"Rebuilding" a henry inspired thread

[servumtuum]

Yeah, I can kind of see that, Boone. I think the Zorn/Vinny debacle scared Snyder though. Fans were really angry by the end of that, especially when the season tickets fiasco was reported. I suspect Snyder was flustered because for the first time in his 10 years of ownership, the fans looked really mad, and it even looked like there might be potential for a boycott, especially if things didn't get better.

I like your plan, my problem with it is, are we sure we have the personnel to run it. I'm not even talking about Shanny and Allen, I'm mainly referring to the scouting department. You know, the scouting department that evidently told Vinny and Dan than Devin Thomas was a better prospect than DeSean Jackson?

My concern if we commit to 3-4 years of suckage by starting over, is that 3-4 years will turn into a lot more because our scouting department isn't up to snuff.

G., ya think Ozzie might let us borrow DeCosta for a couple seasons? We could offer him a lot of money.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Seriously-who would we be able to get from a scouting perspective with a good rep that might be available? I'm not trying to sound facetious but good scouts aren't a dime-a-dozen and the really sharp ones are kinda tied up at the moment.

 

[KDawg]

I never completely repost something I posted, but I feel like this post fits better into this thread than the one I posted it in. I'm including the post I replied to just to kind of keep the whole thing in context. I apologize for doing this. It's rare that I do it

We've had lots of them, just not in recent memory

And McNabb was incredibly cheap by former Pro Bowl QB standards. I didn't love the move at the time, so I hear you on giving up any picks. But getting a starting quality (love his play this year or not, he is that) QB for what we paid for him - I think it's hard to argue we paid a whole lot.

I very respectfully disagree with you here. I think we paid entirely too much for McNabb. We're currently in the process of overhauling both our offense and our defense, and who knows, maybe long snapper, punter and kicker... Although it's too early to make that call.

Giving up two draft picks to pick up McNabb was a major miscalculation. McNabb is not the type of QB who is going to put a bad team on his back and carry them anywhere (heck, not many quarterbacks are). By the time we have put pieces in place to make our offense, defense and special teams quality units, McNabb will be on the back end of his deal, assuming he stays that long. At that point, his skills will be even further diminished.

Defensively our needs are vast if we stick to the 3-4:

Defensive End (4-5) - We have two guys who are okay, Golston and Carriker. Golston is in a contract year and I doubt he reups. But, he may. The rest of the defensive ends are too old at this point, which is shame because I love me some Phillip Daniels.

Nose Tackle (1-2) - If we want to keep Kemo as depth, with the thought process that he'll be much better next year due to recovering from his injury, than I'm all for it. But he cannot be our starter while running the 3-4.

Inside Linebacker: (2) London Fletcher, for the time being, is fine. He's getting older and will need to be replaced soon, but he's still a quality player. Rocky McIntosh will probably not be resigned and he hasn't had a great season anyways. Perry Riley is a major question mark and HB Blades has shown that he doesn't at all fit in the 3-4 defense. We need another starting caliber inside backer. Perhaps Lorenzo Alexander can move to the inside role as depth? If so, the need may drop to one.

Outside Linebacker (3): Brian Orakpo is a decent linebacker and a very good pass rusher. He still has time to grow. We have NOTHING else at the outside linebacker position. Literally.

Cornerbacks (2-3): If Carlos Rogers and Phillip Buchanon aren't resigned we're left with DeAngelo Hall, Kevin Barnes and Byron Westbrook. We'll need two more corners, one of which needs to be starting caliber. If Rogers resigns (I doubt it, but, I've been wrong on that front before) we need one nickel corner. I don't see us resigning Buchanon.

Free Safety (1): Kareem Moore is a backup quality player at best.

Strong Safety (1): No back up quality players besides Doughty. I'd say Horton fits, but the coaching staff seemed pretty sour on him, but that can change.

Offensively we have the following needs:

Guards (2): We need two guards, preferably of starting quality. We could manage for a season with just one starter and a better backup player. I didn't forget about Mike Williams, but blood clots are a possible career ending injury. We must plan for the worst there.

Center (1): Rabach must go. Cook or Montgomery can play the backup role.

Tackle (1-2): If we keep Jammal Brown we can sign one or two guys for depth purposes.

Wide Receiver (1-2): I'd say Armstrong has solidified a spot. I don't know that Santana Moss is going to be back in a Redskin uniform next year, though. That leaves us with a corps. of Armstrong, Williams, Kelly, Austin, Banks, Johnson. Of that group, I'd say you'll see Austin on the team in some capacity and Kelly, if he's healthy, as well. Brandon Banks will be on the team almost definitely, but may not play a huge role as a receiver. I'm comfortable with Armstrong in the slot more than anything else. If Kelly can emerge as a number 2, and that's a big "if" we still would need a number one receiver. And those don't grow on trees

Quarterback (1): McNabb, Grossman and Beck are not the answer. This need may not be filled this year.

