Talking about young players today.  See, that wasn't such a terrible wait, was it?

I have some encouraging rate stats for our young receivers Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas.

• Kelly YPA = 8.5 (NFL WR Ave. = 8.0), Catch Rate = 61%
• Thomas TD Rate = 6.3%

Both built on weak rookie seasons with respectible campaigns as they shared the second receiver role.  Any worry about mental makeup issues was likely alleviated by the improvements made here.  Also, the improvements match the improvement in Jason Campbell's raw statistics, so while Santana Moss continues to have no discernable effect on his quarterback's well being, there's some evidence to suggest that if Jason Campbell can grow into a franchise quarterback, Kelly and Thomas will be part of the reason he was able to get to the next level.

There's still a lot of questions here, however.  Kelly and Thomas have played identical roles in the same offense for two consecutive years with nearly identical levels of performance.  Kelly has been pretty steady throughout each of the two seasons, while Thomas has that New Orleans game that boosts his numbers to look a lot like Malcolm Kelly's.  Uneven performance tends to be a negative indicator of future success.  Kelly, conversely, was drafted in part to be a red zone threat, but he's without a touchdown in two NFL seasons, and has actually been proportionally better between the 20's than in the red zone.  Thomas, on the other hand, has four NFL touchdowns (one rushing).  It's safe to say Kelly hasn't gotten it done in the red zone yet.

My goal: to look through receiving tables from the 2009 and 2008 NFL seasons, and to see if I can find a receiver that produced a really strong third or fourth year breakout after putting in basically a replacement level performance through the first two developmental seasons.  I want to see if an expectation of strong play is still reasonable for Thomas and Kelly, or if it's unreasonable to expect anything more than incremental development.

The Promising Comparable Cases

Chargers No. 2 WR Malcom Floyd produced back to back seasons of replacement level performance (according to Football Outsiders) in both 2006, and 2007, then broke out at a very old 27 in 2008.  It's pretty rare to get the prime portion of one's career started so late.  Thomas will be 24 in the middle of next season, and Kelly will be 24 near the end of next season.  Floyd is a comparable case, but not all that close in reality to what we are looking for.  Let's keep searching.

Falcons WR Roddy White didn't have much by way of stats until his third year in 2007, but he's a poor comparable because, in hindsight, it sure looks like he was held back by lack of a competent quarterback.  We can't say the same thing about either Kelly or Thomas, because White's first 1,000 yard season came when he finally found competency in the form of...Joey Harrington and Chris Redman.

Jacksonville No. 1 WR Mike-Sims Walker is an excellent example of a third year breakout for a player who didn't do anything notable in his first two seasons.  He was drafted by Jacksonville in the third round, and was on the practice squad then the waiver wire.  The Jags gave him another chance to come back and try to make the team his second year, and this time he did, and posted a season very comparable to Devin Thomas' 2009 in 2008.  One year later, he became an established go-to WR with 7 TD catches.

Chicago's nominal No. 1 WR is Devin Hester, who was well established as a punt returner before he was ever even tried on offense.  The fact that Hester was roughly replacement during his first two years as a reciever should surprise no one at all.  Hester did have his best year as a WR in 2009 with Jay Cutler as his quarterback, but this was a 3 receiving TD season, 63% catch rate for the UMiami product.  Those kind of numbers wouldn't be a really huge breakout for either Thomas or Kelly.  750 receiving yards is more of an expectation than a breakout at this point.  It's really not all that uncommon for a very successful receiver to have a really forgettable season at the beginning of his career, but when you post back to back seasons in the realm of the "meh", it's incredibly rare for their to be a breakout in the future.

Giants WR Dominik Hixon bounced around the league for two years not playing and then had a great third season.  He returned to the bench primarily in 2009 though.  And with Hixon, he didn't play at all in 2006 and 2007 in part because he wasn't really on one team exclusively.  Therefore, he really couldn't show he could play.  Conversely, former Jags WR Reggie Williams really did have an odd career path.  He was virtually a bust for the first three seasons of his career (2004-2006).  Then in 2007, he had really impressive numbers in a 60 pass sample.  In the offseason he was released by Jacksonville and went unsigned.

The Lessons

The late breakout is not a foreign concept in professional football, and particularly regarding the third year of a high pick's career, fan excitement reaches it's climax.

The third year has a place among fantasy players as being the year where you can target young receivers and expect their best production to date, but in the truest sense of the term, the vast majority of third year fantasy studs aren't breaking out.  Yes, the third year is an incredibly popular breakout year for receivers who haven't already produced big in their first or second seasons.  But the great receivers tend to enjoy their breakouts prior to the third year.  Andre Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshall and Greg Jennings all broke out in their second year.  There are great developmental prospects such as Miles Austin, Derrick Mason, Vincent Jackson, and Antwaan Randle El who break out as receivers much, much later on in their careers, but that tag really doesn't apply to either Kelly or Thomas.  Perhaps it should have, but then they should have been drafted more in line with that designation.

For the vast majority of players who do not flash anything special in their first two years, there is nothing special about the third season.  Vikings WR Sidney Rice exploded with Brett Favre calling the signals this year, but Rice had enjoyed a strong rookie campaign as the Vikings third wide receiver, and was simply forgotten in the Gus Frerotte mess of 2008.  There was nothing magical about the third year for Rice except the opportunity to realize potential he had already flashed.

The lesson learned here is that for a guy like Marko Mitchell, who flashed in the preseason, but didn't get on the field much and only made four catches: the 2010 season is critical for him.  He doesn't really fit the developmental mode (he's not returning punts or covering kicks or anything in the immediate), so if there's something there, we will likely get a glimpse of it this season.  But for Malcolm Kelly and Devin Thomas, there are nice statistics that can be picked if you prod through their numbers enough.

