Washington Post:- DHall: Jim Haslett was 'handcuffed' in his play-calling.

[madden lot]

Good summing up.

It speaks volumes that Reed Doughty is still here, doesn't it?

Reed Doughty was a plan B pick up, so, whenever he choose to retire he'll

automatically be eligible for the hall of fame.

[pjfootballer]

If the defense looks horrible, handcuff him to a radiator in the dorms.

[War Paint]

Lorenzo Alexander was on ESPN 980 a few days ago and pretty much agreed with DHall's comment about Haslett being handcuffed.  I found that interesting since Lorenzo doesn't play for the Redskins anymore.

[darrelgreenie]

On which show? I missed it.

[skins island connection]

 In all fairness to Doughty,  he puts his best effort in the game. Yea, he's not good in coverage, but good in run D, so it boils down to him being put in positions that are not his best attributes.

 

 So, who is to blame for that? Injuries/suspensions did take their toll, but no reason to rag on Doughty, rag on the person who is supposed to have players skilled in positions to step in; Haslett.

[AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy]

I don't care what Lorenzo has to say.  I don't care what DHall has to say.  I don't care if Shanny called every freakin' defensive play the past four years.

 

Our defense is incompetent and we're getting blasted on the field every single week.  Haslett is a big part of that problem and it is mind numbing that our FO was incompetent enough to keep him.  

[War Paint]

On which show? I missed it.

I think it was with Doc Walker. 

[Stormy]

If the D still reeks by week 6, that'll be enough for me

With all due respect, if you're willing to give him 6 weeks of subpar defense again, consider our season over. Last year, Haslett had already tanked the entire meaningful part of our season in 3 weeks. First 3 weeks his defense was giving up over 480 yards per game and 30+ points a game. Not coincidentally we were 0-3, and were in too big of a hole to ever recover, especially with a QB at 75% speed at best playing from WAY behind each week. If I had to guess, that is when Shanahan started taking the reigns again, for better or worse.

Another start like that in 2014, and the season will be over before it's begun, as will Jay Gruden's honeymoon.

[darrelgreenie]

In all fairness to Doughty, he puts his best effort in the game. Yea, he's not good in coverage, but good in run D, so it boils down to him being put in positions that are not his best attributes.

So, who is to blame for

doughty only plays SS. And he's a decent back-up in the box SS.

It's because of personnel issues (Shanahan the GM) that Doughty starts several games every season

[Stormy]

doughty only plays SS. And he's a decent back-up in the box SS.

It's because of personnel issues (Shanahan the GM) that Doughty starts several games every season

Shanahan mishandled DB personnel pretty miserably, but I can recall several SAF acquisitions and/or votes of confidence that had Haslett's fingerprints all over them, that went down in flames (such as Atogwe). To this day Haslett still talks about Reed's versatility as if he can play deep in a pinch, not to mention his rave preseason reviews of Rambo, and his usage of Biggers. Our defensive backfield debacles are as much of Haslett and Morris as they are on Shanny's GM duties, in my opinion.

[jflow78]

I just want to throw something out there.  You guys do realize that since Shanahan was given total control in Denver, his defenses have always sucked, right?  That was many people's main reason for supporting his hiring, saying that if Denver hadn't had such garbage defenses he would have won more championships. 

 

Well, that was when we thought the defenses were all his coordinator's fault, but now we're seeing that Mike had a large hand in creating and maintaining garbage defenses.  

 

Our problem is that Haslett too has a terrible history with his defenses, so in reality, it could be a draw.  We might be changing out a turd for another turd with a different stink.

[darrelgreenie]

Shanahan mishandled DB personnel pretty miserably, but I can recall several SAF acquisitions and/or votes of confidence that had Haslett's fingerprints all over them, that went down in flames (such as Atogwe). To this day Haslett still talks about Reed's versatility as if he can play deep in a pinch, not to mention his rave preseason reviews of Rambo, and his usage of Biggers. Our defensive backfield debacles are as much of Haslett and Morris as they are on Shanny's GM duties, in my opinion.

I'm confused. On one hand you are saying that Shanahan mishandled the DB personnel then you turn around and blame Haslett because he talks up Reed, Rambo and using Biggers a CB at FS?

I don't see how one statement follows the other. If you want to blame Haslett for OJ fine. But, Biggers is from Tampa that's a Bruce/Raheem guy, Rambo was a draft pick, Reed is a good player and he can play FS in a pinch. But the buck still stops with Mike on personnel.

