Champ We Miss You, and Pierce, Trotter, Harris and Clark Too

Carlos Rogers' season-ending injury, and what it spells for the Redskins, makes it a pertinent time to reflect on the Skins' defensive personnel decisions and depth, or lack thereof. If you watched the game last Sunday, you probably gasped when undrafted CB Leigh Torrence was covering Randy Moss in the end zone. Moss got away with one for a TD as he should have been called for offensive pass interference, but how did the Redskins end up in such a position that with one injury they had an undrafted free agent, who had tried out unsuccessfully for five other teams after being cut by two others, defending the best receiver in the NFL in an important game?

The depth and defensive personnel breakdown of Gibbs II begins with the trade of Champ Bailey to Denver. Every time I watch the Broncos play, like on this past Monday night, and hear the announcers unanimously agree that Champ is the best cover corner in the league, it makes me ill. He was a Skin, and he has proven impossible to replace. Trading Champ for Portis was a terrible decision, especially as it included a second round draft pick. The Skins throw away mid to late round picks yet those are the picks that give a team depth, which we constantly lack, a theme that every injury reminds us of.

Losing Champ also caused a cascading flow of negativity for the Skins. It made the Skins need to use their next year’s first round pick on Rogers, so in essence the Skins used two picks, including a first rounder, to get Portis, who has been a below average back as a Skin, and Rogers has never come close to being Champ. Now he is injured and we are missing all of those draft picks that might have provided a better back-up than undrafted Torrence.

The terrible personnel decisions go on. To let two middle linebackers and D leaders, Pierce and Trotter, go to division rivals (and in a way that makes them pissed off at us when they play) was foolish at best. Pierce was a stud and haunts us every time we play the G Men. Do you remember the blowout, 36-0, at the Giants in 2005? Pierce knew all of our offensive calls. That loss cost the Skins the division title and a first round bye and a home playoff game. Trotter was pretty good too, and haunts us when we play Philly. We struggled in their absence last season and had to acquire London Fletcher to fill that gap.

Finally, there is the Redskins' boneheaded decision to not pay proven S Ryan Clark the $1.5 million per year that he wanted. The Skins replaced him with Archuleta and a $10 million guarantee for a player who underperformed and was released in the offseason. Lacking a safety, the Skins then used another first draft pick, this time on LaRon Landry, who got $17.5 million in guaranteed money. So the Skins spent $27.5 million guaranteed and wasted a year of non-production because they did not want to pay proven Clark $1.5 million.

The Skins in the 2005 offseason also dumped CB Walt Harris, who was voted NFC Defensive Player of the Week and had more interceptions for the 49ers (8) than the entire Redskins D had (6).

Then of course there was letting Ryan Clark go bc we didn’t want to pay him $1.5 million and ending up spending $10 million and wasting a season on Arch and then another first round pick on Landry to replace Arch.

And of course the Redskins' ineptitude at personnel management does not end at the defense, as they could have used draft picks find new offensive players. Had many bad decisions not happened then perhaps the Skins could have had more picks to draft a possession receiver, which they sorely lack.

A Near Disaster v Arizona Makes Fans Shake Their Heads

The Skins almost lost against 36 year-old Kurt Warner's Cardinals at home. Even worse than being 36, Warner was wearing a contraption on his injured left arm that made him have to hand off with one arm only.

Had the Skins lost it would have rivalled their horrible quick collapses against Oakland in 2005 and Baltimore in 2004 that left fans demoralized.

The Skins under Gibbs II excel at blowing half-time leads, as Jason la Canfora of the Wa Post has reported.

Why do they blow them? My guess is that they have poor conditioning and get tired. That also could explain the groin and hammy injuries that plague this team.

Another Second Half Meltdown at Green Bay

One has to question to play calling of Al Saunders. The Skins were up and Santana Moss was dropping everything that came his way. Yet Saunders called a gadget play that put Moss, who weighs 185 on a good day, behind the line of scrimmage. A 350 lb GB defensive player knocked him to the ground and Charles Woodson reignited his career by returning the fumble for a TD and winning the game.

Thus ocurred another second half meltdown under Coach Gibbs II. As J la C of the Wash Post has reported: Since ending his retirement in 2004, no NFL coach has lost more times when leading at the half.

Is conditioning an issue for the Skins? Between the second half collapses and endemic groin problems I am wondering.