Ultimately though, if both develop into playable starters at the professional level, the Redskins have made out alright.  The list of receivers drafted in the first three rounds who didn't produce much in their first two seasons and then went on to have a great career is non-existant.  The top end term for these two at this point is adequacy.  They can still develop and fufill their draft status as NFL starters on the Redskins, but the ceiling on Thomas and Kelly has come down considerably since draft day.  At this point, league-average performance for the next three or four years would be one of the better outcomes that Redskins fans could hope for.

They might be quite good after all, but anyone waiting on pro bowls is in for a lot of disappointment.

Ray Brown, one of the good guy Washington Redskin alumni, joined the San Francisco 49er coaching staff according to a story today appearing in the San Francisco Examiner.

Brown joins the 49ers as the assistant offensive line coach after serving the same position with the Buffalo Bills for the past two seasons.

Brown played for the Redskins in 1989-95 and rejoined the team for the 2004-05 seasons. Offensive line coach Joe Bugel used Brown as a player-coach and mentor for the linemen. He was a special assistant on the Skins coaching staff when the team struggled in 2006.

Brown was asked about the experience during his introduction interview. Here's the question and response:

On whether he was a coach-on-the-field in Washington when he was playing at age 43:
“I think you may be in the right neighborhood with that one. I think once you become, probably, a seven-to-10 year guy, you pretty much know a lot about what teams are doing offensively. For me, it’s all about sharing what people shared with me because I know that allowed me the opportunity to stay as long as I did. I just only try to reciprocate that, share things and pass off things that I’ve heard and things that I’ve learned. Really, that’s who I am. I’m very grateful for the coaches and teachers that I had prior to getting in this profession.”    

Story: Former 49ers guard Ray Brown hired as assistant offensive line coach

There will be plenty of opportunities to talk about the future of the Washington Redskins.  I spend a lot of time doing peak projections for the "prospects" on the team, and take great delight in talking about players who will be great Redskins in the future.  It is, perhaps, my greatest contributon to this blog.

This post will not focus on youth.

Before we can adequately get into the draft chatter, and even before we can begin to evaluate the roster, Bruce Allen is going to have to make his decisions on the team's veterans.  In the case of each veteran, Allen can choose to extend their contract, keep the player in his current role on his current deal, or cut ties with the player (via either a trade or an outright release).  This article is my best attempt to offer my suggestions if I was advising Mr. Allen.

The first step is to define what I mean by "old guard."  I could talk about all players who were acquisitons by either Gregg Williams or Al Saunders or Joe Gibbs.  But the team is still largely built out of those players, so that doesn't narrow it down quite enough.  I could limit myself to all free agent acquistions from 2004-2007.  That would narrow it down considerably.  But it would also ignore decisions on some restricted free agents such as Jason Campbell, Carlos Rogers, and Rocky McIntosh who would be considered "home-grown" talent.  So I don't want to do that.  But I also don't want to talk about Campbell right now, so what I'll do is define the "old guard" as any player who was a full-time contributor to either the 2005 or 2007 playoff run (either in December or January), and is still on the roster in 2010.

Let's start with the 2005 Redskins playoff contributors.

RB Clinton Portis is really the centerpiece of not only the 2005 team, but also the entire conversation about whether now is the time to move on from the idea that the team's heroes of the past can still be contributors in the future.  And the debate over whether Portis should return is really cluttered with personal feelings about Portis' work ethic and team-oriented attitude, or lack thereof.  But a much more important debate will soon rage about whether or not Portis has anything left to offer his team after two excellent seasons in Denver followed by six workhorse seasons in Washington with varying effectiveness.  When I look at LaDainian Tomlinson's career, his decline from his 2006 MVP year to present day happened in nearly perfect increments.  He went from the league's best player in 2006 to a very valuable back in 2007 to a roughly league average player in 2008 (still valuable) to basically replacable in 2009.  At age 30, Tomlinson's future is as a one-cut situational runner who can pass block.

Judging Portis is much more difficult. Portis has not done anything completely unpredictable since that 2005 playoff run, but unlike Tomlinson, he has not enjoyed an easily chartable decline.  He's been injured twice, three seasons apart.  He's played incredibly well while injured, and very poorly while injured.  He's played incredibly well while healthy, and very poorly while healthy.  2009, however, was the first season since 2004 where Portis was actually without rushing value, snapping a run of four years as the Redskins primary offensive threat.  Portis turns 29 just a week before opening day, and it's reasonably safe to say that Portis will have little left in the tank on the other side of 30.  2010 is effectively a guarenteed year in Portis' contract.  He's going to get paid whether or not he actually plays, so if Portis has enough left in the tank at age 29, he should be kept on the roster.  My conclusion is that Portis is not done in the same way Tomlinson is, but unless Shanahan can get him running exactly like he was at the beginning of his career, he won't be able to turn it around in Washington.  RB Ladell Betts, who is two years older, still offers enough receiving value to justify his roster spot.  However, the Redskins roster will likely break into an either Portis or Betts type situation, as it's pretty clear both will not be back.  My guess is that Portis' carries will be slashed and Betts will be gone altogether.  Me, personally?  I would let them both go (and pay Portis), and make the RB position the center of my rebuilding project.  Rock Cartwright can handle the bridge year just fine anyway.  FB Mike Sellers probably doesn't have much of a future in Washington, and I think he's going to be gone despite his midseason contract extension.  His 2008 season will remain one of the more odd breakouts in recent Redskin memory, and the fact that he didn't keep it going can't be all that surprising.  Sellers will be 35 before any more football is played.