[LD0506]

With all due respect, if you're willing to give him 6 weeks of subpar defense again, consider our season over. Last year, Haslett had already tanked the entire meaningful part of our season in 3 weeks. First 3 weeks his defense was giving up over 480 yards per game and 30+ points a game. Not coincidentally we were 0-3, and were in too big of a hole to ever recover, especially with a QB at 75% speed at best playing from WAY behind each week. If I had to guess, that is when Shanahan started taking the reigns again, for better or worse.

Another start like that in 2014, and the season will be over before it's begun, as will Jay Gruden's honeymoon.

 

I hear ya but I'm not going to have the fits, the ****s and blind staggers by halftime of week one, I'll leave that up to the gameday thread

[TSO]

I'm confused. On one hand you are saying that Shanahan mishandled the DB personnel then you turn around and blame Haslett because he talks up Reed, Rambo and using Biggers a CB at FS?

I don't see how one statement follows the other. If you want to blame Haslett for OJ fine. But, Biggers is from Tampa that's a Bruce/Raheem guy, Rambo was a draft pick, Reed is a good player and he can play FS in a pinch. But the buck still stops with Mike on personnel.

 

lol, "the buck stops with Mike on personnel"... welp, where did the "buck" start? Was the "buck" on a course shaped in anyway by others? That's the point he was making. And it's hard to believe there was any confusion about it. 

 

So this course the "buck" was on that stopped at Mike, of course, includes a bunch of other men who ARE STILL ON THIS TEAM and are, both, covertly and overtly absolving themselves of almost everything while so many follow. That needs to stop. 

 

It's funny, we can blame Haslett for OJ (Has is still here), Raheem and Bruce for Biggers (both Raheem and Bruce are still here), and Rambo the draft pick (in which Scott Campbell - WHO IS ALSO STILL HERE - was absolutely raving and bragging on him last offseason).... but yeaaaahhh the buck stops with Mike on personnel and that's that. It's like you wrote that statement so as to downplay their involvement. Is that what you were doing there, because if not, you certainly need to clear that up? Yup, like they had very little to do with anything those poor souls. Victims of the villainous Shanahan oppression. It's not like after the 2012 season, in which the team was looking great, they were ALL quick to talk about how much they all were involved in one way or another. Nope. 

 

You know what's more likely to be true? That, yes, Shanahan mishandled the DB situation... but he did so BY RELYING ON AND TRUSTING THOSE GUYS. Of course the buck stops with Shanahan, but it looks like to me he'd have had to ignore ALL OF THEIR INPUT to have handled the situation better. So, yeah, Shanahan mishandled some things (historic salary cap penalty definitely aids one to mishandle things as well). But a huge part of that "mishandling" was because he listened to the men who are still on this team who had a very significant hand in its failures. I'm tired of seeing post after post and comment after comment (including from the likes of Cooley) downplaying it.    

 

 

I'm not going to forget how Haslett was raving about Raheem's "substitutions of the secondary based on their strengths during the game" and the players saying how Haslett has been like a "mad scientist" coming up with creative gameplans during the run, in which when asked about that he didn't deny. I'm not going to forget both Brown and Campbell stating how it's been such a huge difference from the past with how involved they've been under Shanahan in scouting and how their input is valued. I'm not going to forget all of that because the team wants a new narrative pushed out there that Shanahan was this tyrant and absolutely everything that went wrong was on him. I'm not going to fall for Cooley's complete 180 on the Shanahan's now when all he would do about both Mike and Kyle before was praise them.

 

I'd prefer to listen to a guy like London Fletcher who has shown nothing but the highest form of character as a Redskin his entire career and was by far the accepted leader of the entire team, and pretty much trashed Cooley's opinions in one tweet, about things.           

 

Here's Scott's raving on Rambo if you're interested, with a surprise guest appearance from Olivadotti:

 

 

“Following him the last couple years, he was a really football player for them, in terms of just interceptions and making plays,” Campbell said. “And then this past year, Kirk Olivadotti [a former longtime Redskins defensive assistant] is down there. I know tons of people there because I’ve been going there for years, but with Kirk there putting in a lot of our defensive stuff, and they’re running a 3-4, also, it’s easier to envision a guy like that in your defense when they’re doing a lot of the same stuff we’re going to ask our guys to do.

 

“The first time I really, really was excited, man, when we met with him at the combine and we put him on the board and he started going through the defense. And he says: ‘You want me to tell you what the linebacker is doing here? The defensive end?’ He went through the whole thing, which a lot of the kids don’t do. He’s saying, ‘I could talk football with you guys all night long.’ He knew where the corners where supposed to be, what the linebackers were doing on that play. It was impressive. It was surprising, the depth of his knowledge of football, which shows he has a passion for it. He loves it.”

