ibrahim Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I have been thinking about this for a while and thought I'd voice my opinion to see what you guys think about it. To me, after looking up and down at the Redskins roster and observing how this team continues to fail, regardless of who is signed or traded for, I have come to the conclusion that one of the most overlooked causes of this team's demise is its philosophy on player compensation. No, this is not about Haynesworth's $100m contract, nor is it about D. Hall's or Dockery's contracts either. It is about the contract extensions given to Jansen, Thomas, ARE, A. Carter, etc. One of the most fundamental theories of running a business is promoting good employee morale. You have employees with good morale, you are more likely to get productivity out of them. Well, one of the tools used to achieve this is compensation of hard work to both show appreciation of work and also encourage fellow employees to follow suit. The Redskins, on the other hand, have taken the exact opposite approach. They compensate players for having subpar seasons, purely for the purpose of creating cap space to overpay for some other player, which we do a lot. Portis had a so-so season and was rewarded with an extension. Jansen had one of his worst seasons ever, and was highly criticized around the league as being a shadow of what he used to be. In that offseason, guess what the skins did. Yup, they gave him an extension. Same was done for Thomas, then this year, Andre Carter and Randle El, who I think even deserved a pay cut. You have to ask yourself what this does not only for the mindset of the aforementioned players, but also the message it sends to the rest of the members of the team. One good example of the anti-Redskin way of approaching player compensation is with the Steelers. Linebacker James Harrison had a monster season last year and helped lead the team to the superbowl last year. The team rewards him with a nice $50m contract. A huge some of money compared to the undrafted FA salary he had very recently. If I were a young guy on that team, I am thinking "if I bust my a** this season, and play a major part in this team winning a super bowl, that could be me." With the 'Skins, a young player looks at Jansen, Randle El, Carter, and think "even with a subpar season, if the team needs cap space to grab the next available big name star, cha-ching!" We could blame this team's recent failures on the lack of a QB, OL, LB, DL, and whatever else position you want to add. But I have always believed that until this team's front office changes its approach towards player compensation, the team will always have productivity issues. Feel free to discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dictator Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 because of the way this team does business, it has little recourse other than restructuring to clear up cap space. So many players are considered untradeable, or not able to be dropped because of their cap figures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gart Monk Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 Great post. I've never understood the front office approach here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Lloyd Christmas Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 this is common knowledge around here and why we cant cut players like some of the ones you mentioned. we restructure (and in essence, reward) them for mediocre play so we can bring other guys in instead. jansen should be gone, but we cant cut him cause itll cost too much money. our only hope is that theres an uncapped year and we can clean house bigtime. but this team operates very poorly and its why we end up overpaying for guys who underproduce. ARE and jansen are the biggest culprits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thirtyfive2seven Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 I don't think the team can cut the players or it would mean admitting failure. Betts said something about the point by the OP - he mentioned that people who are here busting their butts aren't getting 100m contracts. the team would rather reward unproven players from other teams rather than current players on the roster. I am all in favor of cleaning house if it's an uncapped year. Starting with Vinny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhodus333 Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 ^^^^ Case in point: Demetric Evans. I still have no f-ing idea why we didn't match the offer (which was NOT that big) and keep a guy who works hard and knows the system in our rotation. Biggest screw up of the offseason. Especially considering that we no longer have Taylor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibrahim Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 I don't think the team can cut the players or it would mean admitting failure. Betts said something about the point by the OP - he mentioned that people who are here busting their butts aren't getting 100m contracts. the team would rather reward unproven players from other teams rather than current players on the roster.I am all in favor of cleaning house if it's an uncapped year. Starting with Vinny. The funny thing about it is that I am not against paying a guy who, in his first three games alone, got more INTs than our starting corner's career total. I am also not totally against going out and paying big bucks for a guy that has PROVEN to be the best Defensive Tackle in the NFL. What I am against is acquiring these players by rewarding current players for very mediocre play. Exactly how you, for whatever reason, give ARE a contract extension is way beyond me. ARE's play last season deserved a pay cut, not an