What's your opinion? (long)

[B&G]

Here's mine on a variety of topics. I'm intererested in your viewpoint on any or all of these:

1) If the Deion thing happens and we get no immediate compensation, could Al and Dan be cooking something up for draft day? Oakland has a bunch of high round draft picks they can't possibly sign because of their salary cap situation. Something good might come of this yet. Say a number one for a player, perhaps a promising young running back, and a future # 3?

2) Along these lines, are we showcasing Betts or Watson for a draft day trade? With Gillespie on the practice squad, maybe so.

3) Why did our OL look so much better yesterday? What changed? Our opponent's defense was rated in the top third in the NFL so even though the Texans are an expansion team, that wasn't it. Kipp Vickers started yesterday. Is he that much of an improvement or was this just a anomaly?

4) I was at the game yesterday...first one I attended this year and paid particular attention to our WR's. Noticed two things:

a) Unless there was a blown coverage, for the most part our receivers don't have the raw speed to blow past the defense.

Our current OL is much better suited for the running game than for the passing game, particularly the center of the line.

Now, this should be no surprise to any of us. We've been a running team in a running conference for years. Why shouldn't our line be configured to that philosophy? Well, times have changed, obviously. What to do about it? Draft a WR? Shore up the OL with players who can pass block as well as run block?

Here's my view. What's yours?

1) We hired a coach who is going to pass the football. That's his game and his genius. It is stupid not to give him the tools to make his genius functional. We also know that, for the most part, the best of rookie WR's don't ususally make much of an impact in their first year. This is where we should let Steve and Vinnie and Dan have their fun in F/A by getting us the youngest, fastest, smartest, most character filled WR available without breaking the bank or mortgaging our future.

2) We have a young quarterback who shows great promise, intelligence and ability. Last 10 quarters: 8 touchdown passes with 0 interceptions. You could literally feel the team and the fans behind Patrick yesterday. If I had any doubts about him before, they were dispelled after seeing him in person. That being said, he is a pocket passer and does need a reasonable amount of time to go through his progressions. I am more convinced than ever that the best investment the Redskins could ever make would be to spend picks 2 and 3 at Guard and C. If we give this young man the developmental time he needs and decent protection, he is going to be special.

3) What about our #1 pick? One of my all time favorite Redskins was Dexter Manley. Remember that game when he hit Danny White under the chin strap and knocked him out of the game? Dexter was a beast and he hated all our opponents but he always seemed to run at 110% for the Dallas game. Well, with our # 1 pick, I'd like to find a DE like Dexter because we haven't had one since....well, since Dexter. How long has it been since we've had a consistent pass rush? I can't even remember?. Time to change that! That one pick should pretty much solidify our defense unless we can upgrade at FS through free agency and that shouldn't be too difficult considering what we have in place there now.

4) Yesterday was the culmination of years of frustration for Redskins fans over the state of our kicking game. Why have we ignored this critical phase of the game for so long? The days of joking about kickers and punters are long gone. More often than not, those guys win or lose games for you. I don't care if we have to use our 4th round draft pick to get a reliable kicker this year. For goodness sake, just do it. If the organization views that as a sacrifice, take one for the team. Even better, if a proven veteran kicker ( a younger one) come available, show him the money to get him here. As far as a punter is concerned, it is inconceivable to me that we can't find someone that won't shank the ball not once but twice for ten yard punts. Heads need to roll over this.

5) Lastly, I'm a Spurrier fan and I support him. Frankly, though, he needs to get organized. The team has seemed to lack focus and discipline this year and at times looked just plain unprofessional. Coach Spurrier has to take responsibility for that. We can't be a winner until we get our house in order. Right now it's just a mess.

[TerpSkin]

your first #1: From what I can tell, there is no way we could get compensation for Deion at this point of the season anyways because of the trade deadline. As a result, the only reason to keep Deion would be to screw Deion because there is no realistic chance a team would want to acquire him in future years before the trade deadline (after all Deion said he never wants to play a whole season... he just wants to join a contender with needs at CB near the end of the season). Now while we may all wish to screw Deion, Snyder obviously has no ill will towards Deion. So I don't have a big problem with this.

your first #2: no

your first #4: If starting NFL DB's play their coverages perfectly, then even the fastest NFL WRs aren't going to blow by them, so this is not a relative weakness of our WRs. What our WRs have shown over the past few weeks (whether it's just because of Spurrier's schemes or because of their own ability) is that they can get open against the best defenses enough for a decent QB behind a decent OL to put up very good passing numbers. So I am very happy with our WR talent... although I wouldn't object to signing a good FA WR this upcoming offseason. Wasting a top pick on a WR is stupid, because as you said, he'll probably take a while to develop, and moreover, we already have a bunch of young WRs (some of whom are burners) who we are currently developing.