Real Redskins Fans

The Redskins Rule Out Signing Larry Johnson

2009-11-11T15:15:00.005-05:00

Thank God. The last thing the Redskins need is a homophobic 30 year-old running back who has only 358 yards on 132 carries so far this season, which is 2.7 yards per carry.

In fact the last thing that the Redskins need is a running back, as they have Ladell Betts and Rock Cartwright, both of whom are arguably better than pampered and overpaid Clinton Portis, who will not even practice, and it shows. Betts shows spark that Portis rarely has and yet for some reason the Redskins have favored Portis. Betts and Cartwright do everything that the organization asks of them yet go no credit from the front office or a big paycheck, which is just one more sign of front office dysfunction.

So the Redskins' lack of interest in Johnson is good news as it will let Betts and Cartwright get a chance to show their talent and determination despite a woeful O Line and even worse front office.

The Sorry State of the Skins is National News

2009-11-09T15:59:00.002-05:00

It is sad that the sorry state of the Redskins has become a national news story. It is one thing to read about the Skins in the NYT, which is the home paper of a division rival, but to read about them in the Wall Street Journal, in a negative way, is a new low.

From today's WSJ article entitled "Washington Vetoes the Redskins:"

"Can't we just send the Washington Redskins back, like an unsavory turkey club sandwich? ...

Mostly we're just fatigued by how much attention this miserable franchise gets. We're exhausted by all that choleric anger directed at Washington's meddlesome owner, Daniel Snyder. Why must peaceful civilians be assaulted daily by reports on the Redskins' fractured front office? Why do innocent ears hear the plaintive howls of John Riggins? (He's the rugged ex-Redskin great who, sounding like Joseph Conrad, recently said Mr. Snyder's "heart is dark."

Another Week, Another Loss

2009-11-09T09:54:00.002-05:00

It's almost unbearable at this point. The Skins 31 to 17 loss to the Falcons, while no surprise, was just as painful to watch.

A couple of observations... Thank God they finally got Marko Mitchell on the field. Mitchell had 2 catches in limited playing time. In the short time he was on the field he accomplished more than Devin Thomas or Malcolm Kelly has in any other game this year. Let's hope they keep Mitchell on the field more often. Second, our offense looked much better after Portis left with an injury and Ladell Betts took over the ball-carrying duties. I for one dont want to see Portis anymore this year. Make Betts the starter and be done with Portis.

The Burgundy Revolution

2009-11-03T13:44:00.006-05:00

The people are angry. Dan Steinberg at the Washington Post has done a great job of blogging on the uprising of Redskins fans against the front office and Dan Snyder, what Steinberg has dubbed the Burgundy Revolution. The picture to the right is of Shannon Sharpe pretending to be a Redskin fan and thus wearing a paper bag while Bill Cowher laughs. Notably, Bill Cowher is one of the potential head coaches that Snyder wants to lure to DC. Read the sign and what Cowher is laughing at. I guess he won't be taking the Skins head coaching job any time soon.

Another potential head coach on the short list (as opposed to the Redskins' "longest-in-the-NFL" season ticket wait list) is Mike Holmgren. I guess that what happen either as Holmgren went on record trashing Danny:

Perhaps Mike Holmgren might not want to coach the Redskins after all.

He sure didn't sound like a guy trying to impress owner Daniel Snyder when he blasted Washington management Monday for its treatment of Coach Jim Zorn, one of Holmgren's former assistants, during an interview with a Chicago radio station....

"The position they put Jim in, it shouldn't happen. You can be upset with me as a play-caller or how the team's going, [then] fire me. But don't do that. Don't pull the rug out from under me, tie my hands, make me look foolish . . . take away what I came there to do in the first place. Don't do that."

For a full accounting of how the demise of the Redskins has become a national sports story check out this.

DeSean Jackson as the Prime Example of Redskins GM Dysfunction

2009-11-01T14:28:00.002-05:00

I am now watching the Eagles lead the G-Men and DeSean Jackson just scored another touchdown. What is remarkable is that he has had six this season so far and every one was 50 yards or greater. Wow, that is a play maker.

Washington did not have a first round draft pick in 2008, which is cause enough to indict Cerrato. But they did have two second round picks. And whom did they pick? At #3 Devin Thomas and at #17 Fred Davis.

Both players have amounted to zero in terms of production. The 18th pick of the 2nd round was Philly's, and they chose DeSean Jackson, who tore the Skins apart last Monday and is giving the G-Men a major headache.

The fact is that the Skins' scouting and drafting operation stinks. While I like Orakpo we could have had Michael Oher as a ten year plus left tackle and that would have been more valuable.

Redskins Ban Signs and Some T-shirts at Fed Ex Field

2009-10-27T16:04:00.002-04:00

In order to avoid televisions cameras from catching signs and T-shirts that are critical of management, the Redskins organization has banned all signs and started to demand that offending T-shirts be removed.

In a live chat today with Post reporter Dan Steinberg, one commenter wrote:

At half time, I went down to the concessions area to get a beer and a dog. Of course, the crowd was once again getting restless at the lack of productivity we were seeing on the field. Standing two rows away from me in line, were two middle aged men. One wore a T-shirt that read "Fire Snyder", the other's said "Fire Vinny".

It wasn't long after standing there that the men were surrounded by close to a dozen people wearing yellow security jackets. The conversation between them and the two men escalated quickly as security asked the men to remove their shirts. Of course the men refused, and one stated that he had been a season ticket holder for 26 years. The conversation continued to get heated and before you knew it 6 or 7 armed security officers formed a circle around the layer of yellowed jacketed security officers.

"Sir, you're about to lose those season tickets if you don't take off that shirt" is what he was told. I don't know what got into me but I had seen enough and had to speak up. This was beyond absurd! I cut across a crowd of people, entering the circle of security.... I said " these guys should be able to wear whatever they want! What the hell is going on? What the hell is this? Communist Russia??? ".

I was quickly greeted with a stern warning to not interfere and a shove in the chest that sent me back a few feet. A few minutes later, the men were escorted out of the area and a security woman approached me with an explanation about their actions. "Look, I know what you're saying, and I can't say that I don't agree with you, but I'm a part-time teacher and this job is my Holiday money"...."upper management told us to come up here and ask these men to remove their shirts and I can't lose my job, so I'm doing it."

I decided then and there that I would NEVER again set foot in Fed Ex Stadium as long as Dan Snyder was the owner. The way I saw people being treated for voicing their opinions on this night embarrassed me as a Redskin fan, a Washingtonian, and as an American. These sort of totalitarian strong arm tactics are downright shameful and I needed to let others know about it.

Profootballtalk.com has picked up the story and has a post of its own.

Cerrrato Says Zorn Won't Be Fired this Season

2009-10-24T06:41:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning, on his radio show on Sports Talk 980, Redskins Exec VP of Football Operations Vinny Cerrato said Jim Zorn would not be fired this year:

Per the AP: "Jim Zorn will remain the Washington Redskins coach 'for the rest of this season and hopefully into the future..."

This statement by Vinny, and his ensuing ridiculous and patently unbelievable explanation of how the play calling duties ended up with Sherm Lewis, set off a firestorm with local sports media.

What did it mean? Was Vinny sincere? Was it all a media ploy by Snyder? Was Gibbs behind this?

Here's what I think - the guarantee came from Cerrato and is only valid if Cerrato sticks around, which as Jessica has pointed out on this site earlier - his days may be numbered. I think Cerrato knows that he and Zorn's fates are intertwined at this point. The only way Cerrato sticks around is if Zorn stays or Cerrato somehow manages to buy enough time to convince Snyder that his fate shouldn't be Zorn's fate.

I think Cerrato is sincere - for once. I think as far as Vinny is concerned Zorn will be the coach for the rest of the year. The bad news for Cerrato and Snyder, however, is that if the Skins continue to lose it won't be Cerrato's decision. Unless they can turn things around in the next couple of weeks, Cerrato and Zorn may be shown the door in Ashburn.

Are We Going to See a Gibbs III?

2009-10-22T15:17:00.002-04:00

Another day, another Redskins rumor. Lord knows how the players or coaches are managing to focus on winning Monday night's game.

The new rumor: Joe Gibbs is considering a return to the Redskins to function as a General Manager. While Gibbs is a coaching legend, selecting talent was not his strong suit. Remember Brandon Lloyd and Adam Archuleta? By his own admission, Gibbs also fought strongly against signing Joe Jacoby.

From PFT:

As the Washington Redskins continue to quickly unravel, the man who delivered the team's only three Super Bowl trophies could soon be coming back.

Again.

There's a rumor making the rounds that two-time former head coach Joe Gibbs could be returning in a role similar to the one occupied by Bill Parcells in Miami. Gibbs would be responsible for hiring a G.M. and a head coach, and otherwise stabilizing the franchise without grinding away as a head coach.

We reported earlier this month that owner Daniel Snyder still consults with Gibbs, and that the two men had dinner in Charlotte the night before the Redskins' loss to the Panthers.

For now, it's just a rumor. And it possibly flows from the fact that it makes a lot of sense.

Then again, the fact that it makes so much sense probably means it won't happen.

Is Cerrato on the Hot Seat?

2009-10-19T14:27:00.003-04:00

Mike Florio of Profootballtalk.com has an intriguing post that Vinny Cerrato's fate is intertwined with that of Jim Zorn. And unless cows start flying soon, Zorn is going to be fired. So could that mean that Cerrato will also be fired?

For the vast majority of fans who are asking for a front-office shakeup, firing Cerrato would be a silver lining to the almost unbearable state of the franchise. From Florio's post:

Redskins fans, there might be signs of hope in D.C., after all.

We're hearing that there's a strong belief within the Redskins organization that the fates of coach Jim Zorn and V.P. of football operations Vinny Cerrato are tied together.

So if/when Zorn goes, Cerrato could be dumped, too. (There's a chance Zorn would go after the Eagles game next Monday, and that Cerrato wouldn't be fired until after the season ends.)

That might help explain why Zorn and Cerrato will decide tomorrow who'll call the plays for the rest of the year. And why Zorn didn't simply refuse to give up his play-calling function.

Firing Cerrato would be such a positive for the franchise that it would take the sting out of what is shaping up to be a possible 2-14 season. In fact, I would gladly toss away the season to get rid of Cerrato as the team needs to move on, the sooner the better.

Skins Lose to Chiefs, Zorn Relieved of Play Calling Duties

2009-10-19T08:01:00.002-04:00

I have to admit, that in some sick pathetic way, losing is getting easier to handle. Earlier this year, and in year's prior, a Skins loss at home to a winless Chiefs team would have ruined my weekend and caused me to avoid listening to sports radio or watching ESPN for days. Now, not so much. The losing, because of its frequency and its magnitude, is apparently becoming easier every week.

The Skins-Chiefs game was one of the worst games I have ever watched. Two pathetic teams playing in front of a half empty stadium. The highlight of the game for Skins fans was watching QB Jason Campbell get benched at the start of the second half. Alas, the Todd Collins era looked a lot like the Jason Campbell era - boring and ineffective.

On the same day that the Patriots put 59 points on the board, the Skins could only manage 7 first downs and 6 points against the 32nd ranked Chiefs defense.

Last night we learned Zorn had been relieved of his play-calling duty. This morning we learn that former Green Bay offensive co-ordinator Sherman Lewis (hired recently as a "fresh set of eyes") will call the plays. I am happy Zorn got stripped of his play calling duty. Then again, I would be happy to see Zorn drawn and quartered at this point. Quite honestly, it probably wont make a difference. This is just a temporary half-step. When we lose to the Eagles next week (and we will lose), Zorn will get relieved of all of his duties.

The season is lost. Time to rebuild.

Game Day: The End of the Road

2009-10-18T06:38:00.003-04:00

So this week is the end of the road for the Skins schedule. At least the part of the schedule that was supposed to be a cake walk. With the exception of the Giants, who we faced in week 1, the rest of the cream puffs on our schedule (St. Louis, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Carolina and now KC), were supposed to give the Skins a chance to jump out to a quick start. If this team were half the team folks thought it was at the beginning of the year, we should be sitting at 4-1 heading into this week - poised to move to 5-1 before we take on the Eagles.

Alas, we aren't 4-1. Heck we aren't even 3-2. We are a pathetic 2-3, having lost games to the otherwise winless Lions and Panthers, and to be honest - we could be 0-5 right now. We barely squeaked out wins over the Bucs and Rams.

