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The House that Bruce Built


Voice_of_Reason

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I am all for Bruce Almighty as GM.  Firmly believe we are now better off than at any point under the Cerrato regime.  Yes, many things still have to be proved, but like the direction we are heading, and hope Gruden works out.

 

I was lukewarm to Gruden, as I was for most of the candidates that were being mentioned publically. I do think that Gruden was the #1 target for HC by Bruce...if so then he did get his man.  I was impressed with many things our new coach said...one was that he listens to input from players and coaches WRT plays and such.  He is not locked into "his" system, and not afraid to try something new.  That is a breath of fresh air I think. 

 

I was a little disheartened that Haz was retained (at least for now)....but things could go the same was for Haz as they did for Phillips in Houston.  I certainly would hire Phillips for DC if we plan on keeping the 3-4 defense. 

 

But I get the impression that the coaches that were released were Mike lackeys, and the coaches that were retained may have been subjected to Mike's apparent micromanagement of every aspect of the team.  In addition to the fact that Gruden and Haz have a positive history together.....

 

Gruden said the other day that no coaching position (other than HC) had been settled on....so we will see if the initial reports of the coaching tree for the Skins is accurate, or if Gruden comes in with other names to fill key coaching slots on his staff.

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With each passing season over the past 20 years, I find myself becoming more cynical about our beloved team.  Doesn't matter if its a new coach, new front office, new players, draft, etc.  All I want is a consistent product.  Until that happens, I'll remain the same.  Heck, I've only visited ES a dozen or so times over the last year or two as my lack of passion for details fades.

 

Sadly, I feel very much the same. I've been following the team since '87, I've seen almost every game since then, and I will of course continue to follow them. I admit I've tried a few times to start following other teams and to forget about the Redskins, but I can never follow another team for more than a few games, and I can never make myself miss a single Redskins game. Despite this, my level of passion, as you say, has definitely dropped over time.

 

Then in 2012, for the first time in a long time, I really felt it. Even early on when we were losing, I felt it. I was excited to just watch the team play. Wins and losses were somewhat irrelevant. But when we went on the winning streak which led to the playoffs, I thought "finally! We're back!" It was probably the most optimistic I've felt about the team and its future since the early '90s. It felt like there was a curse, and it had been broken.

 

What I've taken from that excitement juxtaposed against where we are now is that it's not even worth thinking about the future, that doing so is a foolish game. In fact, my plan is to not even start thinking about Gruden as head coach, nor his coordinators, until the season starts. And even then I only plan to watch and see how things go.

 

I've watched and listened to Gruden enough over the last week or so to realize that he certainly addresses what Bruce Allen perceives as the problems. Gruden is personable, charismatic, inspiring, organized, detail-focused, etc. I think he's likeable. But who knows if that will translate into wins.

 

If Bruce has our problems correctly identified, then I think Gruden may end up being a really, really smart hire. But, as I said, I'm not going to bother to predict or think about the future because this could very well just be a Sisyphean swing. It's, sadly, easy to think that if we lose for the next few years, our next coach might be the counter to Gruden -- and we'd all think "finally!"

 

I will say this about the future and in agreement with the original post: this is Bruce's house. He's built it. Winning or losing will happen from here, maybe regardless of Bruce's decisions, maybe because of them. But if we lose, then that will be it for Allen. No bump to president or whatever. I'm sure Snyder and Allen have talked about it. I'm sure Snyder let Allen know that he needs to produce a winner. I believe if nothing changes and it's two, maybe three years later, that Snyder flushes the front office and starts over again -- new GM, new scouts, new coaches, clean slate. Who knows what that will look like, but it will happen.

 

On the other hand, if we can hover *around* 10-6 or better (Gruden's bar for a good team), then I think that result says Allen was right, he figured it out, he deserves the credit and job security, it says he put the right people in the right positions, and then maybe fans like me can finally drop our guard.

Edited by bobisimo
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I don't know how Allen gets so much love around here for his work.  Yes, love him for the George Allen connection, but the team he built in Tampa was straight up garbage.  And this coaching hire just reeks of cronyism and not merit.  Maybe I'm wrong and this ends up excellently, but the last time Allen, Gruden, and Haslett were all together they ended up deconstructing the team Dungy built in tampa.

 

And that had nothing to do with ownership? You are talking Glazers, which in SWFL is practically calling someone an a-hole. Profanity filter apparently does not catch the full spelling? 

Edited by SWFLSkins
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Absolutely Allen goes if this thing fails.  If he had run a proper coaching search then maybe not, but that was a farce of a search.  If you're so dead set on a candidate then you live or die with them.  He chose his friend over great candidates, if you're wrong with that then you deserve to lose your job.

