NFL Network teaser ads say that Washington Redskins head coach Mike Shanahan will be interviewed on TOTAL ACCESS at 7:00 PM ET today, Friday, July 16, 2010.
The ads says that Shanahan will be asked about the Albert Haynesworth situation. Of course he will. Haynesworth is the most compelling story out of Redskins Park at the moment. But, he is not the biggest question mark about this team.
Here's what I want someone to ask the coach:
Can Donovan McNabb's knack of making average receivers look good carry over to Washington?
Where are you right now on a possible trade for WR Vincent Jackson?
With or without Albert Haynesworth, can the defense jell in the 3-4 alignment in 2010 when a change like this takes the better part of a season?
Are the offensive linemen now on the roster a good fit for the zone blocking scheme?
Which Vinny Cerrato-drafted player will break out this season?
I don't expect Rich Eisen and his cohort to ask too many hard hitting questions. If they do, expect Shanahan to spew coach-speak; empty statements that give nothing away to rival teams.
Can't blame Shany for that, but I'm desperate for blog topics like everyone else this time of year. So cut me a break, coach.
Football fans voted the Redskins the 19th best team in the NFL as reported on a NFL Network show broadcast June 24, 2010. The NFLN guys thought all the changes would get the Skins back to .500, but would not overtake the Eagles, Giants and Cowboys.
Fan polls are just beauty contests, especially in the off-season.
TOTAL ACCESS repeats on the NFL Network for 24 hours after the original broadcast.
Point After: There's an odd thing about that 31 in 32 series on NFLN. The volume of fan interest in each of the team recaps were in the same order as the fan ranking. There were 1466 comments on the segment for the Boys compared to a mear 62 comments for the segment covering the Skins. You see the same on other sites. There are 1,335 members of the Redskins community on Bleacher Report. There are 2,736 members of the Cowboys community.
Part of this can be explained by the fact that other teams draw support from a State. Outside the D.C. Metro area, Washington draws support from parts of Virgina. Maryland tilts toward the Ravens. Certainly part if it is because the Skins haven't been a serious Super Bowl factor in 19 seasons.
Whatever the reason, us diehard Skins fans must look provincial to the rest of the football world.
Well here's a shocker: the oldest team in football has less talent under (and including) the age of 25 than any other team. At least according to the writers at Football Outsiders, that is.
You need to be an ESPN.com insider to read the whole article, though, you can get the Redskins paragraph for free. Here it is in its entirity:
32. Washington Redskins Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan have inherited a wasteland from Vinny Cerrato, who used his draft picks to acquire "has-beens" and "never-weres." As a result, the Redskins only have four "young" starters, and two of them (wideout Devin Thomas and safety LaRon Landry) have been professional flops. Outside linebacker Brian Orakpo was extremely effective last year, and rookie tackle Trent Williams should start on the left side from Day One. The only notable young players behind them are tight end Fred Davis and backup linebacker H.B. Blades.
It's probably far too early to write Landry off as a high draft pick that never developed, but if he wants to represent talent prior to age 26, he's running out of time. Landry turns 26 on October 14th. Chris Horton probably deserves some sort of mention, but even "young" prospects such as Justin Tryon and Kareem Moore fail to qualify for being under 25. Jeremy Jarmon has that ACL injury that will make him a limited factor in the defense this year, but he's only 22, and is likely an oversight in the article.
Still, adding Jarmon and Horton to Davis and Blades still doesn't really create much of a core of talent behind first round picks Trent Williams and Brian Orakpo. That would probably move the Redskins ahead of the Chargers, and that's not such horrible company. The point remains that the "age" on this roster isn't good age because only four players expected to play a major role this year are under the age of 25; only three once Landry leaves this category after Week 4.