This week is the end of the road for this Skins team. The last truly winnable game on the schedule until we face the Raiders in the closing weeks. Realistically folks, we could be looking at a 3 or 4 win team here for the season.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. Blow it up. If you know Zorn wont be here next year then can him. If you know Campbell wont be back, then trade him. If you think Portis is done, then show him the door. If we are going to be a 3 win team lets get our youngsters out on the field. Lets see Anthony Alridge at RB, lets see Marko Mitchell at WR, lets see what the future holds for this team.

I Should Have Stayed in Witness Protection

2009-10-13T07:00:00.004-04:00

This picture was taken on Sunday. You can tell by the smiles that this picture was taken before the Skins embarrassing meltdown and loss to Carolina. This picture of my partner and I (thats me on the right) was taken at the Legends sports bar outside of Akron, OH.

I have to tell you that its hard enough to watch the Skins lose, even harder to watch them squander a 15 point lead in route to a loss to the win-less Panthers, but nothing compares to the shame, disgust and public humiliation that is involved in watching them lose in a sports bar in northeastern Ohio while the once-hapless Bengals beat the Ravens, the Steelers beat the Lions, and even the disastrous Browns pulled out a W over the Bills.

By the end of the 1 PM games, the bar was filled with smiles and high fives as Bengals fans, Steelers fans and even Browns fans celebrated victories. Surrounded by this sea of excitement, our little enclave of Redskins fans was an island of disappointment.

The game was nothing short of pitiful. The play-calling was once again horrific. The 4th and 3 call totally lacked sense. The decision to run Portis around the end that resulted in a safety was moronic.

I don't want to see anymore Clinton Portis. He is done. Completely and totally done. Watching paint dry is more exciting that watching Portis run.

The INT not withstanding, DeAngelo Hall is a bum. His inability to tackle Carolina's totally immobile QB to end the game is beyond explanation.

The offensive line is a nightmare. An inexcusable nightmare. Vinny Cerrato and the rest of the folks responsible to putting together this pathetic o-line should be taken out and publicly beaten.

I don't know what else to say. The season is lost. The only things left that will bring me any joy are the inevitable firing of dipshit Jim Zorn and the much-deserved firing of Vinny Cerrato (if Dan Snyder is finally shamed into 86ing his hand-maiden).

That's it. What happens on the field really doesn't matter any more this year. Let's just blow it up. Blow the whole thing up. Trade away as many veterans as we can. Portis, Campbell, Moss, Randle El, almost anyone on the defense. It's time to start fresh. Load up on draft picks, and rebuild this team, this franchise and this fan base.

Skins Bring in New "Eyes"

2009-10-07T18:50:00.002-04:00

The Skins brought in Sherman Lewis to help out on the offense as a "new set of eyes."

Unhappy with the team's offensive production through the first four games, the Washington Redskins made their boldest personnel move since hiring Jim Zorn -- bringing in a consultant to help salvage the coach's embattled offense.

Vinny Cerrato, the team's executive vice president of football operations, said Sherman Lewis, a longtime NFL assistant and offensive coordinator who last coached in 2004, will provide "another set of eyes" for Zorn and his coaching staff.

Lewis was expected to start work at Redskins Park on Wednesday morning, as players begin preparations for Sunday's game at the Carolina Panthers. Speaking to reporters on a conference call Tuesday evening, Cerrato said the hiring was prompted by the team's offensive struggles and that Lewis joins the staff with Zorn's blessing.

Cerrato did not give his second-year head coach a vote of confidence but said the decision to add Lewis, 67, to the staff is not an indictment of any sort on Zorn.

"We have had some struggles and thought that it was a good time to bring in a fresh set of eyes and see if there's anything that the fresh set of eyes saw that could help us," Cerrato said.

The most damning was ex Redskins GM Charlie Casserly's comment:

Charley Casserly, the Redskins' former general manager, said during an appearance Tuesday on Comcast SportsNet's "Washington Post Live," that the move did not bode well for Zorn's future, calling the addition of Lewis a "kiss of death."

We Won - But It Sure Doesnt Feel Like It

2009-10-05T06:48:00.004-04:00

Yesterday, the Skins came from behind and beat the hapless Tampa Bay Bucs 16 to 13. The win moves the Skins to .500. A win is a win right? Well it doesn't feel like a win.

QB Jason Campbell had his worst game ever. Throwing three INTs and fumbling the ball once. Four very ugly turnovers. Campbell over threw receivers, under threw receivers and stood in the pocket too long resulting in three sacks (two on a horrible first series that ended in Campbell coughing the ball up on the Skins 10).

RB Clinton Portis once again failed to break the century mark. Sure he got close, rushing for 98 yards - but his yards per carry still was less than 4. This offense is in desperate need of a change of pace back - a RB with some speed who can keep defenses from just stacking 8 in the box (paging Anthony Alridge).

WRs Malcolm Kelly (recently demoted to 3rd on the depth chart) and Devin Thomas failed to catch a single ball.

Once again TE Chris Cooley was one of the only bright spots on the team. Cooley, who leads the team in receptions this year, had five grabs for 65 yards and a TD.

Inexplicably, RB Anthony Alridge and WR Marko Mitchell were on the inactive list for the Bucs game. What the hell is the purpose in carrying a fifth RB if Alridge is just going to be on the inactive list? And after everything he showed in preseason, why does Zorn refuse to put Marko Mitchell on the field? At this point, deactivate Devin Thomas and give the big guy a shot.

Very little has changed since last week. Instead of losing to a bad team on the road, we eked out a win over a bad team at home. The offense still looks dreadful and the play calling continues to mystify.

The schedule Gods have put the winless Panthers and Chiefs ahead of us. Two eminently winnable games. Given the sorry state of our offense, however, both of these are eminently losable games as well.

Revisiting an Article That Panned the Zorn Hire Back in 2008

2009-10-02T23:20:00.008-04:00

Not only did Tim Kawakami pan the hiring of Zorn; he thought it was one of the most dumb football decisions ever. He wrote his piece just after Zorn was hired.

I thought I would revisit his article as the Skins slide.

Some tidbits:

It’s OK to hire a head coach without previous play-calling/coordinating experience–Andy Reid, John Harbaugh, John Madden, Jon Gruden (I think) hadn’t yet been coordinators when they were hired as head coaches. The difference: They were all universally believed to be capable of coordinating and on the path to head-coach land.

Not Zorn. Nobody thought that. Whatever nice things they’re saying in Seattle, I can tell you, privately they were not saying those things about Zorn before he left.

I talked to Zorn when he was first getting into coaching on the Seahawks staff and I can tell you that, if first impressions mean anything–and they do–I walked away from that interview thinking, This guy shouldn’t be anywhere near an NFL sideline...
Zorn is the worst: Least prepared, worst communicator, most obvious risk for total failure, right from Day 1.

This one is on the shoulders of Danny and Vinny. Zorn seems like a nice guy but even a reporter who met him once had a more informed view of his limits than did the Skins.

Another Post Card from Witness Protection

2009-09-29T16:21:00.003-04:00

The anger, outrage and general pissed off nature of Redskins fans is making national news after our embarassing loss to the Lions. PFT is carrying a story right now entitled "Signs of the Ugly Times in D.C."

Nice to see the Skins can still make national headlines. Of course, this once mighty franchise, home to three Super Bowl victories, is now making headlines for being the laughing stock of the league.

At this rate, I may never leave witness protection. Of coure, the Wizards training camp did start today...

Riggo's Radio Comments

2009-09-28T15:12:00.003-04:00

They are priceless.

A Note from Witness Protection - Zorn is Certifiable

2009-09-28T14:39:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note from Witness Protection... Apparently Jim Zorn isn't just a terrible coach, he is also a certified idiot. According to Mike Florio of ProFootball Talk, Zorn told John Taylor of the Washington Times that, "we're getting better."

Holy hell. Talk about bizarro world. We lose to one of the worst teams EVER in the HISTORY of the NFL and Zorn thinks "we're getting better." No Jim, the Skins aren't getting better, you are just getting less and less lucid and less and less connected to reality.

Honestly, at this point just fire Zorn and company. What's left to lose? Not much, we have already lost whatever shred of dignity and respect that we had left as a franchise.

The Washington Post Floods the Zone on Yesterday's Debacle

2009-09-28T12:53:00.003-04:00

Perhaps they saw it coming. Perhaps it was a coincidence of stellar game reporting and insightful commentary. Either way, today's Washington Post coverage of the Redskins' loss to Detroit parallels that loss in that it is one for the record books.

First, let's start with the headlines. The Washington Post copy editors channeled the New York Post's with these two zingers: On A1 "Washington Bails Out Detroit" and on D1 "Fail to the Redskins."

Boswell's opinion column on the game was spot-on in indicting the Redskins' culture of thinking that they have talent that is better than their record.

...they may have to fight through an incredible amount of self-delusion about the talent level on their team. This week, Clinton Portis said he thought the Redskins had the most talent in the NFL. Comments like that have been common in the Redskins' locker room for the past 10 years -- regardless of all available evidence. Not only is the view tolerated at Redskins Park, it is encouraged and marketed. Where does this fallacy arise? In the owner's suite, where the price of players is equated with their performance?

They refuse to define themselves by the final scoreboard but, instead, cling to their own private view of themselves and their far higher value -- sometimes based on their performances in other years or even on other teams.

After a wonderful 10-catch, 178-yard game, wide receiver Santana Moss fell into the deepest and worst snare -- and one that constantly catches the Redskins. Moss said many reasonable things after this defeat. But he also said the magic words that always make my skin crawl in a locker room. "We are the better team," he said.

No, Santana, the better team wins, and Detroit won. Coach Jim Zorn's press conference today did nothing to refute Boswell's observation and in fact confirmed it.

Mike Wise also had a great column that opened with this:

If you lose to the worst team in pro football, does that make you the worst team in pro football?

When you lose to the team that has the worst owner in football, does that make your owner the worst owner in football, your general manager the worst assembler of talent in football?

Just asking.

Because if Jim Zorn has to answer one more question about his job security, it's time to also hold the coach's players and his superiors accountable for this dumpster fire -- this abomination of a loss.

I could not say it better. This is not just about Jim Zorn, but is also about ten years of Danny Snyder, who appears to hold the throne of the worst owner in the NFL.

But the best gem in the Post was Riggo's tweet on the game.

There are team specific issues for sure and some individual issues for sure but the owner ultimately is a loser and you can't fix that...as the owner alot on the line in Detroit u invite Tom Cruise to the game and he is chatting up your Coach! what does this tell us about YOU!....u r Zorn..Head Coach..in Detroit...alot on the line....and u r chatting up TomKat before the game...what does that tell us about YOU!!!

I would love to hear the answers to Riggo's questions.

Witness Protection Program

2009-09-28T11:05:00.003-04:00

After yesterday's game I will be entering the witness protection program.

Who is to Blame?

2009-09-27T23:18:00.005-04:00

There is a lot of blame to go around today for the Redskins loss to the Lions. There was inevitability about this loss as the franchise keeps sliding downward but this is a new low.

The Redskins' main problem is their ownership: Dan Snyder has been a horrible owner. He has had many previously winning coaches, such as Joe Gibbs, but under Snyder no coach can succeed. That is because Snyder insists, despite all logic against it, on having Vinny Cerrato run the draft and all football operations.

Vinny had three second round draft picks last year and none of them have produced. They could have picked Desean Jackson in 2008, who is catching passes and scoring for division rival Eagles. In the 2009 draft they could have picked Michael Oher, who is proving to be a stud offensive lineman for the Ravens while the Redskins offensive line is porous.

They then took a risk on Zorn, who had little experience. I think that Zorn has potential but he makes some bad decisions. When the Lions were on third down and drew a penalty at their 51 yard line, a very tough field goal, I could not believe that Zorn did not decline the penalty and gave them the ball again. Detroit then scored. I have never in my football watching career seen a coach not decline a penalty like that.

But the ultimate blame lies with Campbell. I watched him on the sidelines and he seems so removed and in no way is running up and down the sidelines rallying his teammates. He is not a leader in any way. And that is the biggest problem that the Redskins have.

A Telling Quote

2009-09-25T11:43:00.001-04:00

Just heard the voice of the Lions on the Mike Wise show on 106.7. His take on all the folks picking the Lions to beat the Skins this weekend, "chances are most of those people know very little about the Lions and how they have played this year."

Lions are the Trendy - Yet Moronic - Pick to Beat the Skins this Weekend

2009-09-25T11:24:00.002-04:00

I love all things NFL... I love the NFL Network, I love the NFL radio network on Sirius, I love listening to 106.7 the Fan and ESPN 980, and I love reading/hearing/seeing the talking heads picks for the weekend. This weekend, however, I have to wonder if the self-professed professionals have lost their minds.