WR Santana Moss hasn't really had an encore season after his 2005 pro bowl year when he (if not Steve Smith) was the NFC's top receiver.  He did make it to 1,000 receiving yards in 2008, but they weren't really valuable receiving yards, compared to earlier in his career.  There's little doubt at this point that Jason Campbell and Santana Moss are never going to be a strong passing tandem, but what's more ambiguous is whether Campbell hurt Moss more than Moss hurt Campbell.  I think the tape suggests the latter.  Moss has given up on a whole bunch of routes during the last two years, probably more routes than any other Moss in the league.  He does deserve some credit for playing to the end of blowout losses that the Redskins never seemed to be in back when Gibbs was the coach, but now that neither Al Saunders nor Jim Zorn nor Sherm Lewis has been able to extract a good season for Moss, there's little reason to think that Mike Shanahan is going to get anything here.  If points really do come out of the passing game, I would submit that the Redskins PPG is highly reflective of Moss' career path as a player.  His best years were 2004, 2005, 2006, and those were also the team-best offensive years on Moss' career.  Like Portis, Moss' salary is guarenteed to him for 2010, so he will return, but the two starting receivers on this team will be Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly.  Moss, age 31 next season, should settle in nicely as the team's primary punt returner for a season before his career likely ends, but don't be surprised if he comes off the bench to offer some big plays.  He's still a very good route runner, if no longer a burner.

There's little doubt that TE Chris Cooley will be back in form this year, but he will likely find himself in an H-Back styled role while Fred Davis takes over as the primary TE.  If you're an avid fantasy player, Cooley is the no.1 guy here at the position.  Davis is only the "primary" in-line TE from an X's and O's standpoint.  Cooley might have been a better TE with Brunell at QB, but he has still had a major role in Jason Campbell's development, at least as much a role as Jim Zorn has.  His best seasons are probably with Mike Shanahan calling the plays.

Randy Thomas is left out of this analysis because he was not a component on either the 2005 or 2007 playoff runs, due to injury.  He may not be a factor on the 2010 Redskins due to...well, consistent injury.  Go figure.  The left side of the offensive line during the 2005 playoff run consisted of LT Chris Samuels, LG Derrick Dockery, and C Casey Rabach.  Rabach is an unrestricted free agent.  He's actually the only UFA on the Redskins this year (excluding Renaldo Wynn).  Recent signings at the postion indicate that the Redskins are happy letting Rabach test the market.  Dockery left and came back last season after cashing in big in Buffalo.  He's on a team-friendly contract, so he'll continue to help anchor the middle of the line, even if the two guys he has played next to forever are not back.  Dockery really isn't a Shanahan-style lineman, so his future past 2010 is really in doubt, but he will be the starter at LG next year, at least.

Samuels is a tough call if he is cleared to play by a doctor with his career threatening case of spinal stinosis.  On one hand, the Redskins need all the help they can get at the tackle position, and Samuels can still play.  On the other hand, Samuels probably should retire, and if the Redskins should be lucky enough to spend the 4th overall pick on Oklahoma State OT Russell Okung, they will have a hole not at LT, but at RT.  If Samuels plays, he might be asked to move across the field to finish his career.  I have no idea how that would work out.

DT Cornelius Griffin is still getting done on the inside of the Redskins defense, and his salary situation dictates that he will return, although as this team starts to run more 3 man fronts, Griffin figures to see his playing time cut considerably, and it's safe to conclude that 2010 will be his last season here.  The other person on the Redskins DL who was part of the 2005 playoff run is DE Phillip Daniels who, on March 4th, will celebrate his 37th birthday.  Daniels has shown no desire to retire, but it seems hard to believe that the organization would bring him back.  Ditto for Wynn, who is a youthful 35 by comparison.

Amazingly, CB Carlos Rogers is the only player in the entire defensive back seven who played on the 2005 playoff team.  Rogers, the third corner that year, started in the playoff win against Tampa Bay in relief of Shawn Springs.  Rogers was roughly a league average player for his first two seasons, which is not what you want out of a top ten draft choice--especially when Pac-Man Jones was setting all those interception and punt return records early in his career.  But in 2007, Rogers became a top level corner until a knee injury ended his season, but he recovered quickly and had a career year in 2008.

Rogers had the worst season of his career in 2009 playing in a zone-heavy scheme that essentially was built to protect against DeAngelo Hall's weaknesses.  Rogers was below average for the first time in his career, and recorded no interceptions for the first time in his career, but he was better at adapting to the role than the other man coverage corner still on the Redskins, Fred Smoot.  In making the decision about whether to keep Rogers or trade him, the Redskins need to address what coverage system they will be playing.  There probably isn't a simple coverage scheme that will allow Rogers to reach his potential while protecting Hall's weaknesses, and this is what Greg Blache struggled with early in the year.  If they decide to keep Rogers, Hall might need to be tried at safety.  If they're going to keep Hall as the number one corner, they're best off trading Rogers now while he still has value.  Rogers flashed his ability at the end of 2009, enough so that the Redskins could get something for him in a trade, if only a third or fourth rounder, but Hall is the one who Vinny Cerrato committed all the money to, and the Redskins have to live with that.

The other half of this analysis is those who helped on the 2007 Redskins playoff run:

QB Todd Collins won a battle for his job in the preseason with Colt Brennan, but wasn't very good this year when put into games.  He had his moments, including two deep completions to Santana Moss this year, but after watching Collins fumble around in the Kansas City game, a lot of the shine of his work on that 2007 playoff run has worn off.  On one hand, it was good that the Redskins had Collins on hand after Jason Campbell took all the snaps for the Redskins in 2008.  But on the other hand, keeping Collins cost the Redskins a free look at another quarterback with some potential future value.  It's unlikely that Collins will get another job if/when he is released by the Redskins.