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/redskins-watch/2013/aug/5/audio-redskins-director-player-personnel-scott-cam/#ixzz2uGpwQxos

Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

 

lol, so even here we have Kirk Olivadotti (who is back here now) as well to blame for Rambo. This is actually pretty hilarious when you think about it. It's almost like THE LAST GUY making the decision here was Shanahan, who is gone. Yup, the buck certainly "stopped" with Mike, but that's about it. Everything else that dang buck did certainly wasn't Mike's doing, lol.       

So, like LL said, it's time the team moves on and stops using Shanahan as the excuse for pretty much everything. I want to hear more about how each of those individuals were accountable for what happened here and how they're going to do better moving forward. I don't want to hear about handcuffs anymore, it's all convenient excuses to me. Enough.

 

I'm utterly shocked at how many ESers here have fallen for this way of thinking hook, line and sinker. It's like we need it to believe in the team moving forward. I, for one, don't need to believe that crap. I can believe that Shanahan did a lot of good things here, including bringing in a lot of the young guys (like Rambo) that we have here who can still develop, and it flows more logically from that that the same guys who were here under Shanahan like Brown, Campbell, Raheem, etc... (hard to include Haslett in that group, lol) were heavily involved and will still do good things moving forward, under the guidance of a better coach in Jay Gruden (hopefully) from here on out.   

[darrelgreenie]

Sub-

If you are gonna launch a diatribe go ahead but you don't need to respond to a post about Reed Doughty's playing time being the fault of Haslett to do so.

Cheers-

[grego]

With all due respect, if you're willing to give him 6 weeks of subpar defense again, consider our season over. Last year, Haslett had already tanked the entire meaningful part of our season in 3 weeks. First 3 weeks his defense was giving up over 480 yards per game and 30+ points a game. Not coincidentally we were 0-3, and were in too big of a hole to ever recover, especially with a QB at 75% speed at best playing from WAY behind each week. If I had to guess, that is when Shanahan started taking the reigns again, for better or worse.

 

 

 

how was our offense doing the first 3 weeks of the season? our D was the reason we lost to the lions too?

 

interesting. 

 

i hope shanny was meddling in kyles offensive gameplan as well when our D was outscoring our O in the first half of games......

[grego]

 Yup, the buck certainly "stopped" with Mike, but that's about it. Everything else that dang buck did certainly wasn't Mike's doing, lol.       

So, like LL said, it's time the team moves on and stops using Shanahan as the excuse for pretty much everything. I want to hear more about how each of those individuals were accountable for what happened here and how they're going to do better moving forward. I don't want to hear about handcuffs anymore, it's all convenient excuses to me. Enough.

 

I'm utterly shocked at how many ESers here have fallen for this way of thinking hook, line and sinker. It's like we need it to believe in the team moving forward.

 

 

submitted- for one, i think its odd how you admit the buck stops with shanny, but then downplay it the very next sentence. 

 

secondly, like skinsinpariadise has said a couple of times in this thread- its not an all or nothing, one or the other argument, but some are making it out to be. you can think haslett is mediocre and want a more accomplished DC, while still recognizing shanny was a meddlesome control freak who probably made things worse.  

[Stormy]

tso,

That is an absolute home run of a post, and every fan who wants to have a view of the past and future that is grounded in reality should take the time to consider it. Otherwise, there is going to be a lot of disillusionment and angst when we see many of the same flawed processes and results moving forward.

It's definitely time to move forward as a fan base, and to turn our sights and hopes to the future. However, it's hard to do, because every time a member of the Redskins brass opens their mouth, they are peddling this revisionist narrative which absolves the holdover GM, scouting department leaders, and the returning staff from any blame. That's bush league BS, and it's inaccurate in the extreme.

I'd greatly prefer a GM, scouting department, and defensive staff that provided a true mea culpa, took a genuine look in the mirror at their own failures, and were devising ways to correct their own failures over the past 4 years. That's the way to turn things around, owning up to your role and correcting it. Instead we have Haslett doing a major blame shift and talking about how great things are now (it's been less than 2 months of non football activities and you'd think we just won the division rather than him having fun sessions sitting around talking football with his staff).