Whether its Peter King or Mike Florio or Mike Golic, there is a flurry of talking heads who are picking the hapless Lions to beat the Redskins this weekend. I understand the disappointment in the Skins play against the Rams last weekend. I understand the frustration at the team's lack of ability to score. But get real folks, we are talking about the 0-19 Detroit Lions. The Detroit Lions who have no more talent than they did last year. If anything, compliments of a rookie QB and the mid-season trade of Roy Williams to the Cowboys, the Lions have even LESS talent than the squad that couldn't win a single game last year.

Yes, the Lions will win at some point - but its not going to be this weekend.

Profootballtalk.com Picks Detroit Over the Redskins on Sunday

2009-09-24T23:15:00.003-04:00

Profootballtalk.com, a very credible site, has picked Detroit to beat the Redskins this Sunday by 17 to 12. Here is the text:

Last week, the Lions had a chance to end an 18-game losing streak against the Vikings.

After taking a 10-point lead, the Lions blew it.

This week, a sluggish and sputtering Redskins team comes to town, with a respectable Week 1 loss to the Giants followed by a near-miss win over the Rams that felt like a loss.

If anyone knows how to neutralize Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth, it’s the man who knows him as well as anyone at the NFL level — long-time Titans defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, now the Lions' coach.

If the Lions can build another double-digit lead, the ‘Skins might not be able to come back and win. And if that happens, Redskins coach Jim Zorn might not be able to come back to D.C. with his team.
Pick: Lions, 17-12

It is scary that NFL Network's talking heads all agree with that assessment, as Detroit scores more than the Redskins do. Everyone who knows something says that Detroit's first win after 19 losses will be against the Redskins on Sunday. Considering how close we came to a loss to the same team which was 0-16 last year I am also worried.

The Overestimation of Clinton Portis

2009-09-19T17:27:00.010-04:00

The Washington Post has an article about how the Redskins only win when Portis rushes for 100 yards or more.

And since Portis joined the team in 2004, the Redskins are 21-4 when he rushes for at least 100 yards. Last year, they were 5-1. That lone loss a season ago was against the Rams.

Attributing wins to rushing yards is foolish as teams rush when they are winning, and throw the ball when they are losing and need to score quickly. So a team that is winning always rushes more to eat up the clock.

A better look at Portis (and Jason La Canfora, the former Skins Post guy who is now at NFL Network would dive into stuff like this, and we miss him) is how Portis performs versus his peers. Football Outsiders, which is a great outfit of stats, ranked Portis last week at 33 of 45 running backs that they rank. I don't need to remind you that there are only 32 NFL teams so Portis ranked below any starting running back on any NFL team. And I am sure he is the only one making $6MM per year.

So the Redkins have an underperforming running back who is overpaid and a DT whose pay is a record and is so out of shape that he has to sit out plays. Perhaps the Skins ought to buy four or five players instead of The One and try to develop a team.

Note to Zorn - Unleash Jason Campbell

2009-09-18T12:56:00.002-04:00

Look, I will admit right off the bat that I am not a Jason Campbell fan. I don't think we will ever be a Super Bowl contender with Jason Campbell under center. That having been said, I am asking, no begging Jim Zorn to unleash Jason Campbell this weekend.

The one thing we do know about Jason Campbell is that the kid has a cannon for an arm. For the love of God, Coach Zorn, let Campbell do what he can do best - throw the damn deep ball. We have speedsters like Santana Moss and big targets like Malcolm Kelly and Marko Mitchell. Take the cuffs off Campbell and let him sling it.

I know that Washington football has always been about the running game, but the fact is that Clinton Portis isn't the type of back who can carry a team on his own.

Put Campbell in the shotgun, go with an empty backfield, throw on first down, and pin the Rams early.

The only thing Coach Zorn has to lose is his job - and if he doesn't turn it around fast he will.

Skins Don't Just Need to Win, They Need to Demolish the Rams

2009-09-18T06:49:00.002-04:00

It's rare that you can call the second game of the year a must win - but for the Skins, this Sunday's game versus the St Louis Rams this IS a must win. Not only is it a must win, for Jim Zorn and Jason Campbells collective futures in Washington, the Skins don't only have to win - they have to win convincingly.

The Rams are one of the worst teams in the NFL - possibly THE worst team (of course, until the Lions put a W up, the Rams probably get to claim to be the second worst team). Against a rebuilding Seattle team last weekend the Rams were unable to score and got scorched 28 to zip.

There are plenty of us Skins fans who remember last year's embarrassing last second loss to the Rams at home (I watched the game from a dingy BW3s in Akron OH). A game that foreshadowed the total and complete collapse of last years team.

I think the Skins will win and I think that they will win convincingly, but if for some reason they didnt - we would not only be in store for a long season here in DC we could witness a midseason dismantling of the Skins.

The PC Police Strike Again

2009-09-16T08:01:00.003-04:00

Jessica posted earlier this a.m. about the possibility of the fight over the Redskins name making its way to the Supreme Court and the Sports Junkies are talking about it this morning as well.

I wanted to take a minute to weigh in on this. What a complete and total waste of time. What a heaping pile of PC BS. If this were 1909, not 2009, then maybe I could understand the argument made by those who seek to have the Skins name denied trademark protections (namely that it is so offensive that it doesn't deserve it). It's NOT 1909 tho.

How many folks in the country use "Redskins" as a slur? No one. Does 99% of the country even know that it was a slur at some point? Probably not. My God folks, give it a break.

There are so many real problems facing our country today and there are real problems facing the Native American population: things like unbelievably high unemployment rates and rampant alcoholism.

Sports is an escape for tens of millions of Americans. Pro football gives families across the country an opportunity for a couple hours a week to come together and forget about the challenges facing them in their every day lives.

The bottom line is that the PC police need to leave the Redskins name alone.

The Controversy Over the Redkins Brand

2009-09-15T20:06:00.002-04:00

It is possibly getting escalated to the Supreme Court. From the Wa Post today:

Native American activists are trying to get the Supreme Court involved in its long-running dispute with the Washington Redskins about whether the team's name is so offensive it does not deserve trademark protection.

The group is asking the court to review a decision this year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that the group waited too long to bring its claim.

The dispute started in 1992, when seven activists challenged the Redskins trademark. They won seven years later in a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. The team appealed to the federal court.

Judges at the district and circuit levels said the activists' trademark cancellation claim was barred by the doctrine of laches, which serves as a statute of limitation against claims that should have been made long ago. Attorney Philip J. Mause's petition says such claims can be brought at any time, and cites a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which was written by then-judge, now-Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The Supreme Court takes only a fraction of the petitions it receives, and probably will not decide on this one for months.

Yesterday's Loss - What Does it Mean?

2009-09-14T08:26:00.003-04:00

What does yesterday's loss to the Giants mean? From the calls to 106.7 the Fan this morning, it sounds like the city is pretty evenly split between the suicidal, who believe that this game is proof that we stink, and those who think that this game means very little.

I am somewhere in between. I saw a lot yesterday that I didn't like. Campbell made rookie mistakes and he ain't a rookie. Plus our secondary got totally scorched. A so-so QB throwing to a whole bunch of nobody WRs totally blew us up. Not to mention that watching Clinton Portis run yesterday was akin to watching paint dry. With the exception of one run, his first from scrimmage, Portis flat out stunk.

On the upside, our O-line gave Campbell the protection he needs. Randle El and Cooley each had 7 grabs, and the passing game looked sharp at times. Our D-line looked good too. That 4th and inches stop by the D-line was sweet. The Giants RBs didnt push us around. Finally, I am pretty stoked about some of the crazy gadget calls Zorn made. The fake FG was flat out crazy and it worked. Lets be honest, this team doesn't have the talent to win without a little trickery.

At the end of the day I dont think we should be suicidal, nor do I think we can simply ignore this loss. We lost to the Giants in the Meadowlands. The Giants are a better team, playing at home, they should have won. Then again, these are the games you have to win if you are going to compete for the division title.

The Aftermath

2009-09-13T19:42:00.002-04:00

The game wasn't nearly as close as the 23 - 17 final score. I have to admit, I saw a lot that took the wind out of my optimistic sails. Eli Manning might not be Peyton, but damn our secondary was hell bent on making him look as good.

It's going to be a tough week to listen to sports radio - the Redskins faithful are going to be suicidal, especially given the inexplicable mental mistakes by Jason Campbell.

Call Me Crazy

2009-09-13T15:45:00.003-04:00

Maybe I am a little nuts, maybe I am overly optimistic, maybe I am caught up in the glow of opening day - whatever it is, I feel good about how the Skins match up today against the Giants.

I know that a lot of Skins fans are down-trodden and a lot of folks don't give us a shot against the G-Men in the Meadowlands today. I think we can pull it off. Here's why:

1. Eli Manning is no Peyton Manning. Heck he isn't even Tony Romo. Eli Manning can look good, he can also look AWFUL. Couple this with the fact that the Giants have no #1 receiver right now and I feel pretty good that the Giants wont be able to exploit our only defensive weakness (the secondary).

2. Our D Line. We are strong on defense exactly where we need to be to shut down the Giants - on the defensive line. Lets see Brandon Jacobs run over Albert Haynsworth - it aint happening.

3. Our WR corps. I know I have been a cheerleader for our WR corps all pre-season and today I am confident that they are going to shine. Malcolm Kelly will line up as the #2 receiver. I predict Kelly will have a huge day. Kelly at the #2 spot takes pressure off Santana Moss and allows Zorn to use Randle El in the slot. If the Giants D has to worry about the Skins receivers they wont be able to stack 8 men in the box, which should give Clinton Portis an opportunity to run wild.

I am not guaranteeing that the Skins will win today. The Giants are a good team, playing at home and are rightfully a 6.5 point favorite. I am hopeful, however, that the Skins can pull off an upset and start the season on a very high note.

The Line on Today's Game

2009-09-13T14:21:00.003-04:00

It is always interesting to check out the line on the day's games. It is especially interesting to check out the line called by the opposing team's newspaper. Building on this observation, it is a treat that the Redskins play the Giants twice a year as the opposing team's newspaper is the New York Times, which staffs its sports section well and outsources its line to Football Outsiders, which is a fountain of statistics, creative thinking and irreverence.

Today's best offbeat creative NYT line blurb is re: the Colts:

...without the Dungy touch, the Colts' elegant game plans may look less like Piet Mondrian masterpieces and more like a bunch of rectangles.

As an art fan, I love that.

Also from the same line piece is this gem on the 4pm Redskins/Giants matchup:

The Giants clamped a 60-minute headlock on the Redskins in last year’s opener, allowing just 209 net yards and 11 first downs in a 16-7 victory. The win touched off an 11-1 start for the Giants while introducing fans to the grinding tedium of the Redskins offense. If the preseason is any indication, Jim Zorn’s offense still dares to be dull. Washington’s scheme is an oil-and-water mix of West Coast offense short passing (as implemented by Zorn) and 1970s-era power running tactics (as preferred by the offensive assistant Joe Bugel). The results combine the worst of both worlds: 3-yard Clinton Portis runs off tackle; 4-yard dump-offs by Jason Campbell on third-and-8.

The Redskins’ hopes lie with their defense, bolstered by the free-agent tackle Albert Haynesworth (Dan Snyder’s annual belated Christmas present to himself) and the rookie linebacker Brian Orakpo. The newcomers join Andre Carter, London Fletcher and others to give the Redskins a front seven to rival the Giants’. The Redskins may lose this game the same way they lost last year’s, but they will also win a few 16-7 games this season.

That is the best summary of the current Redskins that I have read in the press. Let's hope that the Redskins pull a rabbit out of the hat. But the line is -6.5 Giants and that matches the outlook of everyone whom I have bumped into today in my neighborhood and at Rodman's.

The Preseason Is Officially Over - Bring on the G Men!

2009-09-04T08:58:00.002-04:00

Last night, the preseason came to an end with the Skins 24 - 17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars... the 4th game of the preseason is hard to get excited for. It's basically meaningless. Campbell played one offensive series and half our first string didnt play on either side of the ball at all.

The 4th game of the preseason is all about the battle for the last few roster spots. Here is what I think after last night. WR Marko Mitchell is still a lock to make this team... He didn't look great last night, but WR DJ Hackett barely looked like he was even trying.

RB Anthony Alridge likely played himself out of a roster spot. His fumble that resulted in 6 for the Jags on a kick off is totally unforgiveable.

