I need to know something in a poll form.

[McD5]

Have a great night all. It is 1 am down here, and work comes early tomorrow.

Whether you feel one way or another about the draft, let's all agree in supporting the Skins this season, and in hoping that the decisions made in this draft turn out to be good ones.

Thanks to the mods and ops for running this forum on the net. This was my first draft on es, and it made the draft 100x better in my humble opinion.

Have a great night......and let's rock in 2007!

:logo:

[Skins11]

A couple of things pop to mind here. Since when did decisions have to be agreed upon by every person in an organization? If the judgement is that unless there's 100 percent agreement on everything, it can't be correct, then the whole world's in trouble.

The irony in the highlighted statement can cause choking...

[Skins11]

By the way, I haven't seen anyone respond to the great points below. Any of you who think we should never question the staff want to take a shot?

at some point this one sided argument gets tiresome:

- there are 30+ teams in the NFL.....fans may not know the micro details...but they can see the macro details. over time they have a basis for comparatively assessing the relative merits/productivity of one management structure & vision over another

- I don't know the grade outs of the coaching staff? yea. so? you know the inner details on what is going on in Iraq? I doubt it. still vote? still have an opinion? think there are better strategies? I'd be careful about the "insider" angle as a tool for muffling debate. yeay, yea, yea. football aint war. but it's the principle in play that matters...not the subject domain.

- as you note...there is no perfect information state...even by those who consider themselves insiders.......only degrees. from this perspective...humility is probably something that should be exercised across the board....just saying... .....

- btw...at what point does one arrive at the "quantitatively" established conclusion "yup. This FO does blow. The decision process/vision has been wrong"?

In the event, I personally am less concerned about all the angst being vented over this one issue. You could see this coming quite a while ago (the signals were all there) and, when viewed in a longer-term perspective, makes sense. my problem, though I haven't completely worked it out yet, is whether the strategy being crafted by the Skins adds up over time. The discussion that needs to be held on this board is on the better ways to build a sustained championship caliber team in the era of the cap. Just as the SKins managed to be challenging for the SB about once evey 3 years during the 80s....one has to ask....what strategy can achieve the same sort of success over 5 to 10 years today? To me...it just seems that the Skins are always out of synch (for lack of a better phrase) personnel wise (i.e., offense versus defense, units within defense/offense). there will always be deltas...but on this team there is a feeling that the deltas have not been managed well - are larger than they need be. we should be seeing 2-3 years of championship caliber football followed by one/maybe 2 years of downtime as the team maneuvers/reloads. we aren't seeing this.

[skinsn24]

The irony in the highlighted statement can cause choking...

SO true

[skinsn24]

By the way, I haven't seen anyone respond to the great points below. Any of you who think we should never question the staff want to take a shot?

It only Art that would be able to answer that, the rest of us are with you.

The part I like the most is what happens when a coach admits that his system has flaws and what he was trying to build wouldnt work? Doesnt this mean that he mis proiritized the needs to build a great team?

[ccengstrom]

This is a public poll that should have 100 percent in one category. It's called rigging the deck. There IS a reason we didn't pick up any defensive lineman this offseason to this point. Once you answer, you'll probably be free enough to answer what that reason is and, as a kind man, I'll tell you.

It's that the defensive line was the LEAST of our needs or concerns last year and while it IS aging, and it WILL need more bodies, the fact remains, the secondary and linebacker needed both things much, much more right NOW. You can't do everything, every year. But you also can't deny our priorities weren't clear and well executed.

amen brother!

[skinsn24]

It's that the defensive line was the LEAST of our needs or concerns last year

I just noticed this statment and would like to correct it. I beleive Running Back and offensive tackle were the least of needs based on last year.

[Skins11]

It only Art that would be able to answer that, the rest of us are with you.

The part I like the most is what happens when a coach admits that his system has flaws and what he was trying to build wouldnt work? Doesnt this mean that he mis proiritized the needs to build a great team?

But then the people who believe the coach is infallible will then just realign themselves with the coach's beliefs and they will be "right" once again...

[skinsn24]

Anyway i am off to bed.

I guess the only difference between a great team and a horrible team is their ability to evaluate the players (not positions) to bring in, because a staff can never be wrong on what is causing the problems.

Night.

[skinsn24]

But then the people who believe the coach is infallible will then just realign themselves with the coach's beliefs and they will be "right" once again...

LOL i thought i was done for the night, but i had to say, i agree with you on their response. Good to know some people on here, have clear heads and clear eyes. Lets hope the coaches are right this time, as i want to win, i just dont think they are always right (they are human).