WR Keenan McCardell is back with the Redskins after a two year hiatus--which beats his 16 year hiatus between being drafted by the Redskins in 1991 and first playing for them in 2007--but this time as a position coach instead of a mentor.  If Devin Thomas struggles, maybe the Redskins will consider putting the pads on McCardell.  Or maybe not.  But Antwaan Randle El, who may or may not be back next season, has long been a very underrated receiver (and highly overrated punt returner, at least by the Skins coaching staff).  2007 was his breakout season from a receiving perspective, and 2008 was even better.  Randle El has come back to the pack a little bit in 2009, but he's much better suited for the slot role than is Santana Moss (who is much better suited for the PR job than Randle El).  Randle El has been the go to third down receiver for Jason Campbell, and a primary reason why he has been able to keep his completion percentage over 62% for his career while converting on third down at a league average rate.  He deserves to return as the third receiver next year, but the Redskins have a contract option on him which makes him a cheaper severance than Moss.

RT Stephon Heyer was a much-maligned character in 2009 for the Redskins, as he was one of the worst pass protecting offensive tackles in the NFL in 2009.  Heyer did improve a lot as a run blocker throughout the seasons, and for all his flaws as a protector, he was probably the Redskins best lineman in 2009.  That's not a defense of Heyer as much it is a criticism of anyone who would have the Redskins passing on Russell Okung if he makes it to No. 4 overall.  The Redskins couldn't block a three man rush most of the year.  And it's not the University of Texas over there with the ugly star on those helmets.  Heyer might not be suited for anything more than a backup role in the NFL, which is understandable, but if it's true, it's not because he failed to live up to his potential, but because he never really had it in the first place.

Remember DT Anthony Montgomery?  He was a future superstar in the Gregg Williams defense in 2007?  Well, that's probably his future as well.  I think he could be a valuable backup in the multiple front that Jim Haslett is going to play, and he'll get more playing time than he did under Greg Blache, but he's not getting that long-term contract from the Redskins.  He will be that year to year player until the Redskins get a worthy trade offer, or until he fails to make the 53 man roster.  Being pushed to the back of the pecking order by Blache is hardly something to be discouraged by, sometimes, you just have to have an SEC pedigree to survive.

DE Andre Carter gets better and better with age, and while the Redskins might opt to decline the option on Antwaan Randle El, it's nearly certain that they will excercise it on Carter, and pick up the next four years of his contract.  Carter doesn't really have a position in a 3-4 defense, so it is safe to say he will have his reps cut from the last three years or so, but the Redskins will play a lot of 4-3 defense and nickel fronts as well.  That's where Carter can go and earn his money and help the defense win.  With the drafting of Brian Orakpo, and likely free agent help at the OLB position, Carter doesn't have to be a go-to guy anyway.  He just has to be good at what he does.  And, by and large, he is.

It was amazing that no players from the 2005 LB corps are still with the Washington Redskins, but of all the players who played after the Rocky McIntosh injury in Week 15 of 2007, Randall Godfrey and Marcus Washington were out of football, and HB Blades did not have a big impact as a rookie, so only NFL pro-bowler London Fletcher is still with the team from the 2007 playoff run.  That's even more amazing than the fact about the 2005 team.  Fletcher will certainly be back for a 4th year in Washington, but what he has left to give at age 35 to a team that is changing the scheme on him is very much in question.  He heads into 2010 the unquestioned defensive leader, but I'm really doubting his ability to play every snap of this season.  That would be some kind of feat.  If he misses a few games, what other linebacker could take charge in the huddle?  I think Blades is the most obvious answer, right now, but that's a question the Redskins will have to consider in the offseason.

CB Fred Smoot enjoyed a pair of career years with Gregg Williams calling the shots in both 2004 and 2007, but every other season in the last half decade has been some sort of a disaster for him.  On the whole, it hasn't been a good second half of a career for Smoot, with failures ranging from the Love Boat to getting posterized by the crazy legs of Matthew Stafford.  Smoot has been particuarly terrible the last two seasons, as you'd be hard pressed to find a CB who has been worse since the beginning of 2008.  Regardless of the team's decision with Rogers, Smoot has to go if for no other reason than to save my sanity.

I can't really see what the future holds for S Reed Doughty, but I do know he was the best player in the Redskins secondary in 2009.  That's a good indicator of a team that lost double digit games, which the Redskins did, but Doughty's play against the run was excellent by any standard.  The Redskins, as a team were excellent against the run, with Doughty being the biggest reason.  There is, unfortunately, no easy solution with LaRon Landry.  Cutting him outright isn't an option, which makes things a bit easier, but trading him is an option.  If you move him to strong safety, are you going to get more production than you are currently getting from Reed Doughty?  Are you even going to get comprable coverage?  And what of Chris Horton at that position?  If LaRon Landry is merely the third best strong safety you have, why would you move him to that position?  Maybe he can develop into a decent coverage safety, and maybe an aggressive defense would help protect Landry from having to think too much.  The tone for the defensive off-season will be set by the direction the team goes with Landry.  They'll probably keep him and try to work with him, which might end up being the right move, but if I could get a second round pick for his raw talent in a trade, I'd be awfuly tempted to just start over.