Running back (1): We need a third guy. I don't know who the first two will be. It can almost be any combination of Portis, Williams, Davis, and Torain. I'm guessing Portis is gone, unfortunately. If we go into next season with Williams, Davis and Torain we better have a very good offensive line in front of them. This may be the best strategy going into next season. Torain's injury history scares me. This is going to be a running back by committee if those are our three.

We have a ton of holes, McNabb is not going to lead this team to the promised land by himself. He's not a bad quarterback, but he's certainly not the same as he was in Philadelphia, either. You can say he doesn't have the pieces and I agree... Which is why we never should have traded for him. We could have stunk with Grossman at QB. We still could have received picks for Campbell and went in with Grossman and kept those two picks. They could have helped our rebuilding process tremendously.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

Currently, the Toronto Maple Leafs are undergoing what many of us have been clamouring for in D.C. - a commitment to youth through an overhaul and rebuild.

Ironically, the Leafs scored 3 goals in the 4th period last night to take the Caps to overtime, and eventually won in a shootout. Damn you, CH!

 

[Henry]

Great post, CH. This is what I am trying to say. Most of us say we are fine with a rebuilding program. But DET rebuilt for how long? St Louis? Are any of us going to remain patient 3 years in, when we are still going 5-11? How about year 5? Year 7?

What in our current FO structure leads you to believe at all that our scouting dept is capable of turning draft picks into contributors?

Danny knows all this, and so does Shanahan. They know we say we will be patient, but won't be when it comes down to it.

At least most of us.

The owner's first and, more importantly, only job is to find capable front office people, who in turn find capable scouts, who in turn contribute towards making good draft decisions.

If we're not drafting well, it's not the process that's the problem. You give the front office a cycle to build a team and if it doesn't work out you find a new front office and do it again. Otherwise you are stuck on the Treadmill of Doom that we've been experiencing for the past decade. The holes pop up faster than you can plug them and eventually you hit rock bottom anyway, except without any chance to build a dynasty first.

 

[Elephant]

G., ya think Ozzie might let us borrow DeCosta for a couple seasons? We could offer him a lot of money.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

Seriously-who would we be able to get from a scouting perspective with a good rep that might be available? I'm not trying to sound facetious but good scouts aren't a dime-a-dozen and the really sharp ones are kinda tied up at the moment.

I spoke about this in Hog Fever's thread, "What Would You Do?

Danny should throw some of that money at him! We lured Marvin Lewis away from them, Snyder should do the same here. I just don't think Shanahan wants to bring in someone like this. I think he wants control over the players brought in.

 

[KDawg]

Danny should throw some of that money at him! We lured Marvin Lewis away from them, Snyder should do the same here. I just don't think Shanahan wants to bring in someone like this. I think he wants control over the players brought in.

This thought scares the crap out of me. For the record.

 

[Lanky Livingston]

We had excellent scouts for awhile - Morocco Brown, and whoever was in charge of college scouting both did well. Was it last year or the year before we had at least 4 or 5 players signed off our practice squad - always a sign of good scouting. Not sure if Allen replaced them all, or if they're still around.

 

[Yusuf06]

Snyder knows this, and can't risk alienating his customers, because we haven't demonstrated we're patient enough.

Ordinarily I'd say worrying about alienating the fanbase shouldn't hold much sway. However, I'm sure the fan revolt of last season is still fresh in Lord Farquaad's mind as well it should be. It wouldn't make much difference to the bottom line but having that kind of circus atmosphere can be pretty toxic when it comes to hiring coaches and bringing in FA's.

With all that said, you're completely correct that our fanbase is very impatient. Not to pick on you Ryman, but I'll use your OP as exhibit A...

rebuilding vs reloading
rebuilding, you get rid of players who you know wont be here for the run, if you can get anything for them you take it, you dont try to get their value because in all likelyhood they wont be valuable to anyone else as much as they are to you. you gather draft picks, you dont worry about how you will do NOW because you are building for at least 3 years away.

So what you're saying is you're willing to take a step back in getting rid of a good player in order to have a shot at another younger player that might be better while at the same time saying your goal is to build for the future. IMHO, that's the classic and incredibly common self delusion that says "I have to do something, anything to get better...NOW!" Unfortunately, that kind of thinking ends up being a pipe dream more often than not.

My recipe? Incremental change. Take those draft picks and fix the weakest areas of the team before you look at replacing guys that might be flawed but productive. Example: instead of replacing Cooley or Rocky, shore up a glaring weakness at C or NT.