Your one of the good guys.

[BleedBNG]

Hey, I can't help it. It's been my mantra on gameday 90% of the time the last 14 years.

Ask my friends

[TheLongshot]

So, I'm all for someone who understands they don't know what is needed to make a system go better than the coaches and being honest and saying something like Gregg Williams is an incompetent coordinator who doesn't know how to put good defenses together on his own and his whole system is invalid.

Ok, so how do most of us, as non-football people, judge a coordinator as incompetent? Or, is this just a religious argument? (i.e. I don't like your system) I ask because you have said that you don't like Nolan's system, yet others seem to like his system, considering he still gets hired and even got a head coaching gig out of it.

How do we seperate the truely incompetent from just systems we don't like? Personally, I don't care what the system is, as long as it works.

Jason

[Skins11]

LOL i thought i was done for the night, but i had to say, i agree with you on their response. Good to know some people on here, have clear heads and clear eyes. Lets hope the coaches are right this time, as i want to win, i just dont think they are always right (they are human).

Your one of the good guys.

to you as well. Have a good night.

(Don't dream about the Bench Brunell debates though in which the Coach Does No Wrong crowd can all of a sudden agree with benching Brunell for Campbell AFTER the decision was already made... because that's the first thing that came to mind when I wrote my last post)

[Art]

By the way, I haven't seen anyone respond to the great points below. Any of you who think we should never question the staff want to take a shot?

For Al, that's a lucid position and one that is interesting to read, but doesn't actually reflect here. Indeed, it's perfectly valid to question the core systems that are being run. Yep. That's right. It may not be your cup of tea. It may be. The question in this thread is, within the implementation of the systems the coaches run, do they know what they need to make it go, or do you. That's all. All the other deflection merely reveals the pitiful nature of those who won't answer that question.

I asked that question for a reason.

It removes NAMES from the question. Archuleta sucked. Duckett was not, ultimately, used. Yeah. Got it. And, whether anyone knew there could be a mistake in the evaluation of their skills or not is entirely irrelevant. If anyone here thinks the coaching staff should have looked at Clinton Portis, realized he couldn't make it through the whole season, and done nothing to TRY to protect themselves against EITHER further injury OR failure from the backups, you merely confirm the ignorance I'm speaking to.

I hated the Duckett pickup because I felt Rock was as good a player. You see, I'm an idiot and homer when it comes to Rock . I get that, so, I don't like seeing him not given a real chance if one would have arisen. Still this shouldn't be so hard for some of you.

I could throw Moss, Portis, Springs, Griffin, Washington and others in as names confirming good evaluation of talent, but, that's irrelevant. The question, again, since so many seem to struggle with it is, do the coaches who run the systems know what is necessary in their systems to make them go.

I didn't say WHO is necessary. I said what is.

Why can some of you not answer that without taking it beyond that simple evaluation? My guess is because you know the answer and it hurts you to say you were wrong about something. I was too. The need and reality of Landry dawned on me after weeks of never considering the possibility and only through actually watching what we were doing and paying more attention to it than what I was thinking.

[Art]

The irony in the highlighted statement can cause choking...

The irony would come into play if we were decision makers of critical import with the team. I know it appears some here think they are, but, we're really not. Scary, I know. We have a voice, to be sure. The people running things know when we're displeased and they do heed our movements more than one might expect. The irony is that you'd confirm your view of yourself when it comes to understanding the system better than the coaches who implement it and how perfectly it fits in with what I'm trying to discover.

[Art]

Ok, so how do most of us, as non-football people, judge a coordinator as incompetent? Or, is this just a religious argument? (i.e. I don't like your system) I ask because you have said that you don't like Nolan's system, yet others seem to like his system, considering he still gets hired and even got a head coaching gig out of it.

How do we seperate the truely incompetent from just systems we don't like? Personally, I don't care what the system is, as long as it works.

Jason

The way it's done in football is past history. What has the system you're running shown it is capable of. What has it shown it's capable of with YOU running the show. If the system has proven to be sound in the league -- say the West Coast Offense -- but you have never run it successfully, you can easily be deemed incompetent in the implementation of the system and it would invalidate your ability to run it. See Jimmy Raye running the West Coast Offense by removing all crossing routes and replacing them with stops and curls.

Most important is the individual performance of the people who are running the systems. In our case, has Al Saunders proven he can successfully produce good offenses? Yes? Then his system is good. He knows what it takes to run it. And, though many of us -- including some of the players -- prefer a power offense and smash mouth, we can not say the system is ridiculous or that Saunders doesn't know how to run it. Same question and answer about Gregg Williams.