RBs Marcus Mason and Dominique Dorsey: neither of these guys is likely to make the team. I know there are a lot of folks who want Mason to make the team, and at times he has looked good. Unfortunately for Mason I think the Skins have too much invested in Ladell Betts and Cartwright plays special teams.

Shaun Suisham has unfortunately done enough to make the team again. He played well enough in preseason to ensure he will break our hearts during the regular season.

QB Colt Brennan has played well enough to make the team as the 3rd string QB. Chase Daniel has looked good at time during the preseason, but Colt has played just well enough to hold on. Now the question is does Chase make the practice squad? I think so.

OL Mike Williams is likely to make the team. Basically for no reason at all. Except we are desperate for OL depth. Williams, who has shown very little this preseason, shouldn't probably make the team - but alas, we are desperate.

When It Comes to Fans Defaulting on Season Ticket Contracts, the Redskins Take No Prisoners

2009-09-03T07:21:00.002-04:00

A Washington Post article today provides in-depth coverage of how the Redskins sue fans who default on season ticket contracts. By way of background, season tickets are typically granted in the form of a 6 - 10 year contract, in which the ticket holder agrees that he is she is liable to pay the full amount of the money due over the course of the contract period. According to the Post article, the Redskins enforce these contracts without mercy and sue defaulters for the full amount of money owed, even if the contract holder is defaulting because of financial hardship.

The money at stake is quite high, since Redskins tickets are so expensive. The Redskins won a $66,364 judgement against one fan, forcing her into bankruptcy, and $71,000 against another fan. To make matters even worse, the fans do not get their tickets after paying the judgement but the Redskins resell them, in effect double-dipping.

The obvious question that arises is: if the Redskins do indeed have a wait list of 160,000 fans, as they like to crow, why don't they just cancel the contract and move onto the next person on the wait list?

And how do other NFL teams deal with defaulting contract holders? According to the Post, the Redskins stand out for their harsh tactics. Some examples:

... spokesmen for the following National Football League teams said they do not sue their fans over season ticket contracts: Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Giants and Jets, Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans...

In terms of the policies of other Washington area teams,

Officials of most Washington area sports franchises that have multiyear contracts said they generally avoid such lawsuits. Nate Ewell, spokesman for the National Hockey League's Washington Capitals, said he could not think of a reason to sue a ticket holder. When a season ticket holder fails to make payments, the team cancels the tickets and resells them.

"Lawsuits are generally a last resort sort of thing," said Peter Biché, president of business operations for Washington Sports and Entertainment, which runs Verizon Center, where the Capitals and the National Basketball Association's Wizards play. "We're not in the lawsuit business. That's not how we run our business."

It is, apparently, how The Danny runs his.

The Straw That May Break the Camel's Back

2009-09-02T11:00:00.003-04:00

Will this be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back when it comes to Skins fans:

Front page of the Washington Post today - "REDSKINS FANS WAITED WHILE BROKERS GOT TICKETS".

160,000 people supposedly on the waiting list (a list I have been on since 2002) and the team sells tickets to scalpers who then mark them up and sell them (often to fans of opposing teams).

Danny Snyder refused to talk to The Post about this scandal.

Hey Danny - sell the damn team. I beg you. Cash it in. Make a mint and give us back our Skins. Please.

Portis vs Riggins: A Fight Clinton Can't Win

2009-09-02T07:22:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if Portis secretly has blackmail on Skins owner Danny Snyder. Whatever it is, no Skins player has been given more leeway to cause problems and enrage fans the way Clinton Portis has over the last few years.

By now, most die hard Skins fans will probably have heard of the Clinton Portis-John Riggins feud. After Riggo called Portis a "headache" (which he is) who has the Skins "over a barrel" (which he does), Portis fired back:

"Think of who else was around him. That was really not hard to be a great running back when you've got that talent all around you."

Riggins is a Hall of Famer, with a Super Bowl ring. Riggo is also beloved by Skins fans, a throw back to the days when the Redskins were the premiere franchise in the league. Portis is a loud-mouthed malcontent and a prima donna, who epitomizes the sorry state of the current Skins franchise.

Note to Portis: this isn't a fight you can win, and the fact you would even engage in it simply further calls your judgment into question. And here is a note for Skins brass: RBs are a dime a dozen. Portis and his big fat contract should be jettisoned. RBs are replaceable in a way that QBs or big time WRs aren't.

Carlos Rogers and the Skins' Secondary

2009-09-01T13:45:00.005-04:00

For the past few seasons the Skins' secondary has been under undue pressure as the D Line could not create any pressure so opposing QB's were free to take time and throw the ball downfield. Now that we have Haynesworth and Orakpo, the secondary will get some relief.

But how good is the secondary?

Clearly, the loss of Sean Taylor, who before he died was set to break the record of interceptions by a safety, has stung. The mere presence of the Grim Reaper on the field sent opposing WR's into fear of catching a pass. I was at the 2005 game against Dallas in which Terry Glenn, seeing Taylor launching toward him, folded his arms in and let the ball drop so as not to be hit. After the game, Parcells referred to Glenn as "she." That is exactly what we want in Redskins football.

Rogers was a first round pick. He does a good cover job but has famously butter fingers; he dropped an easy interception in the 2006 playoffs that would have sealed the game. He basically drops everything that comes his way, so his athletic cover skills come nothing near what Ed Reed does for the Ravens.

The Skins' secondary is strengthened by the long-term signing of DeAngelo Hall, though even he admits that the money the Skins threw at him made him complacent last season. The Danny money tends to do that. Rather than make players prove their worth first and then get paid, Danny likes to toss megabucks at players and then hope and pray that they perform. At least DeAngelo has some pride and is looking to perform this year, according to the interview in the article I highlighted above.

But back to Carlos. He is injured now with a "lingering calf probem" and perhaps cannot play the season opener. I hope that he can but even with him in the line-up the secondary looked weak in the preseason. If the D Line can create real pressure the secondary will get needed relief. If not, they will be picked apart.

You Know You are a Degenerate Gambler When...

2009-09-01T06:42:00.004-04:00

You bet on the 4th game of the preseason. I was scanning through this morning's Redskins news, when I came across this week's point spread on the Skins final preseason game against the Jags (Jags -5).

My initial reaction: who in God's name is betting on the 4th game of the preseason?

I love football and I even love to wager on football from time to time (legally and low dollar). But man, betting on the 4th game of the preseason? A game where no starters are likely to see the field? Where the most important action could be between 3rd string QBs? Wow. Someone call the producers of Intervention, I think I have an idea for an episode...

Special Teams Has Been the Skins' Achilles Heel. Is Anything Going to Change This Season?

2009-08-31T15:12:00.004-04:00

Bill Parcells revolutionized the game of football by declaring, and proving, that defense and special teams win games. Parcells won a Super Bowl with the Giants, took the previously horrible Pats to a Super Bowl, revitalized the Jets and, as GM last year, took the awful Dolphins from last place to a division title.

The Skins have had great defense, finishing in the top ten in the last four years. But special teams have been abysmal.

Think of it this way: because teams are so bad they play on a field that is about 10-20 yards longer than their opponents' field.

The stats:

For the 2008 season the Skins were ranked by stats gurus Football Outsiders as 25 out of 32 teams.

The Skins field goal rating was 18th, with Dallas ranking 2nd and the Giants ranking 3rd.

If the Skins had Peyton Manning and a potent offense it could perhaps overcome the poor performance of its special teams. But in 2008 the Skins offense ranked a scary 25 of 32 teams in terms of points scored.

So why does Danny Smith still have a job? Perhaps because his first name is Danny?

When it Comes to WR - Skins Should Avoid the Waiver Wire

2009-08-31T14:47:00.003-04:00

In the next week, teams will trim their rosters down from 75 to 53... There will literally be hundreds of players suddenly looking for work - invariably there will be a couple of big name (likely aging) guys who will get cut.

When it comes to our WR corps for this year, the Skins should avoid the urge to scour the waiver wires next weekend. Already there are whispers that former Super Bowl MVP Deion Branch could be waived by the Seahawks. Mark my words, there will be others.

Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato should avoid their traditional fantasy football approach to player personnel. We have a promising young trio of receivers (Marko Mitchell, Devin Thomas and Malcolm Kelly) - two of whom we have used 2nd round picks on. They should let these guys develop, get them on the field and give Jason Campbell an opportunity to build a rapport and confidence with his receivers.

There may be other areas where the waiver wire will be useful (O-line, secondary), but not at WR.

Is Marko Mitchell a "Lock" to Make the 53 Man Roster?

2009-08-31T11:09:00.002-04:00

Jason Reid, of the Washington Post's Redskins Insider, says Mitchell is a lock. Reid says,

"The rookie opened eyes in training camp and has been the star of the preseason."

Reid is right - Mitchell should make the roster and has been the star of this preseason for the Skins. As I have said before, I think our wide receiving corps could be a huge asset for the Skins offense this year. I believe that Devin Thomas will eventually push Randle El for the #2 receiver. Malcolm Kelly and Marko Mitchell give Campbell two big targets to throw to, particularly in red zone situations. The emergence of Thomas, Kelly and Mitchell will allow us to use Randle El as more of a gadget receiver (albeit a wildly over-paid, over-hyped gadget receiver).

Will WRs Thomas/Kelly/Mitchell make me start respecting Vinny Cerrato and the Redskins brain trust? Will it calm the draft day naysayers who say the Skins havent a clue what they are doing? Will they make Campbell look like an all pro QB? Hmmm, I don't know. But I do know one thing, winning is the magic elixir that cures all.

Redskins Trim Roster to 75

2009-08-30T15:03:00.003-04:00

Per profootballtalk.com - The Skins released 5 players to trim their roster down to 75. Among those released - WR Marques Hagans and LB Alfred Fincher who played in 15 games last year, primarily on special teams.

The deadline for cutting down to 75 is this Tuesday. Four days later teams have to get down to their final 53 man roster.

What We Learned Last Night

2009-08-29T08:06:00.002-04:00

The final score in last night's 27 - 24 preseason loss to the Patriots doesn't matter. We got to see the first team into the 3rd Quarter and here are my takeaways:

THE GOOD

1. Jason Campbell is Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. When Campbell looks bad he looks terrible. When he looks good he looks great. At times last night Campbell looked flat out amazing. For the first time this preseason he got into a groove and finished the game 13 for 22 for 209 yards and rushed for a TD. Zorn continues to call more deep throws for Campbell. On deep routes you get to see flashes of why Jason Campbell was a first round pick - dude has a cannon for an arm.

2. Our WR corps may be one of the best from top to bottom in a very long time for the Skins. We all know Santana Moss is a stud. But, for the last couple years its been Santana Moss and a gang of no talent nobodies at WR. After last night I am convinced what has been a liability for the Skins may quickly become one of our strongest assets. Devin Thomas looks great. He hauled in 3 balls last night for 36 yards. Malcolm Kelly, while less impressive than Thomas, provides Campbell with a big talented target. The rise of Thomas (and Kelly to a lesser degree) allows Randle El to be more of the gadget receiver he was in Pittsburgh. Finally, if Marko Mitchell doesn't make the 53 man roster than Jim Zorn has lost his marbles. Mitchell caught 2 passes last night for 40 yards, including a 33 yard bomb for a TD from Colt Brennan in the 3rd Quarter. I know that Zorn likes DJ Hackett from his time in Seattle - but Mitchell has earned a spot on this team.

3. The O Line looks dramatically improved over last year. The first string offensive line has looked solid all preseason. If the offensive line can give our WRs time to get down field, Campbell has the arm to make the big plays that will keep defenses on their toes.

THE BAD

1. The secondary continues to get torched. Thank God Belichick pulled Pats QB Tom Brady at half after he hurt his shoulder. Brady and WR Randy Moss flat out torched us. Our secondary looked terrible against Moss. Every time the Pats needed a completion Brady found Moss and Moss hauled it in. Ignore those 2nd half INTs we had against backup QB Kevin O'Connell - they were fun to watch but mean very little. When it mattered our secondary got lit up.

2. Special teams continues to be a problem. Our special teams, particularly our special teams defense continues to struggle. This has got to improve.

THE UGLY

Colt Brennan. With the exception of the TD pass to Marko Mitchell, Colt Brennan looked flat out terrible. Brennan played almost an entire half and is fighting for his spot on the team. His funky sidearm delivery continues to be problematic in the big leagues and he continues to make very very very bad decisions - including a INT that was returned 90 yards for a TD and taking a sack that effectively put us out of FG range. I wish Zorn would have given Chase Daniel a shot in the 4th quarter. I suspect we will see a lot of Daniel and Brennan in the preseason finale against the Jags. I like Colt Brennan shirtless, no doubt about it, but Colt Brennan in pads and a Skins jersey doesn't seem to be panning out so well. We have Todd Collins, so 3rd string QB isn't a huge deal, but crazier things have happened. For my money, I think Zorn and company need to look long and hard at Chase Daniel.