The Redskins have been pretty successful at drafting over the last seven drafts, which is to say, they've added a lot of field-ready cheap talent to complement their big-money contacts. The problem with the Redskins' draft record is two fold. First, the inclination of the team to trade its picks for players that other teams aren't building around any longer gives the Redskins a cast full of veteran bit players who replace even more potential draft picks on the roster. However, this is a fairly notorious Redskins inclination. The second problem with the draft record is much less obvious: when the Redskins draft, they tend to draft older players.
The team passed over age-19 Amobi Okoye for age-22 LaRon Landry in 2007. Both have flashed their potential, though neither has developed quite as expected. However, with Okoye just 23 years old going into this season (younger than rookie Ndamukong Suh), he still has multiple years to develop: his rookie contract doesn't expire until after the 2012 season. Landry finds himself in a make or break year; at age 26, the Redskins HAVE to know if he's a cornerstone of Jim Haslett's defense, or whether he should be someone elses problem.
Landry is just one really obvious example of the Redskins looking for field-ready players in the draft. Carlos Rogers was a legitimate 24 year old rookie who was born the same week as (2003 NFL Draft pick) Nnamdi Asomugha. Both are on the back end of their prime years. Rocky McIntosh is going to be 28 in November (no, I'm not kidding). Chris Horton is 25 this year, just his third in the league. Kareem Moore is 26 in his third year. Justin Tryon is 26 in his third year. Reed Doughty is to be 28 in his fifth year, and Kedric Golston is 27. Jason Campbell was a 23 year old rookie, didn't get on the field until just a month before his 25th birthday. Even, unfortunately, Brian Orakpo, was an advanced rookie who turns 24 this month. There's a really obvious benefit to drafting this kind of player: the prime of their career is covered at minimal cost in their rookie contract. All of these players developed really quickly, because they had a maturity advantage compared to their rookie class.
Even worse, when the Redskins step outside their comfort zone and draft younger college players (particularly underclassmen), their development record is terrible. Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly made their Redskin debuts at age 21, as did Jarmon. Add to that list Sean Taylor, who took longer to develop before his break out. Taylor's tragedy might point towards more of a Murphy's Law type jinx on the franchise and player development. Even when they get it right, they can't reap the benefits.
The Redskins' tendency for older players means that they end up receiving quality complementary players in the draft instead of franchise cornerstones. When you look at the players that the Redskins have successfully developed, such as Chris Cooley, Derrick Dockery, Davis, Blades, and Orakpo, those worthy of contract extensions either now or down the road have been college seniors who were between a few months and a year and a half younger than the advanced draft prospect that the Redskins have preferred. In this case, it might be refreshing that 4 year college player Trent Williams turns 22 on Monday, just in time for training camp. For comparison, Russell Okung is about 10 months older, and would have been a much more in-character pick for the Redskins, given their past history.
Interestingly, the Redskins have built the core of their teams around veterans, but the kind of veterans who were originally very young college draftees, and hit the free agent market in the prime of their careers. The Redskins acquired players developed elsewhere in Clinton Portis, Andre Carter, Santana Moss, and DeAngelo Hall, all of whom received lucrative contracts from the Redskins at young ages (Hall -- 25, Portis -- 23, Moss -- 25, Carter -- 26). Portis was acquired to be a cornerstone player. Moss was acquired to fill a need, but established himself as a probowler in a year. Hall is more of a complementary part whose age is a bonus, and will help him justify his contract if he can keep his nose out of trouble.
It's expensive to let other teams develop your stars, but the Redskins' drafting preference for advanced players leaves little choice, and leaves them as one of the two weakest teams in football in terms of talent under 25, because typically, that means "talent from the 2009 and 2010 drafts". It's why, if you miss on third rounders like Chad Rinehart and Kevin Barnes, and then Jeremy Jarmon tears an ACL at the end of his rookie season, then you trade your next third round pick for Donovan McNabb (or, arguably, Jamaal Brown), and that's your haul of third round picks between 2008 and 2011, well, your coaching staff has to go out of the way to develop those players before their 26th birthday. Barnes and Jarmon still have time to develop, but you look at the Artis Hicks and Phillip Buchanon signings, and well, it's tough to blame the Football Outsiders writers for ranking the Redskins 32nd in age 25 and under talent. If the team isn't going to try to develop it's young players from a prior regime, why should national writers pretend they 1) exist and 2) represent talent?