Now, I was ALSO a hater of Marvin Lewis, because I so despise that style of defense. I recognize he knows how to make it go though, and though I wished we would do it differently, and wondered why he picked Trotter to fill the important role of middle backer in that system, I never doubted he knew he had to get a dynamic middle backer to make his system work for him.

People here actually know the system and coaches are sound. And they still think the people in charge can't figure out what is required to make it go.

[RedskinzOwnU]

I think the Skins' FO did EXACTLY what a lot of fans had been complaining about over the past three years:

2004's defense was stellar...but we lost our MLB (Pierce) and our #2 CB (Smoot). Fans said we never should have let them go.

2005's defense was down slightly, but still top-notch (the playoff victory was due to defense and ONLY defense...they were stunning in that victory)....but then we lost our safety (Clark). Fans said we never should have let him go.

2006's defensive performance was atrocious...fans said "We never should have let Pierce go! We never should have let Smoot go! We never should have let Clark go!". In many fans' eyes the Skins weakened a stellar defense over a two year span by letting their MLB, CB and safety leave.

So what does the Skins' FO do this offseason?...They go out and get a MLB, a CB and a safety.

They sign Fletcher, a real, bonafide MLB.

They re-sign Smoot, the CB they let go.

They draft Landry, a true stud of a safety.

The three positions that many fans claimed the Skins' FO weakened over the last few years by thinking "We can plug anyone in there and win" were all addressed and strengthened considerably. You guys should be doing backflips.

That argument might work if it was still 2004. Sure we got the rest of our defense back together. Unfortunately, our current D-line - while having many of the same players it did in 2004 - is not playing as well in 2004, or 2005. Not nearly as well. Additionally, just as the fans clamored against past mistakes that truly did put a hole in the defense - the fans now clamor for help on the defensive line. Seems like you are arguing that the fans have been right all along - so why are they wrong here?

I think all the defensive moves we made this offseason have been great. I think we'll be better against the run and the pass. But, I don't think our D-line is going to be the reason for any of that. Now - maybe there was no solution on the D-line. You can argue that the right player wasn't there in the draft, or in free agency, or available for a trade - and that's fine. As far as what the coaches are telling us, it's far more likely that they are saying that they are satisfied with the D-line not because they are truly satisfied with it, but instead because it would go against team morale to say anything to the contrary. Either Gibbs and Blache are lying when they say they are satisfied with the D-line, or they are delusional. Those are the only options. They are not infallible, and they are not incapable of deceit.

[Die Hard]

People here actually know the system and coaches are sound. And they still think the people in charge can't figure out what is required to make it go.

After 2 seasons... the Redskins had to hire a new offensive coordinator to improve the struggling passing game. The offense struggled to find any consistency and mid-season Joe Gibbs had to change the identity of the offense from a finesse approach BACK to a power-running game.

Late in the 2006 season, Gregg Williams publicly states that teams have figured out the Cover 2 defense the Skins have been employing - ironically, it's the same defense employed by the 2 Super Bowl participants - and states that he would be reviewing a lot of tape of the defense to figure out what's going to wrong.

And we had a 5-11 record to show for it.

So please...... don't tell me these coaches have any direction.

One minute they say they're identity is to be aggressive in free agency... and 24 hours ago we hear how Gibbs now values draft picks and he wants to go into the next draft with a full set.

For 2 seasons, he wanted full participation in voluntary camps... now, he's letting the players work out on their own.

There's no direction here... none. All I see is continual mistakes... and then Gibbs throws up his hands and says "Well, that didn't work... let's try something else".

That hardly inspires any confidence.

But hey, if you enjoy the "well, sooner or later he'll exhaust every failure so he's bound to get it right" philosophy... then carry on.

[JoeKnowsBest]

Joe,

I'm not arguing any point other than the one I've started with. Everyone else is bringing in items that don't exist in the premise of the conversation or anything I've said. The fans here believe we needed defensive linemen despite the clear indication the people running the system didn't have that priority.

That means the priority didn't exist and we know it didn't because the people who know how to make their system go said it didn't. That matters more than whether we happen to see sack numbers we like or understand.

Checking back in one last time for the night...