Aaron Schatz Weighs in on the Skins and Football in General

I recently had the opportunity to interview Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders. They publish the Pro Football Prospectus, which is an innovative stats trove for football fans. These guys track every play in every game and have created stats that measure a player against how other players, on average, performed in a similar situation in terms of down, distance and field position. You can read their weekly observations at their web site here.

Q: How important are special teams to winning and losing?

A: About as important as people think, except that people have a skewed idea of what parts of special teams are important. Our research shows that the overall quality of a team is 3/7 offense, 3/7 defense and 1/7 special teams. But field goal kicking is seriously overrated, while kickoff distance and both kick and punt coverage are really underrated.

Q: How do you assess the Redskins personnel decisions, in general and this year?

A: The general theme of the Redskins’ personnel moves in well-known. For the most part, they eschew draft picks to sign big-name, expensive free agents. When you use this strategy, you don’t have depth, and you end up going into each season saying, “if we can only avoid injuries, we will win.” In the NFL, you can never, ever count on avoiding injuries. The Redskins learned last year what happens when a team with no depth has not just a regular number of injuries but a ridiculously large number of injuries. This year, if they have a regular number of injuries, they’ll have enough talent to compete for a playoff spot, but they won’t be a Super Bowl contender unless they can go through a season without injuries, and that’s simply not possible.

However, the Redskins made one of the worst trades in recent years, the Bailey-Portis trade. The problem was not the trade of those two players, it was tossing in an extra second-round pick on top of Bailey.

Q: The Skins this offseason got rid of a linebacker coach who alienated fan favorite LaVar Arrington and sent him into motorcycle destruction. That coach is now gone, and this year Rocky McIntosh is a stud, though the LB coach last year relegated him to ST despite him being a first round draft pick. Do you have a view on how much bad coaching versus bad players was a factor in the Redskins D being ranked 31st last year?

A: This is really a question better askeed of someone like Jason LaCanfora. The is how that I get my information about the personnel issues between players and coaches in the same way that everyone else does, by reading the work of other journalists.

Q: Do you have a view as to whether screaming stern coaches, a la Coughlin, are more effective than the coaxers a la Dungy?

A: No opinion. I just want to point out that you don't need to be an Evangelical Christian to be a kind players' coach, despite what Tony Dungy may want you to believe.

Q: Are free agent acquisitions better than draft picks?

A: No, normally you are getting players post-peak and for more money than a draft pick would cost-- except maybe for those absurdly expensive top few picks.

Q: Your new third down conversion rate stat as being an indicator of improvement is a great new use of stats. How does that apply to the Skins?

A: They had the worst third down pass defense we've ever measured, going back to 1996. Their defense was below average on first and second down too, but nowhere near as bad. If you consider a rebound effect after they were good in 2005, and then the effect where performance on third down tends to bounce back to be the same as first and second downs after an offseaon, the Redskins are almost guaranteed to have an above average defense this year. Maybe not as good as two years ago, but above average. And so far, they do.

Q: How does Jason Campbell stack up against his draft class?

A: At quarterback, it isn't even close. Alex Smith is still very young-- he was 21 as a rookie-- and has potential but right now Campbell is the better player. He's way better than Charlie Frye or Kyle Orton, and we have no idea about Aaron Rodgers because they guy can't get on the field. If you look at the 2005 first round, it really was an amazingly good first round draft class with a couple of major exceptions (let me know when Matt Jones and Mike Williams wake up, not to mention Antrel Rolle). Campbell certainly fits in.

Q: What do you recommend that the Skins do to reclaim the Super Bowl?

A: Build depth.

Q: Do you think that there is any chance of glory if Dan Snyder still owns the enterprise?

A: Sure. Hasn’t George Steinbrenner kept the same manager now for something like 12 years? People change.

Q: Your article comparing last year’s Redskins to the Super Bowl winning Colts was fascinating. Last year they slaughtered us. Do you think that we could beat them this year?

A: Absolutely, if they are decimated by injuries when you play them and the Redskins aren’t. You should link to the thing I wrote about the Colts in the preseason (link here). Unlike most Super Bowl champs, nobody is out there trying to build a team like the Colts. If you build a team like the Colts without having Peyton Manning, you end up with the Redskins. It’s usually better to have depth than a few stars and a lot of scrubs, but Peyton Manning is enough to cover up a lot of depth problems-- and even still, the Colts went 1-3 last year when Dallas Clark was injured.