For those of you who didn't bother to keep track of where I think the old guard will end up, here's what I would do.  I would, for the 2010 season, keep: Chris Cooley, Derrick Dockery, Antwaan Randle El, Cornelius Griffin, Carlos Rogers, Anthony Montgomery, Andre Carter, London Fletcher, and Reed Doughty, which means I would ship away (or at least if the price was right), Clinton Portis, Ladell Betts, Mike Sellers, Santana Moss, Chris Samuels, Casey Rabach, Phillip Daniels, Renaldo Wynn, Fred Smoot, and LaRon Landry.  That's keeping 9, and moving 10 members of the old guard of the Washington Redskins.

I don't know if that makes a true rebuilding process, but I'm not concerned about rebuilding.  I'm more into getting rid of the dead weight, while keeping the players who can be part time contributors.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder."
      ~~ Old cliche'

"Portis said he's spoken with coach Mike Shanahan and expects to be a part of the Redskins' backfield. '...it's like all of a sudden seeing how much you miss something.'"
      ~~ Clinton Portis as quoted in The Washington Post (Feb 3, 2010)

Portis did not feel that way in 2003 when he was demanding a raise after his 14 TD, 1591 yard year with Shanahan's Denver Broncos.

For his part, Shanahan thought Portis a product of his offensive scheme. Running backs come a dime a dozen and are easily replaced. By that reasoning, he didn't need Portis that much, especially when he could get CB Champ Bailey and snooker Danny Snyder out of a second round draft pick to boot.

On the surface, Shanahan seemed proven right over the next two seasons with journeymen backs Reuben Droughns and Mike Anderson.

Both Shanahan and Portis were wrong. They needed each other.

Droughns and Anderson combined for 2254 yards and 18 touchdowns in 2004 and '05, but could not power Denver back to the Super Bowl as Terrell Davis did and as Portis might have. Denver went 23-9 in their regular season games.

Portis needed the 2004 season to adapt to Joe Gibbs' power rushing game behind downhill blockers. In 2005, Portis had 1732 yards from scrimmage and 11 TDs. The Redskins made the playoffs when Gibbs put the ball in Portis hands for the last five games of the season. Washington would go 1-1 in the playoffs, but they didn't make the Super Bowl either.

For all of Portis' heroics, the Skins went 16-16 in those two seasons. He could have used Shanahan's schemes and Denver's zone blocking.

"...it's like all of a sudden seeing how much you miss something."

Well I'm glad CP has reconciled himself to coach Shanahan. I'm not sure Shanahan feels the same about Portis. If Shanny reads the stat sheet, he'll see that Portis gained 7882 yards total offense and scored 47 touchdowns in his six seasons with Washington. When he studies tape of last season's running game, he may puke.

Consider these two factoids:

Portis gained a mere 494 rushing yards in seven and a-half games last season for 4.0 yards per carry.

Clinton Portis was the leading rusher on the team. Only the lightly used Marcus Mason matched his 4.0 yards per carry.

And here's one other tidbit: at 5'11" Portis and Ladell Betts are the tallest and heaviest running backs on the roster.

You can bet that Portis and Shanahan have a new appreciation for each other. For all the noise about Jason Campbell and the offensive line, Washington's performance in 2009 had much to do with Clinton Portis. That will be true in 2010 too.

It's not Portis, but those other backs who should be worried. 

Point After- Portis has three touchdowns on three pass completions with Washington. Maybe Shanahan will be clever enough to use Portis and Wildcat in the same sentence.

At this time one year ago:

-The Pro Bowl was held in Hawaii the week after the Super Bowl.  London Fletcher had never played in it.

-Jim Zorn was a .500 coach in the NFL with promise of future successes.  Jason Campbell was the least intercepted quarterback in the NFL.  Santana Moss was an 1,000 yd receiver.  Chris Samuels was in the prime of his career anchoring the left side of the Redskins' offensive line.

-Casey Rabach was known as a stalwart in the middle of the Redskins line, Greg Blache was known as the veteran coach who "led" the Redskins to the "4th overall" defensive ranking, Chris Horton was one of the biggest draft misses for 31 NFL teams not named the Redskins, and LaRon Landry was right on the verge of becoming an all-pro NFL safety.  Coincidentally, Jason La Canfora was the primary beat writer for the Redskins at the WaPo.

-The Redskins did not have money in their budget to make a big splash in free agency, and were quite serious about using the draft to build a team that could compete for the NFL title on an annual basis.  The highest paid executive on the Redskin payroll was some guy named Vincent Cerrato.

-Hog Heaven was adjusting to a new home at redskinshogheaven.com, and working to show that it's content involved more than just the bells and whistles that come with a snazzy new site design.

-Sherm Lewis--nevermind.

You know the old saying about the more things change?

There won't be a story written about the 2009 Redskins, because frankly, they weren't very important either in the history of the franchise, or the story of the 2009 NFL season.  When NFL Films creates it's highlight reel for this season, it will focus on the runs towards perfection by the Saints and the Colts, the fire and grit of Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez making an improbable playoff run, and will have no less than 7 consecutive minutes of Brett Favre footage.  If the Redskins are mentioned, it will be a quick 30-second highlight clip of the Detroit game that has one clip of Matt Stafford running through the Redskins secondary while Fred Smoot dives and tackles nothing, and a second clip of the Redskins' poorly designed last play of the game where Ladell Betts did some lateral thingy.  That's how history will remember the 2009 Redskins: it won't.