  

Absolutely. As much as people refuse to admit we have a proper football structure in place, we do. And the buck stops with him. 

 

Going ALL in on his guy I can't see any other outcome in that scenario for him to survive. 

 

Hail.

  

I really don't think the search was a farce. But I do think they had targeted Jay Gruden from the beginning. I also believe that if they hadn't made a move with Gruden when they did, he'd have gotten the offer in Tennessee, and Allen might have had to rely on a choice that he didn't feel as comfortable with.

Searches are about availability and timing as much as anything, and I don't think the team wanted to continue to wait until the SB to hire a coach.

Sometimes circumstances force your had a little bit.

I'm not particular enamored with Bruce being the GM at all...want him elevated to a team pres. position and for a real personnel guy GM to come in.  I hope it works out though, can't take much more of the failures. Please work, somehow! hail!

  

See, if you take titles out, that's exactly what you have. Bruce is the guy in charge, and everybody works for him. Period. Whether he's the President or GM, the title doesn't really matter.

He's already said that his personnel guy (assuming that he doesn't go to Tampa) is Morroco Brown, and he said that he trusts Scott Campbell to "run the draft board as well as any personnel person in the league." So, I think he's clearly stating that he's not going to be the talent guy. He's the overall boss, and he's going to let his guys do the picking of players.

I'm not enthusiastic about him, because he is Snyder's yes man and he was a GM subordinate to his HC. From now on we will see if his house is built with cardboards or with solid concrete & steel.

  

If he was a yes-man, we wouldn't have Gruden as HC. We might have given complete control to Cowher, or paid Jon Gruden $10M a year.

Glazers or not, you can't say his drafts were even near respectable.

Sometimes people get better with experience. He has a second chance, so we'll see.

Also, I don't think he's going to be picking the roster. I really think that Campbell, Brown and the coaching staff will be doing the player selecting, and Bruce will be doing contracts.

-----------------------------------

All that said, in my original post, I didn't advocate or state that I think Bruce was the right choice. Simply pointed out that he is THE guy. And we will have to wait and see how this whole thing turns out.

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If he was a yes-man, we wouldn't have Gruden as HC. We might have given complete control to Cowher, or paid Jon Gruden $10M a year.

 

We paid Shanahan $7 millions/year and Allen had nothing to say or to do about it. That's the first time I saw a GM being subordinated to someone below him, by his owner.

What kind of message are you sending here ?

Having Gruden as a head coach is no guarantee of success, his NFL record is not impressive at all, only time will tell if he was the right choice or not. Cowher was never a candidate he said he doesn't want to coach again, and keeps on repeating it year in year out since 2007. Same thing with Gruden.

Snyder made Shanahan the HC with the most powers ever seen in the NFL, even more than Bellicheat. What did Bruce did about this, except signing his contract and agreeing with Snyder, nothing. Sometimes I was wondering is he still alive ?, what was he doing ?

Edited by FrFan
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Absolutely. As much as people refuse to admit we have a proper football structure in place, we do. And the buck stops with him. 

 

Going ALL in on his guy I can't see any other outcome in that scenario for him to survive. 

 

Hail. 

 

He's a politician masquerading as a General Manager.

 

There's a reason politicians are re-elected, and it's rarely because they are doing a good job.

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I do want to point out a couple things, so far as Morocco Brown and Scott Campbell are concerned.  

 

With the exception of Jim Zorn, we've had coaches who have had varied control over personnel.  Steve Spurrier basically picked his own offensive players.  Joe Gibbs was given personnel power.  Vinny Cerrato regained Snyder's confidence, and subsequently lost it and was fired, during the Zorn debacle.  One of Shanahan's big sticking points in coming to Washington was having that personnel power, and not having Snyder interfering.  

 

Obviously, that has not worked out.  Under Shanahan, we did get better at scouting and drafting players.  However, I credit that to actually keeping most of our draft picks, instead of trading them all like we did in the past.  Any front office will draft players and you will have a mix of solid players, busts and great players.  However, when you are limited with draft picks, you try and make the most of them, go with boom or bust players, and we just got the bust players.  

 

That is one thing I will credit Shanahan for, and that is leaving us with depth.  During Gibbs and Zorn, we did not have that depth, but we had the horses at the top end of the roster.  Under Shanahan, we may not have the top end talent, especially in the secondary, defensive line and receiver, but we have a lot more depth than we had in a decade.  

 

I'm confident moving forward with our front office the way it is structured.  My concern is with who we picked as the head coach to lead this club.  

