What’s Wrong With The Redskins?

I don’t claim to have all of the answers, nor do I claim to be an expert. But, I do have an opinion and I will share what I think is actually wrong with the Washington Redskins. Don’t get me wrong, I watch football period. I watch other teams, but the two teams that I follow are the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers. And just from my short period of time living there, I took an interest in the Baltimore Ravens. It’s hard to not like the Ravens, because of their attitude. And Baltimore and Pittsburgh have attitude, and they are both franchises run with good people who have good intentions. This brings me to the Washington Redskins.

Daniel Snyder, bless his heart, came in doing what he thought was right. But we all know, he is not a football guy. Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, has a kamikaze attitude too, but Jerry at least played football at the collegiate level. Daniel Snyder does not look like he has ever had pads on a day in his life. So the idea of building a team is foreign to him. You don’t buy a championship. You build a team that grows together and becomes champions. But you have to have the right kind of players on your team. For every Brandon Marshall, you need a Brian Mitchell. For every John Riggins, you need a Chris Samuels. For every mercurial player, you need a cool customer to balance things out. And in some cases, put their foot where the sun doesn’t shine every now and then. But we don’t have that balance of players and like Carlos Rogers said, it starts at the top.

Daniel Snyder came here in 1999 and wanted to turn around the storied Redskins franchise and thought he could add high-priced Free Agents to the mix, and stir. Do you remember Mike Barrow, Jesse Armstead, Santana Dotson, Bruce Smith and Deion Sanders? So, needless to say, for the most part, that didn’t work, but, let’s not forget that the Redskins made the playoffs in 1999 with a 10-6 record and an NFC East division title. But past the some 1st Round draft picks, we (the Redskins) have not made good decisions. Everyone looks good in the 1st, 2nd & sometimes even the 3rd rounds, but what you do on Sunday (rounds 4-7), and in some cases Monday (Free Agent Rookie Signing Period begins) is where you make your money. And we haven’t learned that yet.

Don’t get me wrong Chris Samuels, Champ Bailey, LaVar Arrington, Rod Gardner, Patrick Ramsey, Sean Taylor, Carlos Rogers, Jason Campbell, LaRon Landry and Brian Orakpo were all good college players and their skills were supposed to translate to the NFL level. But even with all of this talent not everyone worked out. Rod Gardner, LaVar Arrington and Patrick Ramsey specifically didn’t work out because we didn’t provide a stable environment for them to grow. We all know that the first 1-4 years are critical in the development of NFL talent. What were their first four years like?

Hire Norv Turner, fire Norv Turner. Make Terry Robiskie the interim coach, have him close out the season, and them hand his hat and say thanks for the memories. Hire the old ball coach Steve Spurrier, fire Steve Spurrier. By the way, Steve Spurrier should have stayed in college football. Any coach who claims to not wanting to put in the same amount of time as the other NFL coaches should have been fired on the spot. Bring back the legend Coach Joe Gibbs, bring in Al Saunders and his 700 page playbook and run off Joe Gibbs. Not to mention that you brought in Greg Williams as a Defensive Coordinator and promised that he would be the successor of coach Gibbs or you would pay him $1 Million for not getting the job, and then we turned around and paid him to leave town. So much for the stable environment!! And now we are about to run Jason Campbell out of town. And I am going on record as saying this: WE WILL REGRET THE DAY THAT WE LET JASON CAMPBELL GET AWAY!!! But if I am Jason Campbell, I wouldn’t want to stay. The organization hires a QB Coach, makes him the Offensive Coordinator, only to promote him to Head Coach a few days later, which, at the time seemed like a great idea. But now it doesn’t look so good.

Coach Jim Zorn has been emasculated. How??!!! You bring in Sherman Smith form Tennessee to “help” out Coach Zorn and now, because our Offense is stuck in neutral, you bring in Sherman Lewis, who by all accounts is great mind, but where does that leave Coach Zorn? Now Coach Zorn’s protégé is being questioned, but how much can a QB do when he’s still trying learn an Offense and his Offensive Line is a patchwork line that has had some bad breaks? If Jason Campbell is considered a bust it’s our fault. If Coach Zorn fails, it’s our fault. If Sherman Smith fails, it’s our fault. I’ll take it a step further. If Sherman Lewis fails…. Guess what??!! IT’S OUR FAULT!!! We have not given them what they need to succeed. What that is, is an Offensive line that has viable backups at each position. If Donovan McNabb can use James Thrash, Freddie Mitchell, Brian Westbrook and Todd Pinkston to make 4 straight playoff runs, you couldn’t possibly tell me that Jason Campbell couldn’t use Santana Moss, Malcolm Kelly, Devin Thomas, Chris Cooley and Clinton Portis to do the same.

Our problem in a nutshell is that we like to buy rims, a sound system, tints and a hot new dual pipe exhaust system, before we check the engine of the car. I’ll admit that I didn’t know how important Offensive Linemen were until 2002 when Patrick Ramsey was getting the snot beat out of him on a weekly basis. And who do you think is responsible for this?? Daniel Snyder. Why? Because he knows that he’s not a football guy so your right hand man is your General Manager. Guess who our GM is? Vinny Cerrato. One, if not both of them has some serious soul searching to do. I can’t stress enough how much we need to re-evaluate the General Manager’s position. If you want to impress the fans, pay top dollar for a Left Tackle, Center or Right Guard. Spend your 1st Round draft pick next year on a Left Tackle or Center. Show me that your QB is a priority and protecting him is your #1 goal. Because, if you don’t do that, you will find yourself in the midst of “rebuilding” for a very long time.

My message to Daniel Snyder….. FIRE VINNY CERRATO!!! That’s what’s wrong with the Redskins. You don’t have a guy who is any good at putting together a good Offensive Line. But hey, I’ll give Vinny and Danny one thing, they have done a stellar job of putting together a defense. Unfortunately, your defenses job is not put up points.