Rinehart's short season performance from last year suggests he's ready for a bigger role, and he already knows the zone blocking scheme from his college days as a Northern Iowa Panther (as well, obviously, as with the last two years on the Redskins). But he had slipped behind both Big Mike Williams (who will miss 2010 with blood clots near his heart), and Hicks at last mention, which should kill the notion that bringing in a zone blocking guru for a head coach is going to do anything but kill his career. Anyway, the Redskins suddenly have plenty of young talent on the offensive line, which makes the Hicks signing even more confusing. They no longer need Rinehart as a developmental player, but I think they would be best off starting him at RG in 2010. Williams' injury will at least give him reps to show the coaches what he can do, but this probably isn't a competition.
We'll conclude this piece with a Hog Heaven power ranking of players on the Redskins who will be age 25 or younger when the season begins on September 9th:
The Washington Redskins released its new marketing video this week and it's pretty slick. It should be. The Redskins have had lots of practice. After all, Danny Snyder swapped out coaches five times this decade. That's five "new beginnings" sales campaigns.
Don't know about you, but I'm jaded. I wish Snyder was better at building a team than hyping it. We needn't rehash his football blunders here. They are too well known already.
I'd like to understand why Snyder does those things without resorting to name-calling. Here's my conclusion: the guy's a poor leader. He misapplies the entrepreneurial spirit that's worked so well in other ventures. He just doesn't know how to build a winning organization, much less a winning football team.
It's a business cliche that entrepreneurs who are so good at starting businesses often get in their own way when it comes to running a grown up enterprise. Why? Because entrepreneurs are innovators who create value. Their vision, their success arises from their hands-on involvement. That skill set so valuable for start-ups does not translate as well to established organizations.
Yes, Virginia, there is a difference between entrepreneurs and leaders. The difference is why you don't see entrepreneurs running GE.
Organizations, like the Redskins, need executives who foster excellence in every part of the group, mostly by teasing the best out the people in the group. That's where entrepreneurs like Snyder fail as leaders. Start-ups need visionaries. Enterprises need leaders who foster teamwork at every level, and leave team members free to be their best.
Here's Jimmy Johnson's rant about Snyder from October 2009:
"Realize that a great 53-man roster is what wins championships, not five or six high-priced stars. Dan Snyder builds his team like its fantasy football and that's a big negative. The Redskins need a GM who can prevent Snyder from making decisions while letting Snyder think he's involved. Who can work that magic? I don't know."
Johnson added that the Redskins have good scouts, "but nobody listens to them." That's poor leadership.Sadly, neither Johnson nor anyone in the local media expanded on that flaw. The roster itself was proof enough of the truth of the statement.
Snyder may have been listening to Johnson. He hired Bruce Allen as general manager three months later, his first true GM since he fired Charley Casserly in 1999.
Poor leadership expressed itself off field, too. The season ticket scandals exposed an out of control sales team and insensitive management too eager to sue season ticker fans in distress.
Snyder characteristically ducked on the issue. He left it to his general council, David Donovan, to respond to an irate fanbase. Donovan said at the time that he personally reviewed every decision to sue season ticket holders. The media brought out that the Redskins were the only NFL club to sue ticket holders. Yet, in fixing the mess, it was Donovan who Snyder named as team CEO.
Perhaps Donovan is the best business-side leader available. It's more likely that Donovan, like Vinny Cerrato, can be counted on to do things the Snyder way.
So, has Snyder changed?
A snippet from a recent CSN post by Rich Tandler suggests that he has turned a corner:
"Snyder is rarely at Redskins Park these days, and when he is there, his secretary is under strict orders to tell any player who wants to drop by to talk about an issue with the owner to go see Shanahan or Bruce Allen."
