The Wisdom of Mark May

[RichmondRedskins]

Hi Everyone,

I never post here (as I'm sure you regulars can tell), but I've been a lurker for quite some time. I was going through some of the Post articles from earlier this season, and came across this piece dated 10/10/01. I wonder if Mark has changed his mind???

"Former Redskin Mark May said there is a major difference between Gibbs's 1981 squad, of which he was a member, and Schottenheimer's 2001 Redskins.

"This can't be fixed. Period," said May, now an ESPN football analyst. "You're looking at a team that is dismal -- with no depth, no talent, no leadership. . . . The Redskins of 1981, we were competitive every week. It was a matter of when [we would win]. And when we won our first game, we knew we'd win a lot more."

Over the past 5 victories, but seen nothing BUT talent, depth, and leadership. I'd be curious to hear his opinion NOW.

GO SKINS!!!

Clay

[bulldog]

Mark May and John Riggins have been very hard on the Redskins since leaving the team.

Whether it is a personal axe to grind or just a way of making a living being a yuckster I don't know.

But to their credit you don't see career ex-Cowboys like Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman out there ripping the team and seemingly gleeful about their fall from grace.

At some point your pride in organization and identification, especially in Riggins' case as a Hall of Fame Redskin should lead him to a less caustic public view of the team in my opinion.

[Darth Tater]

Originally posted by bulldog:

Mark May and John Riggins have been very hard on the Redskins since leaving the team.

Whether it is a personal axe to grind or just a way of making a living being a yuckster I don't know.

But to their credit you don't see career ex-Cowboys like Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman out there ripping the team and seemingly gleeful about their fall from grace.

At some point your pride in organization and identification, especially in Riggins' case as a Hall of Fame Redskin should lead him to a less caustic public view of the team in my opinion.

The last couple of times I've seen Riggo, he's been negative but seems to be staying that way due to superstions (as long as he's raging the team, they seem to keep doing good)

[bulldog]

Well, the last time I tuned in he still was on the fence over whether Marty should stay or not.

I have gone hot and cold with Marty as we all have during the roller coaster ride, it was almost impossible not to.

But to hatchet the man in the back each step of the way as Riggins did and then fail to give him props for making changes and jumping this team back among the living to me seems a little ungracious of old #44.

John is a funny guy and he likes to entertain people. God knows what he would do if given an hour of free mike time on a national network

One thing, though on a serious note. Both John Riggins and Joe Theismann achieved success late in their careers. From 1976 to 1982 with the Redskins these two only managed to appear in ONE playoff game before the strike shortened season.

And when John cuts on Marty for ONLY having made it to 3 Championship games over the years and not winning the Super Bowl, I think he is being a little on the nasty side.

Even with his career yardage, it is easy to imagine at age 32 and with 10 years in the league that Riggins was going to go out a very good back that never won anything.

So, for him to be that cutthroat with Marty over Marty's record is a little two-faced.

[Fitz]

I think John has problems with Marty's personality and methods more than anything else. He has admitted as much on his WTEM and "Redskins Report" appearances, saying that his aversion to authoritarian types is probably coloring his assessment of Marty unfairly.

As for Mark May, I can't really blame him for saying what he did. After all, we were saying practically the same thing on this board; I can remember Mick starting a thread asking to stop the comparisons between Marty's 0-5 start and Gibbs' 0-5 start, because at least we were competetive in '81, etc. I know bulldog posted similar sentiments, and I think most of us were in complete agreement. I know I was. Of course, we're not ex-players and have no debt to the organization, but these guys are paid analysts now and they owe it to their respective media employers to give their honest opinions.

The bottom line is, nobody saw this coming, even those of us that felt we'd eventually start turning things around.

[redman]

A sampling of posts from six weeks ago:

http://www.extremeskins.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003553.html

Mick's 0-5 comparison thread

http://www.extremeskins.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/003703.html

Believe me, there are plenty more with basically the same flavor for you to sample.

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"Loosen up, Sandy baby. You're just too damn tight!" - John Riggins to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

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"I fear we've awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve."

- Japanese Imperial Admiral Yamamoto, after hearing that the Japanese declaration of war failed to reach the U.S. government before the attack upon Pearl Harbor

[Skins57]

I seen a line by NAvy Dave that should have summed it all up

"Well he has matched Gibbs 0-5 mark lets see if he adjusts the offensive gameplan"

SO even Gibbs didn't match the 5-0 run that this team is doing. SO when everyone said the starts are not comparable, they are now very right.