Skins vs Pats Tonight: What to Watch For

2009-08-28T18:12:00.003-04:00

Week 3 of the preseason is the single most important game of the preseason. Its the game where the first string sees the most action and is therefore the best way to gage how the Skins will look come opening day.

Our week 3 preseason game pits us against the mighty Patriots. Here are just a quick couple of thoughts on what to look for tonight:

* QB Jason Campbell - Can he get it going? Can he come out, move the ball down field and - most importantly - put points on the board?
* WRs Malcolm Kelly/Devin Thomas - These two have gotten a ton of time on the field this preseason, with the first, second and third strings. Will one of these guys step up and show he has the stuff to be a legit #2 receiver beside Santana Moss
* The O Line - Will the offensive line give Jason Campbell time in the pocket? If not, it could be a VERY long year for Skins fans.
* The Secondary - Will the Skins secondary continue to give up the big pass play? Can our secondary force some turnovers and put our offense in position to score?
* Third Down D - The Skins defense has looked spectacular on first and second down. On third down? Not so much. Can the Skins defense stop the Patriots offense on third down?

BONUS - Yeah it's meaningless, but for Skins fans we gotta take our excitement where we can, so lets see who steps up and snags the third string QB position. Will it be last year's training camp wonder boy Colt Brennan or will undrafted rookie Chase Daniel continue to impress?

In less than two hours, we will start getting answers to these (and other) questions... Stay tuned...

Another Way to Tell Dan Snyder to Stick it

2009-08-27T12:43:00.003-04:00

I use to listen to Sportstalk 980 religiously. I am a huge fan of the John Thompson Show. Since Danny boy Snyder bought 980, however, I have become more and more disenchanted with it. The local programming has been cut down and there is just something unseemly to me about the owner of Washington's most important sports franchise also signing the checks for the sports talk radio folks.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon 106.7 the Fan. DC sports radio without Snyder's influence. Now the Mike Wise show at lunch and the Lavar Arrington show in the afternoon's are a staple of my day.

So if you want to tell Dan Snyder to stick it - click the radio dial over to 106.7!

Lets See Marko Mitchell With the First Team

2009-08-27T07:15:00.002-04:00

I admit it, sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the theatrics of meaningless late game performances in the preseason. If preseason performances in the 3rd and 4th quarter mattered, Colt Brennan would be our starting QB, Marcus Mason would have supplanted Clinton Portis at RB, and Steve Spurrier would still be the head coach. Alas, preseason performances in the 3rd and 4th quarter mean very very little - which is why I want to see WR Marko Mitchell get some time with the first team.

In all fairness, this idea isn't mine - Lavar Arrington talked about it this week on his show on 106.7 (which by the way is the best sports radio talk show in the DC region).

Mitchell is a 6'4, 7th round pick out of Nevada who has been impressing fans, scouts and teammates this preseason. Clinton Portis has heaped praise on Mitchell, telling the Post that "Marko Mitchell is killing Carlos Rodgers in practice. I'm talking about, he can not stop him."

In last week's game against the Steelers, Mitchell had 3 catches for 21 yards - including a beautiful catch in the back of the end zone to give the Skins their first touchdown of the preseason.

According to the Post's Jason Reid, Mitchell - if he makes the 53 man squad - could challenge Devin Thomas (WR) and/or Malcolm Kelly (WR), last year's highly touted 2nd round draft picks, on the depth chart.

Let's see if Marko Mitchell is for real. Zorn and company should get Mitchell in the game during while the first team is on the field. Santana Moss is a veteran pro, who doesn't need the time with Campbell, same for Randle El, and Kelly and Thomas have been given ample playing time this preseason.

Let's see if Mitchell can duplicate his efforts on the practice field and against the 3rd and 4th stringers with the first team. I certainly share Jessica's doubts about Campbell's ability to lead the Skins this year (hell I have been doubting Campbell since day 1). That having been said, let's see if a big target like Mitchell can help Campbell and the Skins.

Campbell Will Mean Another 8-8 Year, at Best

2009-08-26T18:07:00.005-04:00

Campbell has been horrible in the preseason, with a completion rate of 30.1 and a passer rating of 43.1 of a total of 154. Oof.

Campbell seems to be a good candidate for Lasik surgery as he missed Moss and Kelly for long passes where they had beat their defenders and were wide open. The ball went over their head or dropped ten feet before them.

Despite the Skin's great D line and stars such as Cooley and Moss I do not know how we can have a winning season with this QB.

Dan Snyder Kills the Tailgate Party

2009-06-24T16:44:00.003-04:00

In some way, it was inevitable. That is, the demise of the tailgate bacchanalia that was the one redeeming feature of attending a game at Fed Ex Field. The stadium is generally a nightmare for fans to get to and fro and once they are in it the prospects are not much better: long lines for food and drinks, bad beer and a puzzling inability to keep the women's rooms stocked with toilet paper.

The uber fan tailgate was the one great thing that made the trek worthwhile versus watching the game on my HDTV. And The Danny, the Darth Vader of Redskins fans, has killed that.

Under new rules intended to ease the flow of parking, the Skins have outlawed tailgates that take more than one parking space and will relegate those loyal fans to the outermost lots. From the Wa Post:

The Washington Redskins will restrict large tailgate parties in the FedEx Field parking lots this season, limiting tailgates using more than one parking space to "the back" of parking lots, the team said in a statement. The team also said that drivers of all vehicles will be directed to specific areas of the lots instead of being allowed to choose their own.

"The most significant new procedure will have parking attendants directing fans who wish to tailgate in more than one space to the back of lots, where they will be allowed to occupy two spaces until required for additional vehicles," the team said. "Fans who wish to only park, or tailgate within their single parking spot, will be directed to the front of lots, filling the lot from front to back."

In the past, early-entering fans were greeted by something of a free-for-all in the empty lots, leaving a chaotic checkerboard pattern as fans gradually staked out spots and erected tents, grills and buffet lines. The parking lots have traditionally opened four hours before kickoff, but hundreds of fans lined up outside the gates before dawn for the chance to stake out prime spots, with several large tailgates appearing each week in the rows closest to the stadium.

The system also led to fans spreading out over multiple spaces early in the morning, tying up spaces and contributing to gridlock when later-arriving cars pulled in. But to many fans, the system helped foster a community atmosphere, with tailgates springing up all over the massive expanse of asphalt, mapped out by an honor-system geography under which the same families would grab the same spots nearly every week.

What the Wa Post omits is that those folks who took the primo spots to tailgate are the most elite long-term season ticket holders also known as the most loyal fans. To deny them this tradition does not seem to be a smart business move, but The Danny is not very smart about business save the Internet bubble sale of his marketing company which, unfortunately, gave him enough money to buy the Redskins. His ventures since have been failures. Six Flags is not doing too well and neither are the Redskins.

My great memories of the now-outlawed tailgates feature my friend Brooke's family, who have been season ticket holders for a long time. They would line up a couple of SUV's and grills and also deep-fried a turkey. A pic attached shows their grills and the buffet line-up. If Danny wants to outlaw this, I want to outlaw Danny.

Redskins Botch the Draft (again)

2009-04-30T17:53:00.004-04:00

Bucky Brooks of NFL.com graded the NFC East draft and the Redskins came in with a C+ while the G-Men scored a B+ and the Eagles a scary A-. In addition to scary A- for Philly in the draft, they traded for OT Jason Peters. The G-Men have the best D line in the league so Philly wisely traded for someone to protect the QB.

The Skins, whose O Line is weak took another path. I would have taken Michael Oher who could protect the QB for the next ten years against the G Men. But we took a DE and and is not a bad choice but it is not the best choice.

The Skins late round drafts are almost comical as they include a linebacker who has not played linebacker except for a few games, a TE when the team already has three good ones, and a WR when we drafted two last year. There is also a corner back who has before day one of training camp angered Fred Smoot by calling him old.

Sean Taylor, We Loved You and Already Miss You

2007-11-27T21:34:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe that Sean is dead. He was my favorite Redskin, with Mike Sellers coming in a close second. Sean was so young and strong and seemed to have found his happiness and stability with his 18 month old daughter and fiancee.

Sean was exactly what you want a Redskins defender to be: smart, hard hitting and extremely quick on the ball. He went to the Pro Bowl last season, despite the Skins D being ranked 31st overall and Sean having to operate in that dysfunctional D environment.

My favorite Sean moment was in 2005 when we were playing the Cowboys at home in December and I was there and Bledsoe tossed a long pass to Terry Glenn. It was an easy catch and could have been a touchdown. But when Glenn saw the Grim Reaper bearing down on him he put his arms behind his back and let the pass go incomplete to avoid the Taylor tackle. We won that game and went on to the playoffs.

Next season again against Dallas Taylor picked up a field goal block and ran it back far enough that we won that game.

This season Sean was nothing short of brilliant. With the added strength of Landry he caught 5 interceptions, which makes him still #2 in the NFL despite the fact that he missed the past two games.

Sean is leading on the pro bowl selections. Fans, please vote him in. That is the least we can do for this awesome Redskin who fought so hard for out team.

And, also, it is upsetting to hear those media reports,like on NPR this morning, that barely tell you he is dead before linking it to his past behavior. Sean was killed in his bedroom defending his fiancee and infant. He was not at a strip club with an entourage shooting people. We do not know who killed him, or why. I plead for media restraint as we fans and his family and team are devastated by this loss. As the investigation proceeds it might make sense to connect Sean's murder to his past deeds but at this point it is just a tragedy for all of Washington and we will miss you baby.

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

2007-10-31T16:49:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-24T17:58:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-14T18:08:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-09T17:58:00.000-04:00

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.

Pat's Scandal Erased to Save the League

2007-09-22T19:00:00.000-04:00

The Pat's won three of the past four Super Bowls by three points or fewer. Their wins were all gained by last-minute field goals. None of those wins were decisive, like the Colts cleaning the clock of the Bears last season.

So it is appropriate to ask whether the Pats' illegal filming of D signals helped them win those Super Bowls. It is obvious that it did, as why on Earth would they videotape, and risk sanctions, if it did not help them win games?

I had hoped that Goodell would have investigated this more fiercely, but he decided to destroy the tapes that Belichick had compiled.

Goodell is being a good businessman, as the revelation that three of the past four Super Bowl wins might have been tainted would potentially destroy the Golden Goose.

Still, I am with Easterbrook:

The situation with the National Football League is a lot worse than people realize, and the only one who seems to grasp this fully is commissioner Roger Goodell. You don't issue emergency orders backed by threats on Sunday morning of a game day, as Goodell just did regarding the New England Patriots' files of cheating information, unless the situation is a lot worse than people realize.

Why is the situation worse than people think? Because the NFL is on the precipice of blowing its status as the country's favorite sport. The whole NFL enterprise is in jeopardy from that single word: cheating. It's the most distasteful word in sports. And now the Patriots have brought the word into the NFL.

Winning Is Not Everything

2007-09-22T18:48:00.000-04:00

I never thought I would say that winning is not everything. But in the wake of the Michael Vick dog fighting guilty plea, the Patriots' cheating scandal and the chain-gang that the Cincinnati Bengals are fielding I feel proud to be a Skins fan.

Since Sean Taylor's incidents a couple of years ago we have been scandal-free.

This means a lot to me, honestly. Even if we don't win we are fielding a character team with character coaches.

Philly Fans Don't Deserve Donovan McNabb

2007-09-21T19:24:00.000-04:00

Since the 1999 season the Redskins have started eight different quarterbacks and made the playoffs twice. In that same time-frame, Donovan McNabb, whose first season was in 1999, led the Eagles to six playoff appearances, five division championships, four conference championship games and the Super Bowl.

In addition, McNabb is a classy guy and a good role model. What franchise would not want him as their leader?

Philly.

Philly fans boo him the minute he is not perfect. My jaw dropped in amazement last season when McNabb threw a bad pass and the stands at the Linc erupted in boos. At that point, the Skins were still starting Brunell and I thought how wonderful it would be to have McNabb at QB and why on Earth are they booing him.

McNabb was booed by fans when he was picked 2nd overall by the Eagles, which had to be incredibly difficult personally as he was only 21. Yet he retained his dignity and produced big time for the franchise.