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I don't know how Allen gets so much love around here for his work. Yes, love him for the George Allen connection, but the team he built in Tampa was straight up garbage. And this coaching hire just reeks of cronyism and not merit. Maybe I'm wrong and this ends up excellently, but the last time Allen, Gruden, and Haslett were all together they ended up deconstructing the team Dungy built in tampa.

If the guy's last name were Sneferato or Wilkinstein NOBODY would want a guy with his resume having final say on the roster.

Allen is a great PR move by Snyder, but a lousy football hire. Vinny part Deux.

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Absolutely. As much as people refuse to admit we have a proper football structure in place, we do. And the buck stops with him. 

 

Going ALL in on his guy I can't see any other outcome in that scenario for him to survive. 

 

Hail. 

 

See, I'm not sure you have to fire Allen if Gruden fails. It certainly goes on his record and he would be accountable, but does that mean that he's automatically fired? I don't think it's all that common that GMs lose their jobs if their first coaching selection doesn't pan out.

 

Allen/GM is the level that I think you want to maintain continuity. Certainly if he goes 0-3 over his career here in selecting coaches, then you'd have to probably move on (or consider it), but everything rolls up to a higher level in my opinion. Firing Allen after one coach's tenure would be the equivalent to firing a coach after one season. 

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Snyder made Shanahan the HC with the most powers ever seen in the NFL, even more than Bellicheat. What did Bruce did about this, except signing his contract and agreeing with Snyder, nothing. Sometimes I was wondering is he still alive ?, what was he doing ?

Bruce Allen coexisted in Oakland as Al Davis' "GM" for many many years and we know who did the drafting and trading there, then followed Gruden to Tampa 2 years after Gruden won the Sb there (Basically Gruden hooked him up with a cush job) and who do you think was really making the decisions? Shanahan has made all of them for 4 years and thats why Allen can claim no blame and keep his job now. Who do you think is making them now? Allen has said basically that he will go along with what the coach and personnel department want, is that what a GM does? I am positive 100% thats not how Beathard did it. Does this mean Allen has an easy out when this doesn't work out as well? Does this sound like Vinny 2.0 yet?

I guess we will see, then when it backfires we can pretend that we really did have a GM and it didn't work so why not have a few more years of Snyder Fantasy Football League in 2017.

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I guess we will see, then when it backfires we can pretend that we really did have a GM and it didn't work so why not have a few more years of Snyder Fantasy Football League in 2017.

That's what I fear the most in a matter of speaking, 20 years of fantasy football. I'm not sold on Allen/Gruden, but still hope to be proven wrong.

Edited by FrFan
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Zorn: Up-and comer, off of the Walsh/Holmgren tree, Reid made a similar move to Philly, from QB coach to HC/OC. Seemed very personable and honest. 

 

 

 

 

The minute he uttered, "Maroon, black, and yellow" I knew we were in trouble. That combined with Cerrato basically admitting that nobody else would take the job so he promoted a newly-hired coordinator to HC? Come on now.

 

That was the freakiest hire in football history... until we found another coach calling Bingo on weekends.

Edited by Chachie
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I like the Gruden hire, but with Whiz now signing with the Titans, meaning that he was not a done deal to the Lions all along, Bruce failing to let the process play out and do his due diligence could really come back to haunt him. If Gruden fails, especially with a bunch of former Tampa and AFL/UFL castoffs and Allen holdovers surrounding him, perception will rightfully be that Bruce sabotaged his own search for the best available coach in favor of hiring a buddy.

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Absolutely Allen goes if this thing fails. If he had run a proper coaching search then maybe not, but that was a farce of a search. If you're so dead set on a candidate then you live or die with them. He chose his friend over great candidates, if you're wrong with that then you deserve to lose your job.

What great candidate did you want them to vett that they ignored? Gruden was next OC in this league to get a gig and a lot of teams were interested in him. When making important decisions people fallback on who and what they are most comfortable with. It is how the world works. It doesn't mean They did not make the best hire. Fit and chemistry are important when crafting a roster, they are equally important when building a staff.

Edited by TheCoach22
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What great candidate did you want them to vett that they ignored? 

Fangio? Roman? Whisenhunt?

 

I agree that fit and chemistry are important when deciding on a coach, but from the outside looking in, it sure looks like Allen may have jumped the gun a bit. Still, it's possible that Wisenhunt put out notice that he had no interest in the job (I believe I read somewhere that this was the case for Zimmer, but I admit I may have just dreamed that), and they didn't want to risk having to wait until after the Super Bowl to bring in another coach. 

 

We're going to have to trust Allen and Gruden here, because what else can we do? However, I can definitely see why someone would have some reservations, and why they would not be all-in right now.