Hail Skins

[TennesseeCarl]

Of course there was my post at the start of exhibition:

"I believe this team will struggle throughout the exhibition, losing most of their games. The offensive line isn't set and Marty hasn't got the players on board. It may be that we'll be wishing pre-season extended well into the regular season. This is the sort of team that will take time to gel. Once it does, however, we'll run off an impressive string of wins led largely by - of all things - our defense vs. the run."

I can't find the actual link to that one so I'm relying largely on memory.

[OrangeSkin]

I think since Riggo took up that gig on Redskin Report, he's kind of lost some love from 'Skins fans. He made some really dumb comments about Irving Fryar, which was absolutely ridiculous. He's made some bad comments about the orginization since he's been on there. I loved the guy when he was a Skin. I wish he would realize that he's losing love from 'Skins fans. I admire what he did as a player, but it seems like he has an axe to grind now. Having former players on shows about their former teams isn't a good idea. Commentators? Sure. I don't know about prognosticators though.

[Art]

The Gibbs years are a happy time. But, anyone telling you the Redskins were playing in overly close games during the 0-5 stretch is not telling the truth. The closest loss during the stretch was 10 points. The Redskins were outscored 149-77. Now, nothing compares to Marty's 0-5 in terms of worst performances by our team, but, hell, he even coached this team to surrender fewer points through five weeks (144).

Gibbs turned it around, as did Marty. They did it in different ways, as I still recall thinking Gibbs was a genius and I still wonder why Marty isn't quite that bright. But, Marty is adapting and growing within the team and the players in each game. Perhaps it was wrong for us to assume during his two years away from the game that he was actually watching the game and paying attention to the players he had, because it seems pretty clear he's learning what they can do as he goes along this year .

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Doom is in the box.

[NavyDave]

I'm sure Mark May will wash down his helping of humble pie with Marty KoolAid if we end up with a winning season.

The first five weeks did test the faith and had some revisionists clamoring for the era of Norv but patience has paid off.

However this isnt the time to say we have ccomplihed anything. We are just treading water at .500.

Win the winnable games first then you will see those big grins and people tryin to recoup their tickets.

[gbear]

Personally, I think Riggins would be excellent replaceing Dennis Miller on mOnday night football.

[joe]

Riggins has opened his 5:30 WTEM show (on Fridays and Mondays) with a comments about sticking his foot in his mouth pretty much since the Seattle win. Riggins said that he has been slow to jump on Marty's bandwagon strickly because of his highly negative comments in earlier weeks. He does not believe that he should just swing around quickly because then he will be accused of being a fair weather fan. Riggins critisism was not without merit. Shottenheimer was too General Patton-like and was in danger of losing the players. Somehow Marty found his way out of that. As they continue to win, Riggins will give his respect. He is, I believe, man enough to admit his mistakes.

BTW Riggins would be great in the MNF booth, and I predict he will be there someday.

[@DCGoldPants]

anyone is better than those two smacks they got with Michaels. I can't stand Miller anymore. I used to think he was funny but he's not doing anything new and he's a bandwagon fan who's got a Mic in the booth. Always with the favorites.

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<IMG SRC="http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20011125/amdf91063.jpg" border=0> -"Give it up for the Comeback kid!"

[bulldog]

Fouts is lost in the broadcast booth. Miller and Michaels completely overshadow him and in recent weeks Miller has started to take over when talking about the X's and O's on the field, isn't that Fouts' job as the ex-NFLer?

Fouts is too mild-mannered and bland. They need someone with some more fire to play off of Miller. Michaels is what he always has been, a well-prepared and rehearsed commentator. But he is not going to be the alter-ego for Miller that would make the show more entertaining.

The biggest problem with Riggins is that eventually he would say something REALLY stupid on the air. John is funny and can have an audience laughing and then all of a sudden he gets TOO comfortable and starts rambling on and then.......out comes the regrettable statement.

A couple of years ago someone asked Sonny Jurgensen about Riggins on a national broadcast gig as a commentator and he said network execs thought Riggins was too big a risk in terms of what he might say.....They felt John didn't do a good enough job of censoring himself.

After watching him in DC since 1976 when he got here, tell me something I didn't know