There is so much more to building up the Redskins than Snyder keeping his hands off the football operation.
As a fan, I desperately want the new front office set up to work. But Donovan's place in it rankles me. For all of this to work, Snyder has to understand that his real team isn't the players. It's the front office. He has to be leader enough to have the right people in place everywhere. He has to form them into a cohesive unit and give his people the room to ply their expertise.
As one of my Big Blue executives explained to me, "I became a better manager when I started taking credit for the work of others." He said that in jest, but there's a lesson in it for Snyder.
Snyder was successful in his early ventures in college and with Snyder Communications because he made the difference. That's his style. He wanted to be the Redskin entrepreneur. He wanted to be the difference. To outsiders, Snyder's hands on approach to the Skins looked like so much egotism.
Danny Snyder is never more dangerous than the year after he hires a new coach (two years in Joe Gibbs' case). That's when he tinkers and tampers and injects himself where he should not. Next season is the true test for Snyder and Allen, recalling Johnson's prescription of "a GM who can prevent Snyder from making decisions while letting Snyder think he's involved."
After Schottenheimer, Spurrier, Gibbs and Zorn, I'm not going to declare success in advance just because Shanahan, Allen and Donovan are in place.
It would help if all those guys understand that they aren't tampering with customer loyalty. It's fan allegiance that is taken for granted. Snyder doesn't own the Redskins, you see. He just owns the franchise rights to sell us Redskins stuff. Nothing about that gives him the right to mismanage our team.
Points After: There's an evolution in my use of Snyder's name. He was "Dan Snyder" when he bought the team in 1999, later to be derided as "Danny" and "Little Danny" for the ridiculous decisions that followed. He was "Mr. Snyder" to me when Joe Gibbs returned, never more so than in 2007 when he banked a huge store of goodwill after Sean Taylor's death. I dropped the "Mister" for "Daniel" during the goat rodeo of the coaching search in 2008 and reverted to "The Danny" as last season's disaster unfolded. I would love to call him "Mr. Snyder" again, but Danny has to earn it.
Whoa! Could there be a more boring sports topic than something about leadership, entrepreneurs, organization and other multi-syllable words? Sports consumers crave light reading with short sentences focused on players and how the team is going all the way. But this is important. It's why just bringing in another set of personalities won't work unless the guy at the top morphs into a genuine leader. I hope I've given you what to look for. And thank you so much if you've read this far.
The Washington Redskins is searching for a Director of Sales and Marketing with proven ability to sell million dollar strategic sponsorship deals to Fortune 500 companies. The position will be based out of Redskins Park, located in Ashburn, VA. The right candidate will have a proven record of sales success, will be self-motivated, and dynamic.
Aspects of the job will include but are not limited to the following:
Create and sell sports marketing platforms utilizing all media elements: internet, tv, radio, direct, events, etc.
Generate new sponsorship revenue by identifying and prioritizing prospective corporate sponsors and partners through various channels.
Demonstrated track record of providing individual results while also able to collaborate with a Sales team environment.
Manage on going relationships with acquired sponsors.
Minimum of five years corporate sponsorship sales experience required.
Additional experience in media sales is preferred.
Sports Marketing experience is a plus. The Washington Redskins is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Lebron James' super-hyped departure from one NBA team to another triggered a lot of thought in addition to our own about how free agency works in football.
Andrew Brandt, now president of National Football Post, used the occasion to bluntly explain why free agency does not work in the NFL.
Brandt spent his career at the pro level as an agent, then at various levels for football, including ten years as vice president of the Green Bay Packers. The Packer experience is significant since it was Green Bay's signing for DE Reggie White in 1993 that was a game changer in football free agency.
Yet, Brandt says in two articles that free agency rarely works as well in football as in other sports. In his words:
"Football is about schemes, sets, body types, coaching philosophies, etc. Tony Dungy loved fast, small linebackers, Bill Parcells likes big, stout linebackers: the Redskins employed a 4-3 defense last year, a 3-4 this year, etc. Coaching staffs change; players that fit the previous scheme do not fit the present one. And, of course, football players are completely dependent on teammates; the best players play less than half the game.