extension. It is just not good for team morale and hence, player productivity. Other teams reward players for stellar play and superbowls, we reward players when there is another player out there we want to get. It makes absolutely no sense, and shows how little Vinny knows about the concept of running a business. Not even necessarily a football team, but just running a business period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibrahim Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 ^^^^Case in point: Demetric Evans. I still have no f-ing idea why we didn't match the offer (which was NOT that big) and keep a guy who works hard and knows the system in our rotation. Biggest screw up of the offseason. Especially considering that we no longer have Taylor. Bingo! You let a hardworking overachieving young player go, but keep a very underachieving overrated punt returner and give him a contract extension on top of it. Oh, did I mention the hardworking guy that you watch walk away plays a position of need? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 The whole premise is what creates these bad signings. They've committed to the signing 2 or 3 years earlier when they signed the first contract. We've been amazed by the ability of our FO to always get around the cap when the pundits have put us in 'cap-hell'. Well I think this is the price for our cap policies. Took awhile to materialize but having to renegotiate from a position lacking any leverage at all is a pretty high price. That's evidenced by our signing people coming off bad years because we have to and they know it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koolblue13 Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 ^^^^Case in point: Demetric Evans. I still have no f-ing idea why we didn't match the offer (which was NOT that big) and keep a guy who works hard and knows the system in our rotation. Biggest screw up of the offseason. Especially considering that we no longer have Taylor. If that was the biggest "screw up" of our offseason, we are in for a great season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Koolblue13 Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 All teams have players they can't cut because of contracts. Money is never an issue, so how can it be a problem if it isn't. Jansen was playing better before injury when he got his contract. ARE, fair point. He gets paid for potential. We keep our core guys, people complain. We cut our core guys, people complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief skin Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 This business needs an audit of how and why things are done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibrahim Posted April 15, 2009 Author Share Posted April 15, 2009 All teams have players they can't cut because of contracts.Money is never an issue, so how can it be a problem if it isn't. Jansen was playing better before injury when he got his contract. ARE, fair point. He gets paid for potential. We keep our core guys, people complain. We cut our core guys, people complain. Core guys or no core guys, it's not about "keeping" them. Keep the so-called core guys, but stop rewarding them for subpar performance. Pittsburgh, New York G., Baltimore, keep most of their core guys, don't they? But do you see them offering extensions to guys after very subpar seasons? No. They give them extensions when they do something that warrants it. James Harrison deserved a contract extension after helping lead the team to the Super Bowl. Why were ARE and Carter offered extensions? Simple, we needed the cap space for our latest spree. It is a wrong way of doing things, period. Every year, people wonder when our sprees will start to hurt us, but they don't realize it's been hurting us for years with these unwarranted contract extensions. I still maintain that extending ARE's contract is the dumbest move I've ever seen, whether we needed to sign a player or not. It's just dumb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Braxford Posted April 15, 2009 Share Posted April 15, 2009 ^^^^Case in point: Demetric Evans. I still have no f-ing idea why we didn't match the offer (which was NOT that big) and keep a guy who works hard and knows the system in our rotation. Biggest screw up of the offseason. Especially considering that we no longer have Taylor. I agree. I hate to say it but I have a feeling this will bite the Skins in the tail this season. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibrahim Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 I agree. I hate to say it but I have a feeling this will bite the Skins in the tail this season. The thing is, we might draft a DE who turns out to be a beast and we end up not feeling Evans' absence. However, regardless of the outcome at DE, I just think the Redskins FO is making a big mistake building a team with absolutely no correlation between performance and compensation. This team, unless we get lucky, will continue to suffer until Vinny is fired. This man has no clue how to build a team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSO Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Does an extension = reward though, everytime? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illone Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Poor management = poor leadership = poor results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibrahim Posted April 16, 2009 Author Share Posted April 16, 2009 Does an extension = reward though, everytime? Unless the contract extension involves some type of a paycut in the new years added to the contract, then, yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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