Today he is being pilloried for his comments on an HBO show in which he said that African-American quarterbacks are more scrutinized than White ones. There is even talk on ESPN.com that this will be his last season in Philly post those comments.

What McNabb said was not at all confrontational. He honestly answered a question that was posed to him. The reactions of Jason Campbell and Vince Young (and Young took a big Wilbon hit for being honest) countered McNabb's view. But those QB's don't play in Philly. I am not alleging that Philly is racist. To the contrary, I think they are very quick to turn on their quarterbacks and team in general. If McNabb were White they would probably be doing to same stuff. But he is not, and there is a history, however long ago, about football fans not loving African-American QB's and Donovan probably can't get those draft day boos out of his head. If I were Donovan McNabb and shouldered a winning franchise for eight years and heard boos and sensed no fan loyalty that matched my effort and performance I would much more pissed than he is. I am not so classy.

Here in DC we have an awesome new QB we are all behind and he is African-American. He is like the coming of the Messiah. What is sad is that Donovan should have been welcomed equally, or more so, in Philly as his talent and character are excellent. Philly fans did not give Donovan what he deserved. I don't know that it is racial or just bad Philly temperment. If the Skins had a QB who delivered as much as McNabb did I think, and hope, that we would give him respect and the benefit of the doubt.

Analysis: What Might Happen Monday Night

2007-09-16T17:51:00.000-04:00

The Skins D, reeling from ranking second to last against the long pass last season, is playing three men deep to avoid that humiliation again. That can work, but even the terrible Fins found a successful passing place in the 10-20 yard range.

We won the game, but let's realize that we almost lost it despite the fact the the Fins are terrible, they have a new coach and that game was our home opener.

They almost beat us by expoiting that middle seam. The Skins' linebackers need to drop back quicker if it is a pass play.

I have my fingers crossed.

The G Men Go Two and 0

2007-09-16T17:34:00.000-04:00

Brett Favre showed that there is still a lot of ammo left in his gun as he led the Pack to a 35-13 victory over our division rival Giants.

The Giants are now 2 and 0, the Cowboys are still playing Miami and the Skins meet Philly tomorrow night in a division game. If the Skins win tomorrow they are at worst tied for the division lead with the Cowboy, assuming that the Skins win.

Jason Campbell seems to be the real deal. The Wa Post had an interesting story on him that shed some light into his personality and his relationship with classy QB Donovan McNabb.

The Thin Burgundy and Gold Line

2007-09-09T17:51:00.000-04:00

The Skins pulled off an overtime win against the Dolphins, and that is better than losing, but this game left Skins fans with much to fret about.

It should have been a slaughter: a home game season opener with loud fans against a team that went 6-10 last season and has a new coach and a new quarterback who is 37.

A couple passes that Santana Moss dropped could have changed the game. And Brandon Lloyd, in the end zone, did not want the ball as much as his defender did. Carlos Rogers again disappointed with missed tackles and a 15 yard penalty, and Fred Smoot played a good game overall but couldn't haul in the interception.

Kudos to Rocky McIntosh, who was always committing or near the tackle. Rookie LaRon Landry also had a good game, one of his tackles is pictured above.

The Fins couldn't run or throw the long ball but found a vulnerability on the ten yard pass and exploited it for most of their gains. If the Skins are going to play Cover-2 then Fletcher needs to channel Urlacher and get back quickly on the play action pass and cover the mid-middle. He covers the run great, but not so well the pass.

But the nightmare of all Skins fans, and what we had been worried about, was the fragile O line that has no depth. We tremored in the preseason when undrafted free agent Stephon Heyer took over at LT and Jason Campbell was alsmost out for the season as Heyer blew his coverage.

Today, early in the second quarter RG Jon Jansen was carted off the field. Cooley, the Skins number two catcher last year, then had to play the rest of the game blocking and only had one catch. That is like Antonio Gates or Tony Gonzalez being out of the passing picture. Nightmare.

J la C of the Wa Post flagged this vulnerability. So did the stats Gods at Pro Football Prospectus.

Here We Go Again

2007-08-24T19:04:00.000-04:00

The Skins just traded a draft pick for a disgruntled left guard from the Jets. While this is good in the immediate sense, as Jason Campbell was almost out for season because of an amateur breakdown on his blind side, this trade is one more troubling episode in the Skins' ongoing personelle debacle.

The fact is that the Skins, who have paid so much money in the free agency market, have no back-ups that can play NFL football. So if a starter goes down, the whole cycle starts again:

We traded away another draft pick for another disgruntled player past his prime to patch up another position with no depth because last year we traded away another draft pick for another disgruntled player past his prime to patch up another position with no depth because last year we (repeat this for nine years)

The O-Line last year was great, enabling Ladell Betts to run and catch about 1,600 yards last year. But the Skins let Derrick Dockery go to the Bills as a free agent. This is the latest example of the Skins letting proven veterans go while they pay non Redskins free agents a fortune. I cannot imagine how demoralizing that is to the locker room.

Oh, Already We Have Seen Something Really Ugly

2007-08-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

J la C of the Wa Post first alarmed me with his article that pointed out that undrafted free agent Stephon Heyer was the next in line for LT Chris Samuels' position and that Samuels was hurting. OMG.

On the first possession on their preseason debut tonight, with undrafted Heyer playing LT, Campbell was sacked so hard it created a turnover.

If the Redskins general management, oh I forgot they do not have general management, do not appreciate the importance of the LT position then perhaps they should read The Blind Side. Oy vay I think the lack of depth kills this team.

We are only down 3 zip as I sign off and hope for the best.

The Sad Demise of Redskins Mania

2007-07-16T21:42:00.000-04:00

The Danny's goal is to get as much money as possible from Skins fans. At some point, the amount of money that fans are willing to pay, while also tolerating the team's dysfunction, will peak. We are at that point now.

The 2005 season was amazing: a 10-6 record and a playoff win. Yet what happened in the postseason that followed was a stark reminder of the heartbreak that is the sad Reign of the Danny. The abysmal 2006 team performance wore out even the most loyal fans. I gave up my season tickets, as did friends of mine who had them since the RFK days and were crazy obsessed tailgaters.

After that one playoff win Danny raised ticket prices 40%, and they already were hard-to-justify expensive, paid for by exploited fans. I used to buy club seats, about $400 per seat per game, to get access to the microbrew bar and seat service. But after a few years of no toilet paper in the women's room, the seat service having nothing available except for Bud Light and the conversion of the micro-brew bar into a Michelob one (I guess Danny struck a marketing deal with Michelob) I felt really ripped off.

Had the Skins kept winning as they did in 2005 I might have felt differently. But their horrible 2006 performance was a continuation of the front-office dysfunction that any layman could diagnose and propose a solution for. Start with Gregg Williams, the Darth Vader of the Skins. His personnel calls have been nothing short of catastrophic for the Skins, and Joe Gibbs gets part of this blame too. To give up Champ Bailey for Clinton Portis plus draft picks was a monster of a bad idea. There was only one of 97 players at the Pro Bowl who had been traded. Guess who that was? Our shutdown corner. And that led to the Skins having to replace him by drafting slippery fingers Carlos Roger and passing on future HOFer Shawn Merriman.

The dysfunction continued with Williams letting Antonio Pierce, the captain of our greatest year of defense, not just go but go to a division rival, the Giants. Smart teams like the Patriots do everything in their power to avoid that, but Gregg let it happen in order to prove that his "system" won games, and not players. So Gregg is a verified ego maniac whose goal of proving himself is in direct conflict with the interest of the franchise. If the Skins had a GM he would cut GGG's balls off and make smart decisions for the team. Sadly, there is no GM and there certaintly are no smart decisions.

As bad as the Pierce decision was, it cannot rival the idiocy of letting Ryan Clark go. Clark was a steady and reliable strong safety and wanted $1.5 million. He also was a critical locker room guy and mentor to talented but crazy Sean Taylor. Instead of paying Ryan the $1.5 million, the Skins have paid $25 million to Adam Archuleta and a first round draft pick. Meanwhile, Ryan Clark is doing well in Pittsburgh. And Walt Harris, the cornerback that we discarded post the 2005 season, lit the lights up in San Francisco with 8 interceptions. That compares pretty favorably to the 6 total interceptions that the Skins managed last season.

The Champ Bailey trade set in motion a series of dumb domino moves for the Skins. Can they recover? I don't know. Fan fatigue is at a high and perhaps the only thing that will save this franchise is for the Danny to stop making so much $$ on it.

We Are Featured in the Wa Post Today

2007-01-16T20:11:00.000-05:00

Today the Wa Post featured a guest blog of this site.

Redskins D: The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

2006-12-29T17:21:00.000-05:00

We are all asking, "What went wrong?" We won a playoff game last year and had swagger. Yes, it was bad to hand the play calling to Saunders, really dumb, but the blame lies with the defense, as it ranked dead last, and no team can win with a 32-ranked D. The D also broke NFL and club records for fewest interceptions and turnovers. Like by a lot. It was a train wreck.

A humiliating comparison is that of Walt Harris, a cornerback who played poorly for the Skins and was let go to free agency last year. He this season was named the NFC defensive player of the month in November as a 49er and had 8 interceptions this season, which eclipsed the Skins team total. How come as a Skin, last year, Harris only had one interception? Gregg Williams can blame the players till he is in blue in the face but at we fans might ask why a player played so poorly for Washington and then excelled on another team.

As an added bonus, the 49ers paid Harris only $875K, which is the veteran minimum plus $100K.

Aside from poor personnel decisions there are several reasons for the Skins D collapse this season.

1. They cannot execute the cover-2 yet call it all the time. In the cover-2 safeties play deep, which leaves uncovered ground in the middle. For the scheme to be successful, the middle linebacker needs to be able to read the play quickly and if it is a pass then run downfield to cover the open area. Lemar Marshall has not been able to do that this season. He had four interceptions last year, but zero this year as he has been playing injured. Also, a season lowlight occurred last week at St. Louis when Isaac Bruce managed to get behind the safeties on the cover-2 to score a touchdown. Getting behind the safeties should never, ever happen in a cover-2 formation.

2. They cannot defend the run. There are many angles to this. First, Gregg Williams calls a lot of cover-2 plays, even on obvious running plays, and that puts the safeties too far back to cover short and mid yardage runs. Second, the weak-side linebacker needs to be able to tackle, and Warrick Holdman cannot do that. Third, the D-line gets manhandled by opposing O-lines and has not been able to consistently penetrate the line of scrimmage and disrupt plays.

3. Not enough pressure on the quarterback. While Andre Carter had a great last three games, his five season sacks rank the team in the sack dungeon. In contrast, Shawne Merriman, whom the Skins passed over in the 2004 draft to pick Carlos Rogers, has 16 sacks in the 11 games that he has played this season.

4. The secondary cannot cover the pass. Even worse, they don't even seem to try, as the corners and safeties are coached to turn their back on the QB and face the receivers. An ESPN article noted,

[Safeties coach] Jackson began teaching Taylor and Co. not to read the quarterback, but to read the receivers' breaks and releases and react accordingly. He wanted them to be aggressive out of Cover 2, to help on the run, even though Cover 2 is not known to be a run-stopping defense. Williams wants to call it a lot because, ideally, if you can stop the run with a Cover 2, you have the best of both worlds, because it's specifically designed to prevent the deep ball. But Jackson kept exhorting Taylor and his early-season safety mate, Adam Archuleta, to be aggressive playing the run out of the Cover 2, and they began to get beat on the play-action pass repeatedly.

St. Louis Game Blog

2006-12-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

The Redskins entered their road game at St. Louis coming off of an impressive victory over the 10 - 4 New Orleans Saints. The question in fans' minds was: has the defense finally found itself, or was the Saints game an anomoly? The answer came in this game, as the Skins' offense put 31 points on the board and Ladell Betts had another 100+ yard game yet the team still found ways to lose and let the Rams gain 579 yards.

My game observations:

* The cornerbacks' hands continue to be slippery as Shawn Springs dropped an easy interception on STL's first play. The play was a deep seam pass, the Skins' Achilles Heel all season, and finally a Skins cornerback covered the predictable play (every Skins opponent seems to open with it) well, yet he dropped the interception. The Skins D is on track to break a record for fewest interceptions this season with just six going into this game. The previous worst total for the team was 11, back in 1982 when they played five fewer games.

In contrast, Walt Harris, who played average to poorly in Washington has had six interceptions himself this season in San Francisco. Even better, they pay him only $835K per year.

* The Skins first possession was perfect execution, hogging the clock, running the ball and Sellers throwing a monster block for a 5 yard TJ Duckett run into the end zone.