"For these reasons, moving parts are not as seamless as in other sports. A player may look enticing on a board of players eligible for free agency (or the Draft, for that matter) but the question that has to be asked and answered is not how good the player is, but how good the player will be in our system?"
That concept animates Redskins Hog Heaven's thoughts about all of Washington's free agent and trade moves of this decade. It's just so interesting hearing that idea expressed by a NFL insider.
Brandt points to the Redskins as one example to make his point. Who can blame him? But he buttresses his argument with cases from the Packers, Eagles and Patriots, too.
One man, or three in the case of the Miami James Gang, can make a bigger impact in basketball where pro coaches have less influence on their players and the only scheme is to shoot a lot. In football, not so much.
Brandt makes his case in a July 6, 2010, story in The National Football Post, with a follow-up on July 8, 2010.
One last quote from Brandt from a story today: "Free agency is the price paid for drafting poorly."
Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com hints that the NFL will look at player-to-player tampering to keep a LaBron case from occuring in the NFL.
You can't keep genuine free agents from comparing notes. Some stories suggest that LaBron's move was cooked up by he and Dwyane Wade while Wade was under contract to the Maimi Heat. If that's the case, why wouldn't Wade be considered an agent of the team? And how could a league prove it unless one of the participants admitted to it? That's what's bothering the NFL.
Some of my Bloguin football colleagues weighed in on L'Affaire LeBron.
Andy Furman, who covers the New York Giants on Ultimate NYG, is scathing in his criticism of ESPN's 70 minute LeBron James announcement that Furman calls as phony as a $3.00 bill. I agree, and like Furman, I watched the dreck anyway.
Nate Dunlevy, who covers the Colts on 18 to 80, says in his story on July 10, 2010 that LeBron James wasn't Cleveland's only traitor. Dunlevy point fingers at Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and the media: Gilbert for the cruel firing of coach Mike Brown and for the failure to build enough talent in Cleveland to make LeBron want to stay.
Dunlevy is harder on the media for making a spectacle of the event then for criticizing LeBron for the frenzy they created. Of course the media faction that hyped the ESPN show are not the same people who criticized it, but the point is noted.
LeBron did something new and different. We've never see the like before. LeBron will be criticized for it until the next super star athlete-hero does the same.
I've had my doubts about Washington Redskins tackle Mike Williams all alone. But what a story he is.
Williams' connection to Derrick Dockery gave him an in to Washington fans. He's part of the family regardless of the improbability of his quest to start at tackle. His 80 pound weight loss, his self-discipline, his willingness to fill in at guard instead of tackle made you pull for the guy.
So it comes as hard news that Williams is OUT for the season when blood clots were found near his heart. "Clot" and "heart" are two words you never want to hear in the same sentence.
The assumption going into training camp was that Artis Hicks was penciled in as starting right guard. Mike Shanahan liked Williams, so he figured to rotate Big Mike in and out of the line-up.
With Williams out, the Skins could rejigger the depth chart with Chad Rinehart, Edwin Williams and Will Montgomery, though none were as high on the chart at Mike Williams. Kory Lichensteiger played guard for Mike Shanahan in Denver in 2008.
Dockery had a hand in Williams joining the Skins last season. I wonder how this news impacts him.
We at Redskins Hog Heaven wish Mike Williams the best.
More buzz, courtesy of FOX Sports, that the Washington Redskins will make a move for San Diego's disgruntled bad-boy wide-out Vincent Jackson. (Hat tip to Extremeskins for pointing me to this story.)
Say what you will about Jackson's off-field judgement, but his stat line has improved in each of the past three seasons. With the addition of Donovan McNabb and a pair of new tackles, wide receiver was the next questionable area of the offense.
Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly may yet pan out, but Skins fans have seen enough of Vinny Cerrato's other talent decisions to leave us queasy about those two. Perhaps Mike and Kyle Shanahan feel the same, enough to push GM Bruce Allen to work harder to land Jackson after making no play for Anquan Bolden.
Adam Schein says it's practically a done deal for a second round trade pick. That would leave the Redskins with practically nothing to do after the first round of the 2011 NFL Draft. A third or fourth round pick goes to the Eagles for McNabb. The remainder of the two goes to the Saints for T. Jamaal Brown.
Any deal for Jackson should make the Skins more open to a second or third round draft pick in exchange for Albert Haynesworth.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the Redskins receiving corps was boosted by a Norv Turner cast-off? Turner coaches a Down Field Offense scheme where Jackson is considered a deep threat. Jackson would come to a West Coast Offense that tends to favor quick strikes to the perimeter and yards-after-the-catch.
Sarcasm Alert: Everybody knows that players are interchangeable parts in these schemes and are only too happy to adjust because they can be equally effective in anything.
Terrell Owens (6-3, 224) and Brandon Marshall (6-4, 230) are archetypal West Coast receivers. Jackson (6-5, 230) fits that physical profile.
There wouldn't seem to be room on the roster for Thomas and Kelly if Jackson comes. So which of those two would be squeezed out by Jackson's arrival? The coaching staff is mum about that, and they should be. But if I were Malcolm Kelly, I'd be very nervous now.
Over the past 24 hours, the sports world turned its attention from football, both American and foreign, to Lebron James. ESPN took a page from the NFL's playbook to air a 60-plus minute special for LeBron's 30 second announcement that he is leaving Cleveland for the Miami Heat. Here are seven Hog Heaven thoughts about LeBron:
LeBron's Smart Set-Up--LeBron did what I wish more athletes would do. He signed a two-year deal with the Cavaliers in 2008 to set-up the auction for his services in 2010. Veteran athletes tend towards long-term deals, often to become dissatisfied when their performance outruns their pay. That's where the spectacle of Terrell Owens or Albert Haynesworth come from. Those guys clamor for the certainty of income while passing the injury and performance risks to their team. Then try to pout their way out of their deal if they become unhappy.
If athletes want the flexibility to max their future income or leverage their performance against their team, then take a short term contract like LeBron did. Worried about injury? That's why you buy insurance. LeBron didn't go to college and he's figured this out. Kudos to him.
The Cult of LeBron--James has yet to lead his team to a championship, yet his fans call him The King. The whole promotional campaign around his decision has been masterful. Let's not be too critical here. Pro-basketball encourages personality cults. Basketball fans seem to crave it more than in other team sports. (My opinion only. Comment if you disagree.)
Why not just name the team after the biggest star? Hasn't Cleveland been more about LeBron than Cavaliers? It's just a matter of time before some clever Miami pr type starts referring to LeBron, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosch as the "James Gang."
$100 Million Club--If a teen-age athlete asked my career advice, I'd push him towards basketball, baseball or even that Euro football thingy if he wants in on the $100 million club. Pro football players have shorter careers, earn less money and have higher risk for life-long affliction from the game than players of either of the B-ball sports. It's rare in the NFL for anyone other than quarterbacks to get nine-figure contracts. There is that one deal with that one defensive player. (Down here in Washington, we don't speak his name except to spit on it.) For every other NFL player, it's a rare deal.
The Inmates are running the NBA asylum--That's the impression left by "the decision." News accounts in the lead up to LeBron's announcement said that James met with Dwyane Wade and other free agent players to coordinate their contract demands and more. Wade and Chris Bosh signed with the Miami Heat before James' announcement. Season tickets for Heat games sold out in half a day, also before James' announcement. So roster decisions are set by a cabal of players rather than teams. If James, Wade and Bosh were companies instead of individuals, their actions would have been an illegal conspiracy in restraint of trade.