This incremental approach improves the team without taking a risk at a position where you're "OK" for a player that might not pan out. If you whiff on replacing Rabauch, what have you lost? However if you whiff on replacing Cooley or Rocky, you've made your unit worse than when you started, forcing you to now spend more picks or FA dollars just to get back to your previous baseline. Picks and FA dollars that we're woefully short on BTW. IMHO replacing average to decent players is an exercise for a team that's much further along in the rebuilding process than we are, i.e. fine tuning to try to get to the SB.

Wanna know the kicker? I think Bruce Allen is pretty much just finagling contracts and isn't getting much say on personnel.

The way I see it, Shanahan screwed the pooch with the switch to the 3-4. I also think he's a mediocre talent evaluator. He hits on some, he misses on some, but I think he misses on more of the major pieces. Couple that was his defensive coordinator being a poor talent evaluator and you have a mess in the personnel department.

I don't know about the switch to the 3-4 yet but I agree that I've never liked Shanahan the talent evaluator. Even so, Allahan represents a 1000% improvement over what we had so I'm willing to give it time. Reiterating my previous point about impatience, it's Allahan's first season...not even fully complete yet, and some of us are talking about going in an entirely different direction.

 

[KDawg]

some of us are talking about going in an entirely different direction.

I'm not. I want us to go in a different direction defensively, even if it's just getting a new coordinator. But again, I'm not sold on the fact that Shanahan can evaluate talent. I'd like to see Bruce Allen have more say in personnel (of course, he might already and I'm an idiot).

Haslett and Shanahan combining for defensive talent evaluations scares me much more than Shanahan and Shanahan looking at the offensive side, too.

 

[Henry]

Yusuf, the idea is to build a core of players that will play together for years and develop an identity and chemistry together. This is a long term plan. Three to five years from now, when that core of young guys will be peaking, players currently over 30 will likely be ineffective. So there is logic in trading them away now while they have value for a player that could be more useful to us down the line, when we really need it.

I don't buy the argument of 'what if that pick doesn't pan out?' The answer to that question is, that's why you need as many picks as you can get, because they AREN'T going to all work out.

Fact is, you aren't going to have a chance to win big unless you put all your chips in the middle. This team has been bleeding out a few chips at a time for years now and we are just about broke. It's time to go all in.

And thus ends the analogy portion of our program.

 

[Elephant]

This thought scares the crap out of me. For the record.

What part? Danny throwing money or Shanahan having control over player acquisition?

 

[KDawg]

What part? Danny throwing money or Shanahan having control over player acquisition?

Yes.

Although throwing money at a personnel guy is a-ok in my book. Just stop throwing it at players... Or at least guys with previous "attitude" issues

 

[Lanky Livingston]

I hear Lawrence Phillips is available...

 

[fansince62]

Yusuf, the idea is to build a core of players that will play together for years and develop an identity and chemistry together. This is a long term plan. Three to five years from now, when that core of young guys will be peaking, players currently over 30 will likely be ineffective. So there is logic in trading them away now while they have value for a player that could be more useful to us down the line, when we really need it.

I don't buy the argument of 'what if that pick doesn't pan out?' The answer to that question is, that's why you need as many picks as you can get, because they AREN'T going to all work out.

Fact is, you aren't going to have a chance to win big unless you put all your chips in the middle. This team has been bleeding out a few chips at a time for years now and we are just about broke. It's time to go all in.

And thus ends the analogy portion of our program.

agree with Henry. the solution is to find better talent eval folks (like in B-more)

 

[Rymanofthenorth]

as much as some people are gonna disagree, we actually had some pretty decent talent eval people here (you measure that by how many practice roster guys from here became starters somewhere else.)

Yusuf- when you are doing a complete revamp, you need resources to do it, people arent going to give us those picks. Now do I think we were in this position last year? nope, last year we had a solid defence and several players who were still playing at a high level on defence, however now we have players who either had brutal years in the new scheme or just flat out have no vlaue anymore.

I think that guys like AC, Fletch, AH, Rogers and Mcnabb had more value last season but out of that group I would probably trade all of them except Rogers (unless he wants elite money) if I could get anything remotely approaching value.

I would trade NO picks because I would assume that next year I am going to have a very high draft pick and I would sign only young free agents and probably only secodn tier ones who are willing to fight for a spot.


Now if I thought we could be competitive while rebuilding, I would do it differently, but this team just has far too many holes.

and as for the 3-4? its a fail, you dont need a full season to see that I hope. Short term we went from 5 to 32, long term we have 2 starters in the front 7 and only one is considered probowl material.