5 Year Anniversary of Sean Taylor's Death: RIP #21

[pjfootballer]

He'd be in his 9th season this year.

[Rypien1191]

But that was the point of my post. He played the game clean, other than some out of bound shoves against select players like Eagles, TO, etc. His hits were clean, so I'm not sure why he would be fined. Look at even his most vicious hits. Shoulder leads, hits opponent in torso, almost never in head.

Plenty of clean hits today are getting flagged/fined. Look at the Seattle/Miami game last week where that bogus roughing the passer penalty took an INT off the board and helped Miami win the game. The game is 5 times softer than it was 5 years ago.

[kleese]

Life is so strange sometimes... IMO, if Sean Taylor is not murdered, RG3 is not a Redskin today. That event sent so many things in motion that landed us (for better or worse) where we are today.

[Rypien1191]

Life is so strange sometimes... IMO, if Sean Taylor is not murdered, RG3 is not a Redskin today. That event sent so many things in motion that landed us (for better or worse) where we are today.

I agree, I said that on twitter yesterday. Too many different things would've happened and we would not have been in position to get Robert. I've heard people saying Sean 'sent him to us'. Don't know if that's true but it's definitely an effect of what happened...

[The Robert Griffin Experience]

I've been thinking of writing something called "Sean Taylor Lives: Redskins Alternate History". It's basically a narrative of "what could have been", of course through B&G glasses lol. Of course, I'll probably never write it because it'd change so much history (for example, Taylor not getting injured in Philly means we win that game, beat Dallas, and split Tampa Bay and Buffalo, and probably end up with homefield, especially if we bench Campbell around the Bears game).

Basically the outline for 2007:

- (Point of Departure) Sean Taylor is not injured against Philadelphia (which means he and his family are not in Miami on November 26, 2007. The house is burglarized with nobody home.

- Sean Taylor's presence in the lineup means that the pass defense performs better against Philadelphia and Dallas, leading to the team being 7-3 going into Tampa Bay.

- The team splits those two games, and after an anemic first quarter against the Bears, Jason Campbell is benched for Todd Collins, who throws 2 touchdowns in 3 quarters for a 24-16 win.

- The Redskins finish the season on a 3-0 run, sweeping Dallas for the first time since 2005, and securing a divisional title at 12-4. Sean Taylor finishes with 11 INTs and 4 fumbles forced, while being the best player on the 4th ranked defense in the NFL, and edges out Bob Sanders for Defensive Player of the Year.

- Washington secures a first round bye with their 12-4 record, and face the Giants in the divisional round, winning 12-4. However, they barely lose to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship, as their offense, finally sputters and the defense cannot compensate.

2008: With Joe Gibbs returning for his 5th season, Jason Campbell enters the season as the starter, and while he plays mistake free football behind a power running game of Clinton Portis, leading to a 7-1 record at the bye week, it is clear that the offensive line is aging, Clinton Portis is slowing down, and the offense is bereft of impact talent. The team sputters to a 3-5 finish, and their playoff hopes are briefly in doubt (Taylor saves the day in week 16 with a 48 yard INT return against the Bengals that pushes them to 9-6, securing a wild card at worst, and the defense ranks in the top 5 for the second straight year, with the Taylor/Landry safety combo becoming by far the league's most dominant). The Redskins face the Minnesota Vikings in the wildcard round, but lose, getting shut out 13-0.

Gibbs retires after that, and GW gets the coaching job. This turns out to be a big mistake as he loses the team in week 9, the playcalling is awful, there's internal clashes with Saunders and Buges, all ending in a 4-12 finish. Sherman Smith is brought in as an offensive consultant:

2010, Shanny comes in and they commit to a full rebuild, trading guys for draft picks and cutting popular guys from the Gibbs era (in this alternate history, if you think the fans hate Shanny now, get a load of when he's trading a still productive Cooley for a 3rd rounder and a still productive Carter for a 4th, while still going to a 3-4. 2010 and 2011 actually proceed more or less as they did in reality (we don't trade for McNabb, so we start Rex for 2010 and 2011, while mostly playing young players. We regress badly on defense in 2010, but post a top 15 defense in 2011 in year 2 of the 3-4 (sadly this is with Haslett, though we keep Spanos around by promising him the "DC in waiting" role) In 2012 with Taylor, Landry, Fletcher and Moss as the last veterans of that 2007 that went to the NFCCG, we draft RGIII, trading #5 in 2012, our 2012 2nd rounder, our 2013 first, and a 2014 1st, same as the one we paid) to move up to #2 to draft him.

In this alternate history we're currently 9-2 (losing only to Atlanta and Pittsburgh), with a top 10 offense and defense and RGIII is up for MVP honors, Sean is up for DPOY honors again leading the league in INTs and is on his way to another Pro Bowl and Mike is up for coach of the year.

Hey, it's fun to dream, no?

Life is so strange sometimes... IMO, if Sean Taylor is not murdered, RG3 is not a Redskin today.

It comes down to whether Shanahan is coaching the Redskins in the post Gibbs era. We're going to have to blow the team up in 2009 no matter what, and someone's going to take the fall guy. And because of that, even with Sean Taylor on the team, we're probably going to be godawful in 2010 and 2011, especially if Shanahan decides that he needs to blow it up to the foundations the moment he comes in, instead of trying to win a few extra games with McNabb. Also, Shanny's not going to reach for Gabbert or Locker, though we might end up with Cam but i doubt we'll be THAT godawful.

Now, with Sean and a healthy Laron at SS, our defenses won't be as bad as in 2010, but in this scenario there's no McNabb trade (because Shanny respects GW more than Zorn and thus won't conclude that the team went 4-12 solely because Zorn was that bad of a coach, and thus will be more committed to an immediate teardown), so we're starting Rex, and while Rex moves the ball, he'll turn the ball over a lot and make us lose a lot of games, enough that we'll largely have similar records in 2010 and 2011 (if anything, we also end up with J.J Watt or Aldon Smith because we didn't trade the picks, or we end up with even more draft picks since we'll be trading for a lower pick, oh btw we don't have Rak in this timeline because we were 10-6 in 2008 and not 8-8, though maybe we draft Percy Harvin?)

And in 2012, if Shanny doesn't have a QB and he's in the top 8, RGIII is a Redskin in any alternate history timeline. He will trade the picks. I think Shanny would have thrown in 2015 picks if he had to.

So in this alternate history, we have a core of RGIII, Morris, Trent, Monty, Garcon and Percy Harvin? on offense, just like today, but our defense is Sean, Landry (unless he still messes up his achilles), Fletch (declining), Riley, Cofield, Bowen, one of Watt or Aldon Smith).