How is this good for the NBA? Live by the sword, die by the sword. The NBA fosters player cults more than a sense of team or even of titles, or defense. The average NBA team is valued at $350 million or so. Its top stars have contracts worth one-third of that. Those same stars have endorsement deals that may match the value of their contracts. The league lives by player cults, but the players aren't as dependent on the NBA as in the NFL. That doesn't strike me as healthy business climate.
More of these nine-figure contracts for the NBA's biggest stars mean lesser deals for the grunts who fill out the roster.
How is it that the LeBron James and not the NBA promoted that whole ESPN show? I can't image that the NFL, and certainly not a Daniel Snyder, would have let that golden goose slip through its fingers.
Poor Cleveland--LeBron leaves a legion of heartbroken fans in Cleveland, for whom I feel genuinely sorry. But how could the Cavaliers leave themselves so vulnerable? Crain's Detroit Business suggests that the Cavaliers will lose $250 million in value simply by losing LeBron. James was the one positive face Cleveland put out to the world. There's no Brady Quinn to fill the void. Eric Mangini is a void from an image standpoint.
How could a well-managed team have it's value so tied up to a single player and lose him? How can Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who couldn't win a title in seven seasons with LeBron, guarantee to win a championship before LeBron gets one in Miami?
Would Tom Izzo have made a difference? Uh, no. Gilbert is a Michigan State grad. For a brief moment, the Cavaliers dangled the head coaching job in front of Spartans men's basketball coach Tom Izzo who wisely declined. Gilbert is a big supporter of Spartan sports, I bet. So Izzo would have had to talk to Gilbert as a courtesy if nothing else. But Izzo reportedly couldn't get LeBron to return his calls at the moment the king was orchestrating his future. It seems that neither Gilbert nor any coach he brings in factored in LeBron's thinking.
It's too soon to say. That doesn't stop sports handicappers from projecting how the NFL 2010 season will end. Football tout Vernon Croy is the latest to offer something, in this case his final standings of the NFC East:
Dallas Cowboys -- 10-6
Philadelphia Eagles -- 10-6
New York Giants -- 8-8
Washington Redskins -- 6-10
I never heard of Croy. Even if he's the smartest man in football, isn't it too soon to say?
The Cowboys had the best finish in 2009. The Redskins made the best moves of the offseason. But that's just on paper. Football isn't played on paper. It's played on television.
Can we, like, see a preseason game before we project how the regular season will play out?
I like a lot of the moves of Dannyhan's first season. Oh yes, boys and girls, the Danny is still in the background. But Washington hasn't paid stupid money to another over-hyped star from somebody else's team who will save the season. They have brought in a lot of older players who might be role contributors, or who might be another bust.
For my part, I'm going on the assumption that the moves thus far brought the Redskins back to level ground; meaning the Skins have a shot at 8-8. It's not like we're saying Super Bowl for sure. Nor are we saying that they sure won't be there either.
We just want to see these guys on this roster run plays from this playbook in a game before drawing any conclusions. Until then, we don't know jack.
The Redskins have thrown a lot of resources at their putrid offensive line from the last two years in a desperate attempt to make it seem not quite so awful this year. Their efforts landed them G Kory Lichtensteiger and G-T Artis Hicks in free agency, and then T Trent Williams, G Erik Cook, and T Selvish Capers in the draft. They they traded a pick or three for T Jamaal Brown. If you're keeping track, that's six offensive lineman who weren't on the team next year, of which the team is likely to keep five for the season, which could be more than 50% of the entire line.
Change is much welcome to a unit that never really seemed to get any better...or even to be all that interested in a sustained improvement. Out are the veterans who couldn't stay healthy (Chris Samuels retires, while Randy Thomas is likely to retire after being released), and who started this whole mess. Also gone is Levi Jones, whose contract has expired after playing in just ten games with the Redskins.