* On every play there is one unblocked defensive player. In this game it was almost always Warrick Holdman, the journeyman weak-side linebacker who has had only 1.5 sacks in the past five years. The Rams knew who they did not need to block. In comparison, Arrington had 18.5 sacks in his last five years on the team, despite hardly playing for most of two years. The team's poor personnel decisions continue to haunt them.

* In the 2nd quarter Wright and Taylor got burned for a TD pass. What struck me most is how both of them were facing the receiver with their backs to the QB and the approaching ball. They seem to be coached to tackle the receiver and not try to deflect or intercept. In the end zone, that strategy is ridiculous. I found myself yelling at the television: "Turn around! Turn around!" at them again and again.

* Why does Saunders keep calling Todd Yoder's number in the end zone? Yoder is a journeyman former backup TE for Jacksonville and Tampa who had only two TD's and 28 receptions in his seven seasons prior to joining the Skins in September. As a Skin he has one reception and one TD. In the red zone, smart teams turn to their playmakers. Dumb teams turn to their Todd Yoders. A smart team would throw to Sellers, who had seven receiving TD's last season and has zero this season.

* Betts has done an outstanding job, and is ranked #1 in the NFL for the past five games, but the run play calling has not been strategic in a larger sense of being designed to tire the opposing defense. The Skins run up the middle almost 100% of the time. Classic Joe Gibbs football is to the run to the outside for the first half, thus tiring the defense, and then run up the middle for the second half and break big plays. The Gibbs strategy was exemplified in the 1982 Super Bowl, in which the Miami defense was tired from side runs and then Riggo ran for 43 yards up the tired middle for a touchdown.

The team suffers from the lack of an overall, consistent strategy to win games, and that includes personnel decisions. Castoffs are placed in key roles, guys with gazillion dollar contracts sit on the bench, play-calling in the red zone is bizarre and the secondary coaching is self-destructive. Kudos to Betts and Campbell for performing well under these circumstances and scoring 31 points.

A Christmas Trip Back Home to the Land of Big Blue

2006-12-26T21:45:00.000-05:00

This is a Skins blog, but I grew up in New Jersey and thought that I would report back from the front line of the NFC East. I watched the Philadelphia/Giants game with my family, who are all G-Men fans, and got to talk about it and hear about it at parties afterwards, and here are my observations:

* Giants fans expect to win and make the playoffs. Their team still will likely make the playoffs but their fans are truly ashamed at the way in which they are doing it. Many of them are in fact rooting against the G-Men next week, saying that they don't deserve to be in the playoffs. In Washington, we have no shame, or we are used to it, and backing into the playoffs would not be cause for depression or rooting against the team.

* The NY media is tough tough tough on the team. See the NY Post for full team beatings.

* Public opinion is that some of the Giants players are locker room problems, most notably Shockey, so get rid of them. I even heard a theory that they want to shed Shockey and get Cooley. At least Barber is going. He had production but was such a primadonna no one in NJ can't stand him.

* The Charlie Weis theory, namely, that the Giants passed up one Weis three years ago to draft Coughlin and that Weis is game now and would have been nirvana then. The NY Post loves this theory, and has two articles today on it, here and here. I don't know if any coach could overcome the egos of Shockey, Barber and Strahan and the laziness of Plaxico Burress.

* Eli is "slow." That is New Jersey polite talk for retarded. Everyone talks about how he has physical ability but looks dumbfounded and clueless, and just plain "slow." He is not Peyton.

* This talk leads to a discussion of the famous draft three years ago in which Eli, flanked by his father and brother, looking like a spoiled Daddy's boy (which would never sell in in NY or NJ), proclaimed that he wouldn't play for San Diego, which had the first pick. San Diego feels like they got draft picks and a better quarterback, and G'ints fans don't disagree. It is hard to argue against Phil Rivers and Shawne Merriman at this point.

Unlovable

2006-12-22T16:52:00.000-05:00

The first time the thought entered my mind was October 30, 2005. That is the day that the Giants shut out the Redskins at the Meadowlands 36 - 0, fueled by emotion at the passing of their beloved owner Wellington Mara. The players' love for Mara was palpable and moving, as Jeremy Shockey fought back tears during the singing of the national anthem and the team played with intense passion. It was Big Blue's biggest rout since 1988. The lopsided game stats are here.

The thought that I had that day was I wish that Washington had an owner who was lovable, instead of Dan Snyder. It was a feeling similar to being sad at a wedding because you do not have the joy in your life that the married couple does and that you are missing out on something important.

When I lived in Boston I remember being on the US Airways shuttle to New York when Patriots owner Bob Kraft boarded. The passengers erupted into cheers and applause for Kraft, and this was when Tom Brady was in college and no one could imagine the super bowl glory that lay ahead. Kraft wasn't perfect, and his meddling in personnel decisions lost the team Bill Parcells, but he was lovable.

The recent passing of Lamar Hunt, founder and long-time owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, brought back that feeling that we are missing out on something in Washington. So does every time jut-jawed Bill Cowher gets warm and fuzzy over the Rooney family's stewardship of the Steelers, set in image in the picture on the right, which was snapped just after Cowher handed Art Rooney II the Vince Lombardi trophy.

As an NFL owner it is hard to be unlovable, as you are the face of the franchise that all the fans love. And of all the franchises in the nation Washington ranks at or near the top in terms of fan base and tradition, which is reflected in the team's vast and deep media coverage. If you want to make friends in a strange neighborhood in DC wear Skins gear on game day, and someone soon will approach you to talk about the team. The staff of the Safeway on Georgia Avenue in Petworth set up grills and have a customer tailgate on Sundays during the season. Most cities do not possess anything close to the fan intensity that Washington does. The team unites Washingtonians, Virginians and Marylanders from all walks of life around a common affection and pursuit, something nothing else has accomplished. So why, with everything lined up in his favor, is Dan Snyder so unlovable?

It started early. Almost as soon as Snyder bought the Skins in 1999, for a record-breaking $800 million, problems arose and Snyder's flamboyance and meddling caught attention. In a December, 2000 article Slate defended Snyder and against some memorable comments from the football establishment. The article was prescient, but not in the way that its author intended. Here is an excerpt:

The Redskins' implosion has rather predictably precipitated an outbreak of Schadenfreude. Eminencies throughout the league have stepped forward to spank Snyder. Fox Sports analyst Cris Collinsworth pronounced him "Mini-Me playing fantasy football." Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell denounced him for running roughshod over the wholesome values of the game. And when Snyder fired Turner, John Madden and a host of other pundits wagged their fingers at Snyder, chiding him for impatience.

Those comments were on target, way back in 2000, as Snyder's stewardship of the Redskins has been a total failure. Since he bought the team it has made the playoffs only once, despite spending more on players and coaching than any other team. Only a few teams ranks below the Redskins in terms of wins and losses since 1999, and they are Arizona, Oakland, Detroit and Cleveland. That is not good company for a storied and very rich franchise. I won't go into Snyder's bad personnel decisions and the damage that not having a General Manager has done to this franchise, as the Wa Post has done a great job covering those topics and Wilbon can tell you about the need for a GM.

But I can tell you why Snyder has a private jet, called Redskins One, because if he boarded a flight at Reagan National he would not be cheered like Bob Kraft was on that flight of mine. Rather, he would be jeered and lucky to escape with his life and limbs. That is how deep the hatred in Washington runs toward Dan Snyder. Fans feel beleaguered and upset over the team's performance. They also feel exploited and angry. The Redskins charge the highest ticket prices in the league, and Snyder raised them by 40% after the team's one playoff appearance since he bought the team. He might look like a savvy businessman, as a Forbes article portrayed him, but he is really a monopolist and monopolies only work when they are in the hands of benevolent monarchs like the Maras and Rooneys, and Dan is no Mara or Rooney.

I was a club seat season ticket holder but did not renew last year. My two tickets cost me roughly $1,000 per game plus $350 for a season parking pass. I wanted to enjoy spending that kind of money, as anyone would, but instead I kept getting irritated as I found that I was nickled-and-dimed every step of the way and the marketed benefits of club seats were not there. The wait at the understaffed bar was typically 15 minutes, I took to carrying around napkins as the women's room was frequently out of toilet paper and when I took an elderly neighbor to the game, her life's dream, she was frisked out of her Hershey bar and had to buy a bad $10 cannoli instead. The food in general was horrible. They would fry burgers ahead of time and then sit them under a heat lamp. My friend Glen and I would joke that you need a lot of pickles to make that burger moist, exactly one pickle for every bite. And each burger cost $10. Is that any way to treat your best fans who pay through the nose for seats?

So the club seat fans despise Snyder, and every time Lloyd drops a pass scream, "My $8 beer is paying for you," but what about the rest of Washington? Snyder has been unlovable in so many ways it is hard to believe. He ticked off environmentalists, friends of the C&O trail and his neighbors by bribing the Park Service into allowing him to cut down the trees that obstructed his view of the Potomac.

Snyder also moved all Redskins radio programs from good signal channels that were independent onto his own stations that get incredibly poor reception. I used to love to hear the pre and post game talk, but now I just get mostly static, even though I live in DC. I miss hearing the games on independent channels and that is what made me launch this blog in the first place. Oh, Snyder also bought every other independent web site, such as www.extremeskins.com, which is why that formerly good site now hosts the Brandon Lloyd show, instead of telling the truth about how Lloyd might have been our worst pick ever.

In order to kill any affection left in any Washingtonian Snyder just bought the last remaining classical music station in the city and is planning to change it to a Redskins house organ. Classical music fans are outraged and are joining the ranks of club seaters in feeling that Dan Snyder is a pox upon our city and we wish that he could somehow go away. Columnist Marc Fisher of the Washington Post said it all,

Having won a place in the ranks of local luminaries as the guy who wrecked the Redskins and ravaged the riverside near his Potomac mansion, Dan Snyder now appears ready to put his special touch on another abiding passion of Washingtonians: the music of Bach and Beethoven.

Snyder is young and could be here for a very, very long time so we fans could be in for a very, very long unhappiness. But we can all dream, so in my fantasy Snyder will sell the team to a Mara, Rooney, Kraft, Hunt type of person and let us fans enjoy the wedding and not feel like we are missing out on something.

The NFL Rogue's Gallery

2006-12-20T18:03:00.000-05:00

Skins players have avoided the rogue's gallery of 2006, which has been a horrible, if not record, year for NFL players being arrested. The Wa Post had a great summary of the year at the police station and courtroom for NFL players. Some teams, especially the Bengals, seem to be fielding a prison team. Kudos to the Redskins for avoiding this list.

What I find notable is that so many of the infractions are DWI-related. These guys make big money, so can't they afford taxis or hired cars? My solution to players: get a driver or pay for a taxi if you want to party.

Then they consort with pals who carry guns and they party at nightclubs where they are sure to bring attention. Jealous men in clubs who challenge you + friends with handguns = disaster. My solution to players: party in less scene-y places and make sure your friends aren't packing. You are not the President and don't need your own personal security force. You have an amazing house, so have a party there.

Lastly are the domestic violence cases. My solution to players: leave the game on the field and treat women with respect. If you lift a hand to them you will, and should be, thrown in jail.

With the money and ability to play for the NFL so compelling I wonder why these guys are so dumb, like the Bears' player who was arrested two years ago for a gun charge and when the cops checked out his house this year he had a complete unregistered arsenal there and is in big trouble again.

Redskins Shock New Orleans and Everyone

2006-12-17T19:12:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it was the red pants that the Redskins wore that helped them execute a huge upset of the New Orleans Saints, 16-10.

The Skins looked good, controlling the clock, and the D finally had a great game.

The D still had familiar problems, like when Marcus Washington dropped an easy interception that should have put 7 points on the board. But Sean Taylor was a stud, knocking out a big seam pass in the second quarter and having tons of great tackles.

The refs missed a major Q2 delay of game on the part of NO. It was so obvious on tv, with 11:32 in the second and NO 3rd and 9. The play clock went to zero and then there was another second before Brees threw. I have it on TiVo. NO converted, and scored a touchdown on the next drive.

But despite that bad call the Skins excelled and Carlos Rogers had his first good game of the season, with one interception and a key deflection on the Saints' last toss.

Walt Harris' Success in SF Points to Skins D Coaching Problems

2006-12-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

To demonstrate how poor the Redskins secondary coaching is look no further than the case of Walt Harris, who played cornerback for the Skins and was picked up by the 49ers in free agency last off-season.