That doesn't mean that there's nothing to be learned from this season.  First of all, the Redskins were not a bad team.  They were a highly forgettable team.  Their issues stemmed from larger problems that went uncorrected through many lost seasons, from 2003 to 2006 to 2009 (the Mayan's don't see the Redskins bucking this trend, for what it's worth), but mostly, the 2009 Redskins were just very, very unlucky.  There was not an NFL offense that suffered more injuries than the Redskins, according to the Adjusted Games Lost measure over at Football Outsiders.

Only 4 of the Redskins' 12 losses came by more than 6 points.  Of course, 3 of those games were the 3 nationally televised primetime games the Redskins played in.  Thusly, you can understand why national perception of the Redskins supports the fact that this team is picking in the top five: they looked horrible on the biggest stages.  But if you took any non-playoff team, and let me pick their three worst games for you to digest as your only way of knowing what these teams were all about, I could convince you that the Steelers, Titans, or Panthers were the worst team in football.  Try me.

The Redskins' season was not defined by those games, or the blowout of the inferior Oakland Raiders and comfortable defeat of the Denver Broncos, but by the team's 2-8 record in games decided by six points or less.  The truth is, if you measured, objectively, the Redskins' team performance in these ten games alone, you'd probably see an average to above average football team overall, something at least on par with the 2008 team that went 8-8.  There was a five game stretch where the Redskins played like a top ten team that bookend three heartbreaking losses with the team's two most impressive victories.  It was every bit as strong a performance as last year's 4-1 start that caused FOX Sports/KC Star columnist Jason Whitlock to call Zorn the league's best coach.  Two stretches of top five-type performance in two years probably isn't an accident, particularly considereing that the 2009 team really had nothing going it's way when it started this run.

But in both seasons, the Redskins' success proved to be very fleeting.  In 2008, all projections suggested they could sustain what they started, at least up until the Chris Samuels injury in Week 14.  In 2009, we had hoped that the Redskins could keep it going, but again, we knew that they were doing it with smoke and mirrors on offense, and incompetent leadership on defense.  For a month-long period, the 2009 Redskins played great football.  But they were not a very good football team.  Good football teams don't get beat at home 45-12 by a very middling division rival unless coaches on both sides of the ball were completely unprepared to coach against their opponents.  The Redskins were neither a good team, nor prepared.  They went 0-6 in a division that was right there for the taking this year, getting badly outschemed by everyone who wasn't Dallas.  They went 2-4 in a 6 game stretch that involved some of the very worst teams in pro football.  And they never quit on their coaches, credit going to all of them for the effort.  But, you know, the Giants never quit on their coaches either, and despite not really having a marked talent advantage over they Redskins, they kicked their butts twice, including a smackdown on the Redskins home field.

I'll always be a Jim Zorn fan wherever he goes, because I think he's a good coach.  But the Redskins were correct to fire him at the conclusion of the 2009 season.  Management didn't make very many correct decisions all year long, but decisively moving in another direction is really the first sign of organizational competency that the Redskins have shown in about two years.

I have a confession to make though, before I get back to gushing about the Redskins front office: I am not a Mike Shanahan fan.  I will never be a Mike Shanahan fan.  I, especially, am not crazy about Mike Shanahan coming in here and bringing son Kyle for the offensive coordinator position without really ever having an interview process.  Of course, no interview process was going to end with Mike Shanahan concluding that he had found someone more qualified to work with than his own son, but I'm really peeved that instead of a head coaching search, we got a re-tread coronation in Washington.  The whole process of bringing in the Shanahan's was no departure at all from the way the Redskins had always done their business in the past, and in a vacuum, I see no evidence that this administration will be any more successful than the last.

Now that I've pointed out my trepidations regarding the current crop of decision makers over at Redskins Park, I will point out that there has since been quite observable change that things are ACTUALLY going to be different this time around.  While the hires did absolutely nothing for me, the responses that the coaches have taken towards the current roster have been shockingly refreshing.  I'm going to stop short of crediting Dan Snyder/Bruce Allen/Mike Shanahann for simply being professionals, but the fact that logical reasoning and careful evaluation are going into eventual personnel decisions instead of knee-jerk reactions, smear campaigns, and irrational desires to chase only players that the team doesn't actually have represents a major change in the team's philosophy.

For all of the legitimate optimism that the 2009 offseason created, it can't be understated just how much of a circus it became under Vinny Cerrato.  Things started off fine under Vinny when the team was 6-2 in 2008 and barrelling towards the playoffs.  Fans could be patient with the slowly developing crop of 2nd round receivers, patient with Jason Campbell, excited about a defense that seemed to be improving under Greg Blache, and hopeful that the offensive line could go back to beating up defensive lines like it had been earlier in the season.  But for everyone's sake, it was critical that the Redskins find a way to finish the season hard and make the playoffs.  From that point, the decline was team-wide, and Cerrato bugged-out.  None of the solutions to the Redskins problems in 2009 seemed to really fit the problems.

As far as I can tell, Cerrato felt that injuries were chiefly responsible for the decline of the offensive line (though he didn't bother to bring back it's best player from 2008, Kendall), he felt that Jason Campbell had a limiting effect on the offense, that Clinton Portis was an unbridled superstar, and that if he just threw some extra talent on the defense, the Redskins could win with stingy defense and a power run game while the west coast offense developed behind a healthy OL.  His starting five up front made it all the way to week two together.

You might have realized that neither Bruce Allen nor Mike Shanahan have made a long term committment to Jason Campbell either, who is a year away from unrestricted free agency, but with professionals in charge of the organization, there's little worry that the team is going to wake up one morning and decide to go trade for Brady Quinn or Byron Leftwich, or David Garrard.  The whole Cutler/Sanchez saga was shameless and just so...Cerrato.  Dan Snyder supported his VP of Football Ops to the very end, but it could not have possibly been easy.  Jim Zorn, who was hired with good intentions just a year before, found himself caught in this mess.  Greg Blache found himself with Albert Haynesworth, DeAngelo Hall, and Brian Orakpo, not to mention a plethora of talented rookies who needed to be made into an elite unit, when he himself had no intentions of doing things any differently than he had done in the past.  For all the money Cerrato committed, his defense remained unimproved, and his offense declined into a freak show.

