact that he cannot or will not allow

1) for for the possibility an NFL team can be rebuilt in more than one way, and

2) that trying to realisitically assess the way any given team chooses to do it in anything less than 2-3 full seasons is premature in the ... um ... extreme.

Actually, what's really bugging me is that knowing Henry IS so dialed in and seemingly being so far apart on this one. I think I must have missed something. :)
 
...

2) that trying to realisitically assess the way any given team chooses to do it in anything less than 2-3 full seasons is premature in the ... um ... extreme...

You keep saying this Om, but it just isn't the case all the time. Our previous coach is proof enough, with a little more than one season it was obvious he was in over his head. Is Haslett in over his head? I think he is being asked to do more than he can with what he has. Why run it? What logical reasoning could the current coaching staff or anybody else give to justify blowing a top 10 ranked D in favor of this when it is obvious to everyone you don't have the players to run it? Turnovers? A more aggressive approach?

You and Boone continually ask us for patience which is a legitimate request, but what you guys don't seem to take into account is that certain decisions by this coaching staff are more than likely reasoning for us to be 5-5 instead of 6-4 at the least, perhaps even 7-3. I know! I know! It is this coaching staff that got us to 5-5 which is a huge improvement over last year. Problem is in my eyes, we could be better. And I was one who strongly believed 7-9 would be satisfactory. Well, if we were playing our players in schemes that fit their ablities, I would be satisfied, but we're not. That's the rub!

With a defense as horrible as we have, and yes it is horrible, we are still in the playoff hunt. Imagine for a second, if you will, if we had kept our 10th ranked defense mostly in tact, kept the key players like we did, and played them to their strengths. Don't you believe we would have at least one more win this season?

I know this sounds more like a win now mentality, but my point is, we actually could be winning now. This is a very weak NFC.

Of course there is no way to confirm all of this, just my opinion.
 
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I can appreciate that there is more than one way to rebuild OM, but the simple fact is hat we took a strength and made it a weakness, and thats all on the coaches. with an improved offence this team should be improved, its really that simple, but somehow we took a pretty solid defence and turned it into a weakness despite improving in turnovers and pass rush. some of us believe we could have tweaked the scheme and had the same improvement in those stats without becoming dead last in everything else.

as for rebuilding while remaining competitive, the issue is two fold, we have less picks and they are not as good, we should have taken our lumps and gotten better players, but I think shannys ego and need to keep his legacy meant that he needed to have improvement this year at the cost of us taking longer before becoming a true contender.

I did like the article though and I see where you are coming from, and I even hope that you are right and I am wrong.
 
Henry's one of the smartest, most level-headed guys I know.

Uh oh. It's when the compliments start flying that I know I'm really in trouble. :)

Which is why I'm struggling with the apparent fact that he cannot or will not allow

1) for for the possibility an NFL team can be rebuilt in more than one way,

Not for us, I don't think there is. We've attempted to rebuild our team a certain way for a very long time, and it hasn't worked for a long time. My hope, when Snyder brought in a new front office to start over from scratch was that they would, uh, start over from scratch. That this new administration appears to be of the similar mindset that blowing up the team, taking our lumps, and recreating ourselves from the ground up is unthinkable ... I find that troubling.

Now, we can all find comfort in the fact that Vinnie Cerratto is no longer able to make terrible personnel decisions. But to this day we really don't know how much influence he really had when he was here. He could very well have just been a glorified yes-man of Snyder's. Snyder clearly has a way he likes to put teams together. I HOPE it's just a coincidence that the front office he now has in place is still trading away young for old in an attempt to rebuild on the fly, because it looks awfully familiar to me. I know that we can look at certain moves and explain how they are different than moves made two years ago, or five years ago, or eight years ago. But the overall strategy still looks the same to me. And I find that troubling.


and

2) that trying to realisitically assess the way any given team chooses to do it in anything less than 2-3 full seasons is premature in the ... um ... extreme.

I am not declaring Allen/Shanahan failures after 9 or 10 games. I am perfectly willing to sit and watch 3 full seasons before calling for anyone's head. :) However, I am now approaching the way I view this team from the 'things aren't different until they actually look different' perspective. And, as you so eloquently point out this week, things aren't looking different.

Actually, what's really bugging me is that knowing Henry IS so dialed in and seemingly being so far apart on this one. I think I must have missed something. :)

Nah. I just need to let you do your thing without chiming in with my same old routine. I understand your perspective. I just don't share it anymore. But I could probably stand to stop repeating that after every one of your blog entries. :)
 
Henry's one of the smartest, most level-headed guys I know.

Which is why I'm struggling with the apparent fact that he cannot or will not allow

1) for for the possibility an NFL team can be rebuilt in more than one way, and

2) that trying to realisitically assess the way any given team chooses to do it in anything less than 2-3 full seasons is premature in the ... um ... extreme.

Actually, what's really bugging me is that knowing Henry IS so dialed in and seemingly being so far apart on this one. I think I must have missed something. :)


To be fair, you only know what, like three guys?

:)

El's post right below yours sums up my feelings nicely. His point about keeping the 10th ranked defense intact, running the same scheme is spot on. What would the harm have been in doing that? Why force-feed a scheme that we don't have players for? I remember when we signed Carter, everyone scouting report I read said he was a signing for us b/c we were going to be rescuing him from the 3-4 in SF, which is was not good at playing.

If I have access to these scouting reports, surely our coaches do, no?

So why force it? Or if you choose to force it with players that don't fit, why not play a bunch of young players to see how they respond? Why trade away draft picks for a win-now QB?

Ryman has done a nice job of explaining the 3-4 in other threads, his thesis being mainly that teams that made the switch cold turkey (so to speak) experienced the benefits right away, IF they had the proper personnel. That's what has me bothered. Shanny and Haslett apparently thought they had the right personnel. And Allen apparently agreed with them, OR his voice was ignored. Either way, the front office player acquisition side of things ain't looking too great right now, ya know?

And God bless all of us, that's what we've had to put up with over the last how many years?

I have little argument with Shanahan the coach. I don't agree with all his decisions, but I am more than willing to admit he has turned us from a doormat to a playoff contender, and a team other teams probably don't want to play. That's a great feeling, and a definite step in the right direction.

My concern is that the FO structure, which I was exceptionally optimistic about (probably to the point that I owe Henry an apology or 5) over the summer, now is creating lots o' doubt in my mind. Could it be post-traumatic-Vinny disorder inducing flashbacks? Sure it could.

Can you blame me?
 
I think Henry, that because you were here for such a long time you may be a bit jaded as well, I know I am, the Norv era stripped me of the patience to wait multiple seasons without any real tangible sight of improvement. what scares me is that the offence hasnt really imporved at all despite a massive makeover, and that the defence is so much worse. that laone makes me question if shanny is gonna be willing to rebuild this team. I question the new staffs patience more than my own.
 
Don't have time to cover everything here, but did want to at least mention that no, I was NOT satisfied with keeping the same tired, statistically better containment style defense we had been running here since shortly after the NFCE figured out Gregg Williams and his exotic blitzes stopped working.

Personally, I probably would have suggested to Shanahan ('cuz you know, he listens to people like us) he bring in an aggressive, attacking 4-3 kind of guru (which I'm sure exists, right?), so the transition from passive to aggressive would be if not quicker, at least maybe a little less embrassing than the 3-4 has been at times.

But he wouldn't take my calls so I guess that's why he went with the 3-4.

Hope he knows what he's doing. :)
 
Oddly, I don't care about the switch to the 3-4, so long as we stick with it and start drafting players that fit it.

Again, overhaul lumps I can take.
 

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