Last year as a Skin Harris had one interception and was generally viewed as a poor player. In SF he is a stud. He has six interceptions so far, which is more than the entire Skins defense has (5), and made a critical forced fumble against Seattle Thursday night that helped the Niners win a crucial division game. He was also named NFC Defensive Player of November.

The SF Chronicle, which has generally thin coverage of football, has had two stories this season on Walt Harris. The latest one is titled "Investment in Harris Has Paid Off for 49ers."

The 49ers signed the 32-year-old Harris, an unrestricted free agent, in the offseason to a two-year contract worth $835,000 per season. For that modest investment, Harris is tied for the league lead in interceptions with a career-high six and would have had seven but for a defensive penalty that nullified the pick last week in St. Louis.

Gregg Williams let Harris go and gave $10 million guaranteed money each to Adam Archuleta and Andre Carter, who were both stars but are bombing as Skins. Methinks the problem is not the players that we have on the D but the coaches.

The critical question is why couldn't Williams coach Harris up to where he is now? How could Walt Harris be a loser in DC and a newsmaker in SF? Why are we fans, who pay through the teeth, paying Williams a salary that exceeds almost every other head coach when his players fail in his system and excel elsewhere?

Wa Post Coverage of D Failings is Getting Better

2006-12-14T20:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Wa Post's Jason La Canfora had this article focused on the fact that the D has been pathetic on interceptions and turnovers in general:

Washington's defense is on the verge of becoming the least opportunistic in NFL history, with only five interceptions and five recovered fumbles -- two of them by special teams -- through 13 games. The NFL low for take-aways in a 16-game season is 15, by Green Bay and St. Louis in 2004.

The Redskins also rank last in the NFL this season in sacks per passing play and have just 15 sacks as a team. They have been held to one sack or fewer in eight of 13 games and have played eight games in which they failed to register a turnover.

The inability of the defense to make big plays has forced the offense to produce long drives, since the offense has rarely been provided good field position as the result of a turnover. Washington has scored only 13 points off turnovers, a figure that could be among the worst all-time. The Redskins have been outscored 51-13 in points off turnovers, and outgained 279-25 in return yards off interceptions.

I think this is important as so much attention has focused on our offense, which ranked 11 is and not losing games for us. If we had a decent D we would be a playoff contender.

But Gibbs is pledging to keep ego-maniacal Williams, who keeps trying to justify his outrageous salary on his skills versus the skill of studs we lost like Antonio Pierce. Yet based on Williams's ego we went from 4 to 11 and now to 28. I would call that a destruction of the defense, not a building of it.

Philadelphia Game Blog

2006-12-10T17:26:00.000-05:00

How can you lose a game in which Ladell Betts runs for a heroic 177 yards and you control the clock?

Simple: you get away from what you do best, running the ball, and call plays that put your young quarterback in a tough position. Ugh.

Some observations from the game:

1. Carlos Rogers is a bust draft pick. On the Eagles first drive he dropped an easy interception (the Skins only have 5 INT's this year, last in the league). Then when Philly was third and long and Garcia missed his receiver Rogers was called for a penalty, which gave them first and goal. The Birds converted that into 7 points. Rogers was also burned for their one big pass play for a touchdown. Is Rogers just a product of bad coaching?

Scapegoat No. 3: Rogers. He's the cornerback that was left on an island on the go-ahead touchdown Sunday against Tampa Bay's Joey Galloway. Williams blitzed and missed, costing the team the score. Afterward, Williams took public blame for the call, a rarity, but a Redskins player said, "No, he didn't. In meetings, Carlos still heard about it."

2. The D's 3rd down blitz is predictable and does not work: Just think Romo's pass to Witten oh and in the 3rd quarter it happened to us again. Here we go again:

They know he's going to come and blitz [leaving corners on an island] on third down, and none of our blitzes are getting there anymore.

3. The play calling: 5:36 left and third and two, when Betts has run for 177 yards, and you call a pass? And btw isn't that what we traded draft picks for TJ Duckett to do? The pass was incomplete in the end zone.

4. At least in Suisham we finally have a good place kicker. He was 4 for 4 and did a great job on punts.

5. Frost is also good as most of his kicks were within the 5 despite one touchback.

6. Williams finally started Rocky McIntosh in place of a very weak weak-side linebacker Warrick Holdman. Why did it take so long to start a first round pick? Even worse, I believe we traded another pick to get him. For comparison, look at the Jets, who are having a surprisingly strong season with credit to their first round picks, Ferguson and Mangold, who have started every game.

Atlanta Game Blog

2006-12-10T17:21:00.000-05:00

My dear friend Mary took me to the Atlanta game and scored club seats. We were fat and happy as the Skins took a 14-0 lead despite the fact that Dan Snyder has taken all of the good beer from the club level. I mean, if you are paying about $500 a seat can't you at least get a decent ale? Not anymore, as all of the decent microbrews they had, which were still a far walk from most seats, have vanished and been replaced by Michelob. We did discover that you can get Bass Ale delivered in your seats, and did partake of that. I think my best financial decision of my life was not to renew my club seats this year.

But what went wrong with the Skins after the 14-0 lead that looked like a slaughter? Everyone blames the play calling on our third drive but I blame our run defense. I mean, if Betts, who is a total stud, runs for 155 yards and you have a 14 point lead how do you blow it? Ask Gregg Williams, whose D let Atlanta run for 256 yards. We watched it and it was awful. Not to obsess on the ESPN article, but it did note the lame predictability of our D:

"Gregg Williams, I don't understand. They're so arrogant around here, they think they can stop the run in Cover 2. When it's an obvious running down, he calls Cover 2. That's a seven-man front. They're going to get 4 yards a carry every time. There might be some games where, hey, we're playing the crap out of the run in Cover 2. Well, that's great. Then, you call it. But when you're getting gashed Cover 2, Cover 2, and they come out in two tight ends, two running backs, and one wide receiver and we're in Cover 2. … And if we don't call Cover 2, we blitz. And you live by the blitz, you die by the blitz."

Washington Post Fumbles in Skins D Coverage

2006-12-10T16:33:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post's Skins coverage has focused on the problems of the offense or blamed individual defensive players, most notably Adam Archuleta, while doing a profile of Gregg Williams post this devastating ESPN article.

But the O is ranked 11 while the D is ranked 30, ergo the D is why we are losing games.

The non- Wa Post reality is that Gregg Williams inherited an amazing D from Marvin Lewis and has destroyed it over three years, trading his best players away every year, in an almost maniacal drive to prove that his system (which justifies his insane salary) is more important than the players who execute it. Williams has systematically destroyed the D by tossing away great players.

If one could build a dream defense, it might consist of Champ Bailey, Fred Smoot, Antonio Pierce, LaVar Arrington (face of the Redskins), Ryan Clark and Walt Harris. Yet Williams deemed all of those players replaceable. Worse, he let Pierce, who was the captain of our defense, and Arrington, go to a division rival. I can argue that Pierce's knowledge of our O caused our 2005 rout in the Meadowlands and lost us home field advantage in the playoffs and possibly a Super Bowl position.

So why is the Post's coverage, which is otherwise outstanding, missing the point on the D? Well Wilbon is great but he doesn't write much anymore (though when he does it rocks), Boswell is often off-base and perhaps the rest of the reporters need access so don't tell us what we need to hear, like ESPN can.

Walt Harris is a Stud in San Francisco

2006-12-10T16:07:00.000-05:00

Walt Harris was middling at best when he played corner in Washington. I recall many defensive plays last year when Harris gave up the big play. When the Skins let him go last year to free agency I thought, good riddance. So how surprised was I when I was in San Francisco two Sundays ago watching the 49ers and Walt Harris was the hero of the game, with highlight reel tackling and interceptions?

Not nearly as surprised as when I read that Harris was named the NFC defensive player of November.

Harris accounted for 19 tackles, three interceptions and one forced fumble in the 49ers four games in November. Harris had three tackles and one interception against the Vikings. In Detroit he had eight tackles and a forced fumble and his best performance of the month came against an upset win against Seattle when he finished the day with three tackles, two passes defensed, and two interceptions. During those four games the 49ers finished with a 3-1 record, all wins when Harris made some noise.

Harris has a career high six interceptions this season. His previous high was five when he played with Chicago back in 1997. Harris was signed in the offseason to bring veteran leadership to a young defensive backfield. Harris took over Shawntae Spencer's spot after he was moved to the left side due to the departure of Ahmed Plummer.

The last time a 49ers player earned player of the month honors was when Jeff Garcia won it back in November 2001...

Six interceptions. The entire Skins D has only five this season. Harris' stellar performance as a 49er versus his middling-at-best performer as a Skin makes me believe that the Skins' secondary coaching is terrible.

Video of the Day

2006-09-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

Due to my work and travel schedules, this will not be a daily feature so perhaps I should call it 'Video of Today.' But anyway, this video captures what has got to be every Skins fan's favorite franchise moment, when John Riggins rumbled 43 yards to the end zone to win the Super Bowl. The audio on it is great too, including the interview with Joe Bugel (who looks relatively normal then, not like his current Lyle Lovett 30 years forward look, as a friend dubbed it). For you football geeks, the play was the Chip 70. I think I will name my next pet Chip 70, or maybe just Chippy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjcZbZ5Oe4M

Why Did We Trade Ryan Clark?

2006-09-26T22:11:00.000-04:00

Ryan Clark is one of those guys who flew under the radar but made a big difference and didn’t have a big salary. Those are the kind of guys that Gregg Williams and the Redskins, which is the only team in the NFL without a general manager, love to trade away. To the Redskins, and especially Gregg Williams, the guy you don't have is always better than the guy you do have. We traded middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter to division rival Philly, and he is now the core of their defense, as is acknowledged by John Madden and every commentator. Then we traded the standout captain of our defense, Antonio Pierce, to another division rival, the Giants, and he now runs their defense and helped the G-Men bury us last year 32 - 0 at our first post-Pierce competition with the Blue Men because he knew all of our plays. That was no minor thing as it cost us a home playoff game and threw us into the wildcard mess. We also gave middle linebacker Arrington, face of the franchise, to the G-Men.

Is anyone home in Auburn??? Can I please run your franchise for you? I really feel that I could do a better job. Maybe hanging out with TomKat in the owner's box would go to my head and confuse me but right now I have my head and my integrity intact and I promise I would never wear a three-piece suit like "VP" Vinny Cerrato does, see above left pic.

The rule of thumb for every other front office in the NFL is this: don't give up a great player to a division rival. The Pats stuck by that rule by almost going into arbitration to avoid having Deion Branch go to division rival Jets. The Pats have won three Super Bowls in the last four years. Maybe they have a clue, and they won their battle as Branch went to the Seahawks, who are not only in another division but are in the other conference.

Which brings me back to Ryan Clark. We didn't trade him to a division rival but did send him packing to the Steelers, a team admired league-wide for its ability to identify and retain talent without breaking the bank. Clark won my heart last year when he sealed the deal against Philly with an interception in the end zone. But Gregg lusted after Adam Archuleta, and gave him a ridiculous out-of-market $10 million signing bonus, and chucked the proven guy who was a team leader. Archuleta, btw, has stunk so far and is almost 100% responsible for every touchdown scored against the Skins this year. But forget my opinions, according to this Wa Post article Clark was core to the defense.

But nor is it lost on many defensive players that the chemistry that turned 2005 into a special season is currently lacking. The players do not blame Archuleta, but many say they miss the field and locker room presence of Ryan Clark.
The affinity for Clark had been a subtle component of the defense's dialogue since the Redskins allowed him to go to Pittsburgh as an unrestricted free agent. During minicamp and the first days of training camp, the departure of linebacker LaVar Arrington to the New York Giants drove headlines, but whenever defensive players were asked about Arrington, they would mention Clark as a bigger loss.
"We're going to put it together," Wynn says. "But that magic of last year, well, we need to get it back."
Wilbon said this:
it appears the Redskins did a couple of goofy things in the offseason, such as getting rid of Ryan Clark, whom fellow defensive players loved and trusted.

We Finally Won One

2006-09-24T20:43:00.001-04:00

In a must-win game, the Skins clobbered the Texans 31-15. Al Saunders' offense finally clicked and the defense finally held its ground without Shawn Springs, though we must remind ourselves that the Texans are a really bad team.

But, on a high note, Brunell quieted his critics by breaking an NFL record for consecutive passes, with 22 of them. His first incomplete pass came with 23 seconds left in the third quarter.

Go Brunell and Hail to the Redskins.

PS Somebody definitely does have to get me the team song on CD as some of us (Mary) are shy about singing without accompaniment