Never was this all Cerrato's mess either.  Snyder personally wanted Blache to run his defense.  Vinny wasn't wrong when he saw a unit that had room for major improvement, and he probably played the market correctly in chosing to chase that defense over an improved offensive line.  The Orakpo pick was the ideal example.  It was absolutely the right pick for the organization.  Blache had no clue how to make it all work, but if Vinny hadn't been aggressive with the building of an elite defense, the Redskins are probably stuck with Rey Maualuga or someone instead who would have been a more classic OLB.  Then these changes come anyway, and the Redskins are down an elite young player.  No one said being an NFL GM was easy.  But being dignified and professional is probably more easily accomplished than Cerrato made it seem.

The Redskins pick twice in the first 37 picks this year, and this is such an unbelievably strong draft class (best in at least 6 years) that it's nearly impossible for this team to not come away with two or more impact players in those picks.  Shanahan's draft track record isn't good, but he's not going to have to avoid talents in 2010, and that's to the benefit of Redskins fans everywhere.  The Redskins, for a whole bunch of reasons, are going to get a lot better very fast.  There will be fresh blood on the offensive line here.  They will spend money if they have to, they'll spend draft picks if they have to, and they'll resort to existing veteran leadership if they have to.  This team is getting a lot better up front, and then the effects of that will trickle down to Jason Campbell, Clinton Portis, and Santana Moss, Devin Thomas, and Malcolm Kelly.  The Redskins are so primed for improvement, that they can afford to spend the 4th overall pick on a QB and still have a 2004 Chargers type of breakout.

But Shanahan's legacy in Washington won't have anything to do with the success or failure of the 2010 Redskins.  Being able to afford to use the 4th overall pick on a quarterback and being able to land the right guy are two very separate concepts, and there are too many great players in this draft to take a quarterback that high and not end up with a guy who can play from day one.  I don't have either Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen rated as a top ten player in this draft, and anyway, I have Colt McCoy (whose skill set appears to be system-dependant) with a very comparable draft grade to the two guys who figure to go in the top ten.  Aside from that, the class itself is deeper than probably any class ever, and there will be starting-caliber players available in round three or four at the quarterback position.  This team needs a center and two tackles, as well as a running back, a slot receiver, free safety, middle linebacker, and backup nose tackle all just as badly as a quarterback.  Get some guy with a quick release and functional accuracy, and Shanahan can make it work (see: Cutler, Jay).  You can draft two quarterbacks from this class.  The Packers did it in 2008, and decided their 6th rounder was better than their 2nd rounder.  That might happen in this class too.

A talented athlete or two could combine with what Orakpo already brings to this team to help make the Redskins a future powerhouse.  If that player is Sam Bradford or Jimmy Clausen, I'm all for it.  But the worst possible thing that can happen is that you make a quarterback the pick at No. 4 overall, and find out four years from now that you drafted the third best NFL QB in the class.  That's how you stay mediocre forever.  That, and unproven young quarterbacks can be bought in the NFL for fourth round draft picks.  Seriously.

We already know the Redskins aren't going to shy away from the quarterback discussion at No. 4 so hopefully the professionalism we can see on the outside prevails inside Redskins Park, and decisions get made for the proper football reasons.

With the financial resources and advantages the Washington Redskins have, they're going to eventually be back at the top of the NFL pile.  I don't know if Mike Shanahan will be the man to get them there, but someone is going to have to be, and he's the guy who is getting the next crack at it.  I might not be the first (or last) to extend credit where it is due, but it's time for us to see what this football coach has that our prior coach did not.

I'm going to guess: something.

The Dallas Cowboys are looking for a Headwear Designer whose job is described as:

The Headwear Designer is responsible for the fit, patterns, fabric and graphic and technical design of Dallas Cowboys headwear. The Headwear Designer is responsible for monitoring fashion and lifestyle trends, as well as frequently interacting with various merchandising and sales groups.

There was no reference in the description to oddly shaped heads of unusually small size or peculiarities of peculiar teams. But I won't go there because followers of four-win teams should remain circumspect. 

The Headwear Designer is not be involved in the design of helmets.

If you have design suggestions appropriate for Cowboys, leave them here in Comments.

If you would like to apply for the position, see the description at teamworkonline.com. 

Only two members of the Washington Redskins will carry the colors in Sunday's 2010 Pro Bowl Game in Miami.

Brian Orakpo made the second team roster as a rookie at linebacker. Some controversy attached to Orakpo at linebacker. He and his many fans preferred to play at defensive end where he could go for broke as a pass rusher. Former Skins defensive coordinator Greg Blache had Orakpo swing from DE to outside linebacker, depending on down and distance.

Although Orakpo struggled at OLB, he gradually got better and still managed 11 sacks.

How smart was that move? New Redskin defensive coordinator Jim Haslett  might install the 3-4 defensive alignment with Orakpo as a beast of an outside linebacker. Orakpo backs up the Cowboys' OLB DeMarcus Ware in the Pro Bowl and Ware is just the player Orakpo has the chance to emulate.

It's an awesome thought, but let's see how it plays out next fall.