I think it was rather obvious they were doing just what Joe Gibbs and the staff said they were doing in the (luncheon was it?) interviews/press day. There was no true defensive linemen that valued in their 6th slot or any other slot they picked for that matter. So they were just picking the best available player on their board. The Ravens did this for many years and they always come away with solid starters and contributers that seem like steals to the rest of the league. This is what I think the staff was doing this weakend, and they may still be looking to upgrade the defensive line through other means as the offseason is still far from over. Like you said, we are not privilaged to their plan, what they know, or what their thinking is. So maybe, just maybe, their thinking is that they'll be able to pull off getting a veteran that can help upgrade the line. And it has been stated and is a well known fact that Joe Gibbs and company does like/value veteran established players more than rookies. I remember when they let Champ get away they said they had a plan in place. Every one was scratching their heads then, but then they proved that plan to be true by going out and signing Shawn Springs. That may be the same situation here.

So I think it's premature to say any of us, including yourself as privilaged as are with the team, knows clearly what their plan is or every player they are or are not really looking at.

And for the record... I voted I knew more. Figured it would be fun and gotta stand up for the minority! Take that in your poll Art!

[Art]

Funny, DH, but, in days gone by, Gibbs' willingness to adapt to his players was seen as his greatest strength. Now, if he lacks Marty's iron fist, he's utterly without soul or plan. Gibbs won with three 1,000-yard receivers and he won with one Diesel. He obviously had no consistent, clear plan or direction, right? No, that's silly brother.

I'm totally with you that he's made a ton of mistakes since returning. You saw, I hope, where I agreed with you that any other coach doing so poor a job would be gone by now. I have yet to have that lead me to believe he can't get things on track, likely a remnant of deeply grained respect for the man.

That said, I've been pretty open that this year is going to be telling and difficult to be all that encouraged about because in most cases when a staff loses a team like we did last year, it ends in termination before the following year finishes. I'm not sure how your point on Williams is a negative. Teams were exploiting what he was running. He said he has to fix it. That's a good thing, right?

[JoeKnowsBest]

That said, I've been pretty open that this year is going to be telling and difficult to be all that encouraged about because in most cases when a staff loses a team like we did last year, it ends in termination before the following year finishes. I'm not sure how your point on Williams is a negative. Teams were exploiting what he was running. He said he has to fix it. That's a good thing, right?

I think with his willingness to adapt he will be just fine. The players will be greatful to him and be thankful for allowing them an easier offseason much like the Rams were in '99 when they begged and lobbied for a more laid back offseason workout program and then one the SuperBowl. Vermiel was real hard on the the prior season but then listened to his players before he lost them and it paid off. It realed them back in and they responded and won a championship. That sounds exactly like what Joe is doing here and I hope the results are the same! :logo:

[number twenty-eight]

I am late to this part of the thread, but the bit about de-emphasizing the defensive line... "Occupying blockers", "funneling plays", "controlling areas of the field"... These are all euphemisms for unathletic defensive linemen.

I appreciate the intent of our defense and assignments/responsibilities, etc... But at the end of the day defensive linemen need to make tackles and sacks. It should never be acceptable to say "our defensive linemen don't need to make tackles". No system in the history of football features down linemen whose job it is to get blocked (even the nose tackle, who generally is trying to defeat two blockers).

He's making the best with what he's got. And that happens to have been really good for two out of three years. There's no dispute there. But he's doing it in spite of the line, scheming around the weakness. Springs led us in sacks one year and we had historically low sacks and turnovers in another.

To the point of the thread, I can't explain why Williams evidently doesn't feel the need to upgrade there. But I think it is arrogant to perform as poorly as we did and not choose to improve what's on-hand.

[UK Skins]

I would like someone to go through and work out which points raised by the "coaches don't know what they are doing team" that Art eventually agreed with. This wasn't a thread about not taking a DE/DT in the draft, despite attempts to derail it. It has become a very interesting debate on fan concerns as to the direction of the team, expressed very concisely by a number of posters, including Die Hard right at the end.

We are not knowledgeable enough to question the position needs, nor even whether Vinny does anything more than play racquet-ball with Snyder. And to do so will always leave oneself open to abuse from the "Gibbs can do no wrong" brigade, of which this thread was largely absent for a change.

It has been very enjoyable to contribute to a grown-up debate on this forum again, something that has been missing recently. Thanks to Art for enabling it, even if we still don't agree on many things

[thelarkascend1ng]

He said he has to fix it. That's a good thing, right?

i think this is well put. some may argue that a good coach's best ability isn't to have the answer to everything, but to be willing (as GW did last season) to find a way to find the ones that they don't have.

perhaps the moves we made in the draft through the past couple days acknowledges that next step and necessary rectification? only time will tell, but i really do like the idea of looking forward, not back.

[turbodiesel#44]

When you say "I" in the poll question, do you mean you? Or me?