Furthermore, the team pushed out...actually, that's it for players pushed out by the Redskins. They got rid of three players, all veterans, one of whom a 6-time pro bowler who retired, most recently making the pro bowl way back in 2008. Everyone else is back. Casey Rabach and Mike Williams both contributed to the line's struggles last year, but at least offered the saving grace of expired contracts. They've been extended, each for three...more...years.
Despite the change to the roster, this is pretty much the same interior group that played last year: it's going to be Derrick Dockery, Casey Rabach, and Mike Williams in the middle of the line. Dockery and Rabach work well together, at least, though neither is as valuable as was Pete Kendall just two years ago. Williams offers some upside at guard: he's only 29 and was at one point considered to be an elite LT coming out of college -- it's still possible he takes to the Right Guard position and dominates like he was always supposed to. But overall, that's just not very good on the interior. Dallas probably has the best interior OL in the division, but what the Redskins offer isn't even comparable to the three guys on the interior of the New York Giants line.
Where the Redskins make up their ground on the NFC East, and the rest of the conference, is at the tackle position, where there just aren't very many good offensive tackles. The Redskins should have great confidence that between Doug Free, Jason Peters, and David Diehl, it's not going to take Trent Williams long to establish himself as the premier LT in the division. And at right tackle, where the Redskins had been starting Stephon Heyer, there is now no discernible advantage for any of the four teams between Kareem McKenzie, Marc Columbo, Winston Justice, and Brown. That might sound a little like I'm underselling Brown, but that's a huge improvement to cut down that gap at RT between the Redskins and the NFC East to meaningless: one that probably makes another 0-6 record against division opponents unrealistic based on the similarities in the roster.
Position by position -- or how most fans try to compare offensive lines -- the Redskins don't appear to stack up well against the rest of the NFC East. However, offensive lines tend to function more as units than as a group of individuals, which is what makes player evaluation so difficult for the untrained eye. For every person who thinks, on paper, that Jamaal Brown is a better player than Kareem McKenzie because he has played in more pro bowls; ignoring, of course, that the pro bowl honor is biased towards the left tackles in a high powered offense, is failing to understand the evaluation of single players. But evaluating offensive lines is so much more than knowing that "the Giants have better players, so they have the better unit". Injuries disproportionately affect the quality of offensive lines versus other positions. So when you have a heavily injured OL unit, you don't just lose the talented first stringers. You lose the talented first stringer that gets hurt AND the combined value of his relationship with both of his linemates on either side.
If Randy Thomas gets hurt in Week 1 (imagine that), the Redskins have to replace Thomas with Will Montgomery, a large downgrade in skill, they also lose all the accrued value that Thomas has with Rabach and that Thomas has with Stephon Heyer in working the same blocking scheme. Montgomery has none of that. If he had, instead, gone through the whole offseason as the starting RG, he would have had value with Casey Rabach and value with Stephon Heyer, despite a lack of talent. This is a big principle that Vinny Cerrato was leaning on when he built the lines the last two years: if less-than-talented players can stay healthy and play together, he can get more out of the whole than the sum of its parts. When Thomas got hurt early, those ideas were brought into question. When Samuels got hurt, they were crushed. When Joe Bugel and Jim Zorn failed to agree on a starting RG...well, the offense never did find it's stride.
By getting rid of their oft-injured linemen, the Redskins decrease their terrible OL attrition rate, and give themselves a better chance to outperform teams in their division over the course of the year. Derrick Dockery and Casey Rabach are hardly ever hurt, no matter how much each struggles individually. Jammal Brown misses games but he also has multiple 16 game seasons in his career. Trent Williams was a college workhorse. Mike Williams is the wild card here, of course, but he might lose his job to Artis Hicks.
Based on this, even though they hardly have the most talented offensive line, they have a durable one, and have invested enough in improvements for this year to really make a difference in the hierarchy of NFC East offensive lines. To be ranked number one in the division at year's end is something that probably won't be achieved. It's much more likely, however, than just a year ago.
There will be incremental improvement in the offensive line -- and at least the opportunity to be very, very good.
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