London Fletcher-Baker make his Pro Bowl appearance, albeit through the back door. Fletcher was the No. 2 tackler in the NFL in 2009, but only made the Pro Bowl as the alternate for Jonathan Vilma was excused to play in the Super Bowl next weekend.

It's really inexcusable that the NFL keeps overlooking Fletcher for the honor. I hope he has a big game.

Lots of people are not happy that the Pro Bowl is played this weekend  as a prequel to the Super Bowl. It's an experiment I've wanted to see for a long time.

The two week gap between the conference championships and the NFL World Championship game made sense...in the 1970s when it took two weeks to manage the logistics of selling tickets and moving teams, media and fans to the Super Bowl site. Before the Internet, this was all done by snail mail and paper airline tickets.

The Pro Bowl was always anti-climatic, played as an exhibition game in far off Hawaii as a reward for better players. A lot of veteran players tried to get out of it if they were nursing injuries.

Today, the NFL could move the Super Bowl up to the week after the conference championships and still sell out the stadium and surrounding hotels. The Super Bowl is not, NOT, about filling the stadiums. It's about money the league makes for providing a venue for the two week long corporate party before the big game. So why not make the Pro Bowl the exhibition to the big dance?

Who can afford to fly off to for off Honolulu in these troubled times? It's tough for the common fan. It's tough for the high rollers whose company took government bail-out money last fall.

Miami is a lot closer and cheaper. Also cheaper are tickets to the game. Upper deck seats to Sunday's Pro Bowl were going for $70 on Stub Hub. Upper deck seats to the 2010 Super Bowl run from $1,588.00 per seat and up on Stub Hub.

So the NFL can give two weeks and two games with real people like you and me to hit the Pro Bowl and take in the festivities of Super Bowl Week, while keeping the big money happy with Super Bowl parties leading up to the big game.

Purist won't be happy, but Super Bowl Week is about money. Lots and lots of money.

I can't afford either, so I'll have the Pro Bowl on mostly for background noise.    

Of the five coaches hired by Danny Snyder, Shanahan's in the middle of the pack. Here's my ranking from bottom to top:

5. Steve Spurrier, 2002-03, 12-20 Regular Season, 0-0 Playoffs  I was never sold on Spurrier and not because of some arrogance of personality. It's the rare coach in the Super Bowl era who can move from the college ranks to the NFL and can find success.

Some mighty fine NCAA coaches tried, Lou Holtz (3-10, Jets), Dennis Erickson (40-56, Seahawks, 49ers), Dan Devine (25-27-4, Packers) and the pathetic Bobby Petrino (3-10, Falcons) to name a few. Nick Saban, as fine a college coach as you can get, could only muster a 15-17 record with the Dolphins.

We all understand that college players have a comeuppance when they run with the men of the NFL. So do college coaches when hired to lead those men. It seems that coaching in the pros require different set of skills than coaching school boys. Maybe Pete Carroll (33-31, Patriots, Jets) will make a go of it in his third attempt in the pros with the Seattle Seahawks, but I'm skeptical.

Spurrier was a particular problem. He gave every indication that he really didn't want to be a head coach. He plainly said he would not put in the time that matched his peers. He did not want to make the off-field decisions head coaches make. Spurrier wanted the Redskins to hire a general manager for that. Talks with Bobby Beathard broke down.

Nope. Spurrier only wanted to see if his football concepts worked at the pro level. He tired of the role when he found that he was becoming "NFL-ized." The Snyder hype machine sold a bill of goods. Unfortunately, too many people, including Snyder, bought it.

Like Rip Van Winkle, Redskins Hog Heaven awakes from a long slumber and finds that the world has changed.

Real life get in the way of our blogging passion, so I am three weeks behind on the relaunch Hog Heaven on Bloguin.com. The good news here is that we were missed. I'm both grateful and humble that so many of you wrote to say how much you missed us. 

Most of that is behind me now, so new content should be up three to four times each week during the offseason.

Being bloggers doesn't mean that we are given to rants; well, maybe a few. Hog Heaven's theme has always been thoughtful analysis about the Washington Redskins, the NFL and the sport of football. If we know anything about this team we love, it is to be skeptical of the hype from Redskins Park. Independent thinking is a defense mechanism.

If ever there was a sign of the blurring of distinction between blogger and journalist, it was to hear head coach Mike Shanahan take a question from Rich Tandler, the dean of Redskins bloggers, at his introductory press conference.

 So, who are the deep thinkers at Redskins Hog Heaven?

Anthony Brown is a freelance writer and lifelong Redskin fan. He has first hand memories of Sonny Jurgensen touchdown passes to Bobby Mitchell, Charley Taylor and Angelo Coia.

Anthony has a twenty year background as a sales executive with the world's largest computer technology company.  He gathered insights from many executives about success and failure in business operatons and applies those lessons to analyze moves by the Redskins. Unfortunately, Anthony saw management blunders by Washington's front office as the main obsticle to team success in 2009.

Anthony was the author of the Running Redskins blog starting in 2004. He joined Hog Heaven on the Most Valuable Network in 2005. He occasionally seen on the Washington Redskins front page of Bleacherreport.com.   

Greg Trippiedi is a long time contributing editor of Hog Heaven and frequent contributor at The Warpath Redskins forum. He is the talent behind Live Ball Sports.

Greg doesn't just give you Redskin analysis, he gives you scouting reports after looking at tape of games. His deep dives go beyond the obvious to assess if a play worked or failed because of player execution, teamwork, playcalling or the opposing team.

I'm certain Greg is going to be in some front office somewhere sometime, in which case I hope he gets me tickets. 

Follow Anthony on Twitter @SkinsHogHeaven. Follow Greg @GTrippiedi.