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I guess we will see, then when it backfires we can pretend that we really did have a GM and it didn't work so why not have a few more years of Snyder Fantasy Football League in 2017.

This is an often repeated mantra that I don't understand.  

 

About the only thing good that came out of the hiring of Bruce Allen and Shanahan is that the 'Skins stopped behaving like a fantasy football team, paying huge amounts of money to free agents, and locking them up for years past their prime.

 

That's not Bruce's style, and he said so when he was hired.  

 

You can agree/disagree with the players that they have selected over the past 4 years, but there have only been 2 spashy singings, and both were through the draft: McNabb and RGIII.  None of the FAs they brought in really were big names or big deals.  And when one didn't work out, like Morgan, 2 years later he's gone with no cap penalty to speak of.  This is very different than the way things used to be. 

 

I have written at length about how while I didn't like the McNabb trade, I understood why they did it.  When you looked around the league, if you didn't get the #1 pick in the draft (Bradford) the rest of the class stunk: Tebow, Jimmy Clausen, McCoy, Kafta, Skelton and Crompton where the first off the board. FA wasn't much better, with Kyle Orton, Pennington, Matt Moore, Derek Anderson, Jake Delhomme and Marc Bulger as the "big" names.  McNabb was comming off of 2 pretty good years, throwing for 3200+ yards and 20 TDs each. So, I can understand taking a shot on him, given the other choices.  My preference would have been to sign one of the others for cheap and just acknowledge sucking.  But I understand the desire to at least be competitive while rebuilding.

 

I don't see the team as free-wheeling spending any more.  I think that really has changed.  But the perception remains.

 

The minute he uttered, "Maroon, black, and yellow" I knew we were in trouble. That combined with Cerrato basically admitting that nobody else would take the job so he promoted a newly-hired coordinator to HC? Come on now.

 

That was the freakiest hire in football history... until we found another coach calling Bingo on weekends.

Yeah, I the pair of tweedle-dumb and tweedle-dumber doomed everybody to failure, and then adding the bingo caller was just insult to injury.

 

I like the Gruden hire, but with Whiz now signing with the Titans, meaning that he was not a done deal to the Lions all along, Bruce failing to let the process play out and do his due diligence could really come back to haunt him. If Gruden fails, especially with a bunch of former Tampa and AFL/UFL castoffs and Allen holdovers surrounding him, perception will rightfully be that Bruce sabotaged his own search for the best available coach in favor of hiring a buddy.

I don't know if Bruce should have let things play out or not.  But, what I do know is that he had to make a decision without the benefit of hindsight.  

 

Here's the thing: What if the 'Skins passed on Gruden, and he immediately signed with Tenn. And then Whiz does what is anticipated and signs with Detroit...  

 

Now your #1 choice and probable #2 are off the table, and the rest of the folks are either probably not your ideal choice, or still coaching.

 

As the guy in charge, and this thread is about Bruce being in charge, he made a decision to hire Gruden.  

 

And he's going to have to own that responsibility and decision forever.  It's on him.  

 

Yeah, I'm getting a bit scared now. Jay Gruden is a good hire on his merits - but so was Kyle Shanahan. Haslett as DC obviously scares me. I'm worried that Allen is a classic nepotist, and someone who's not results-based. That was the problem with Shanny, and I hope it won't be a problem with Bruce.

Kyle is going to go somewhere this year or next and have a top 5 offense.  

 

I don't think that we've seen anything about how Bruce is going to operate. Sure, he's getting folks he's familiar with.  But it's really his head on the chopping block, and I'm pretty sure that unlike Shanahan, who really wanted to do things his way over anything else, I think Bruce just wants to win. And he'll do what he thinks is best to win.  

 

Fangio? Roman? Whisenhunt?

 

I agree that fit and chemistry are important when deciding on a coach, but from the outside looking in, it sure looks like Allen may have jumped the gun a bit. Still, it's possible that Wisenhunt put out notice that he had no interest in the job (I believe I read somewhere that this was the case for Zimmer, but I admit I may have just dreamed that), and they didn't want to risk having to wait until after the Super Bowl to bring in another coach. 

 

We're going to have to trust Allen and Gruden here, because what else can we do? However, I can definitely see why someone would have some reservations, and why they would not be all-in right now.

At the point when the hire was made, all of the guys that you mentioned were still coaching.  I believe 2 of them still are.  

 

I don't know if Bruce made the right call or not.  We'll find that out in a few years. But I think he jumped on the guy he liked the most, and didn't want to wait, and didn't want to have to settle for a backup choice.

 

Look at Detroit right now.  There is NO QUESTION that they went to a backup choice because for whatever reason, they couldn't get Whiz to come there.  If that happened here, and Gruden went somewhere else, Whiz ended up in Detroit, and they had to settle on Caldwell, we'd have thrown a fit. 

 

Btw, the fact that Detoit went with Caldwell over any of the other coordinators is telling.  They could have waited around also, and chose not to.  So could Tenn.  

 

I think the lesson is, if you like somebody snatch them, or else they'll be gone and you're going to be out of options. 

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At the point when the hire was made, all of the guys that you mentioned were still coaching.  I believe 2 of them still are.  

 

I don't know if Bruce made the right call or not.  We'll find that out in a few years. But I think he jumped on the guy he liked the most, and didn't want to wait, and didn't want to have to settle for a backup choice.

 

Look at Detroit right now.  There is NO QUESTION that they went to a backup choice because for whatever reason, they couldn't get Whiz to come there.  If that happened here, and Gruden went somewhere else, Whiz ended up in Detroit, and they had to settle on Caldwell, we'd have thrown a fit. 

 

Btw, the fact that Detoit went with Caldwell over any of the other coordinators is telling.  They could have waited around also, and chose not to.  So could Tenn.  

 

I think the lesson is, if you like somebody snatch them, or else they'll be gone and you're going to be out of options. 

 

Actually, I admitted in my post that it was possible Allen didn't want to wait until possibly after the Super Bowl to get a coach. Also, it was possible that Whisenhunt put out some notice that he wasn't interested in the job. I just hope the gamble turns out to be worth it. I can see your point that you think it would've been a bigger gamble to risk being out of options and having to go with someone on staff. I just happen to think it may have been worth it to at least have met with one or two guys this week before making the decision. Who knows, you might have really found something there.

 

This FO has not earned any benefit of the doubt, regardless of how much control Shanahan may have had. I think a healthy skepticism is warranted here, and would be so even if they had hired Whisenhunt, or anybody else. Hopefully it all works out.

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Gruden is as good a football coach as any of the other candidates beside perhaps Caldwell. No better, but no worse. I think the difference he makes is that he's got the stones to back men down. 

 

I want someone young, mean, and consistent. If he "fails" he won't be the first and it will wake more people up to the notion that he won't be the last.

 

This begs another question- What do we consider a fail? No Super Bowl? Obviously no playoffs but that gray area in between is a sliding scale.

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We paid Shanahan $7 millions/year and Allen had nothing to say or to do about it. That's the first time I saw a GM being subordinated to someone below him, by his owner.

What kind of message are you sending here ?

Having Gruden as a head coach is no guarantee of success, his NFL record is not impressive at all, only time will tell if he was the right choice or not. Cowher was never a candidate he said he doesn't want to coach again, and keeps on repeating it year in year out since 2007. Same thing with Gruden.

Snyder made Shanahan the HC with the most powers ever seen in the NFL, even more than Bellicheat. What did Bruce did about this, except signing his contract and agreeing with Snyder, nothing. Sometimes I was wondering is he still alive ?, what was he doing ?

Really?  So you've never heard of Mike Holmgren, Bill Parcells (If they want me to cook the meal, I should shop for the groceries) or Marty Schottenheimer?  All came in with the caveat that they are the "GM" even when there was a GM on staff.  They just changed the name to Director of Player Personnel.  Hell, Bill Parcells basically relieved Jerrah Jones of his GM duties for 4 years and became Parcells "subordinate" in title.

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He's a politician masquerading as a General Manager.

 

There's a reason politicians are re-elected, and it's rarely because they are doing a good job.

First time we've been in this structure since the Beathard/Casserly days.  Some of you are so negative that you are already in the mindset that we are doomed to fail forever.  I think we should at least give this a chance to succeed or fail before declaring anything. I mean, what other choice do we have?  You could say hire a GM from the outside, but do you guys know that GMs in sports don't just sit in an office and go, "yes, no, no, yes, yes."  They have guys around them (scouts, guys like Brown and Campbell) that they have meetings with to ultimately make decisions.  Every GM in the NFL just doesn't make up their own minds.  They have teams in the FO that make decisions for the team. It's not just one guy making all the decisions.  Remember, everyone who works for a private company has a boss. GMs are no different.  They can't just go around making decisions without input from others. 

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...  Some of you are so negative that you are already in the mindset that we are doomed to fail forever. ..

 

LOL where am I being negative.

 

I'm actually quite agnostic as it applies to Bruce Allen.

 

It doesn't mean that I don't think he has a good chance of being a teflon Don if things go sideways.

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