Last time I heard this much optimism from Haslett was the week before the season opener when he was gushing over how much time he had spent coming up with a brilliant scheme for the Eagles in week 1, and how much flexibility he was going to have with Rak and Merriweather returning to bolster the other 11 returning starters from last years division champs. 12 quarters, 1400+ yards allowed, and 100+ points later, our season was over. So, spare me Haslett's grandiose visions of improvement, I've heard them way too many times before.

[TSO]

submitted- for one, i think its odd how you admit the buck stops with shanny, but then downplay it the very next sentence. 

 

secondly, like skinsinpariadise has said a couple of times in this thread- its not an all or nothing, one or the other argument, but some are making it out to be. you can think haslett is mediocre and want a more accomplished DC, while still recognizing shanny was a meddlesome control freak who probably made things worse.  

 

The only problem with that is your "probably" there. It's not "probable". We simply have no idea who made what worse. Both Shanahan and Haslett have been at the forefront of poor to awful defense's before they were together, so there's no "probably", there's only a "maybe". That's the issue. If Haslett was completely left to his own devices, we really don't know whether or not he'd have even been worse. I don't buy the argument that anytime your boss micro-manages it's a bad thing. Sometimes, it's not. Now, we can blame Shanahan for having incompetent "managers" that he had to micro-manage, but we'd also have to remember that at 3-6 in 2012, the insiders were saying that both Haslett and Slowik would be shown the door at the end of the season. We went on that run and they got another chance. To me, what's more likely? That they were going to get fired because Shanahan was behind the entire defense meddling like crazy or because they weren't getting it done, but then turned it around and he trusted they would continue to do so?  

 

Also, let's not forget Shanahan's statements that he'd never fire a defensive coordinator, especially mid-season, again. He recognized how it was a mistake for him to do so in Denver and I think it may have been to our detriment. I do blame him for that, certainly. That statement of his gets ignored when considering why he kept Haslett around.         

 

And I'm not downplaying it by the very fact that it was a response to others downplaying the "bucks" other movements, so to speak. Had my "diatribe" just come out of nowhere like DG insinuates, your point would be valid, but it didn't. DG didn't just mention Reed's playing time, he mentioned being confused about another poster's "downplaying" (according to him) of Shanahan's so-called "mishandling of the DB personnel", which is a general statement. Maybe I misread that, but when taken with other posts in this very thread from DG as well as others, it certainly is understandable why it lead to my "diatribe". I never said it was "all or nothing", in fact, my point was exactly that it's not.

[skins island connection]

 

Our problem is that Haslett too has a terrible history with his defenses, so in reality, it could be a draw.  We might be changing out a turd for another turd with a different stink.

 

 So, you're going with the " Almond Joy vs Mounds" theory, eh?

 Now, every time you're in a store and you see either candy bar, you're gonna think of a sewer pickle, or Haslett; personally, neither is worth the money.

[darrelgreenie]

Maybe I misread that, but when taken with other posts in this very thread from DG as well as others, it certainly is understandable why it lead to my "diatribe". I never said it was "all or nothing", in fact, my point was exactly that it's not.

Misread/ignored/don't care all the same huh? Anyway. Why not just respond to my post if you're gonna refer to me not once, not twice but thrice?

But no your diatribe is not understandable especially in reference to my view about Mike Shanahan's meddling. Because once again you probably have no idea what my position is on it.

Cheers

[TSO]

Misread/ignored/don't care all the same huh? Anyway. Why not just respond to my post if you're gonna refer to me not once, not twice but thrice?

But no your diatribe is not understandable especially in reference to my view about Mike Shanahan's meddling. Because once again you probably have no idea what my position is on it.

Cheers

 

Because I knew you'd read it and it was more explaining to grego what I was doing? Because I already responded to you once here and all you did was condescendingly label it some unreasonable "diatribe"? You think that might have something to do with it, lol?

 

And didn't you notice that, in my "diatribe" as you put it, I asked you to clarify your position because it seemed to imply what I was talking about:

 

.... but yeaaaahhh the buck stops with Mike on personnel and that's that. It's like you wrote that statement so as to downplay their involvement. Is that what you were doing there, because if not, you certainly need to clear that up?

So, that right there is me admitting I'm not sure where you stand. Not sure how you responded in the way you did after reading that. Misread/ignored/don't care is right, lol. So, please, explain to me what exactly you meant by "the buck stops with Mike" in reference to "Mike mishandling the DB personnel" when you responded to someone putting at least some of the blame on others? Cuz it certainly IMPLIES, AT THE VERY LEAST, what I was "diatribing" my butt off about. Or don't. It's up to you of course. No worries, and please don't take my lack of smilies as me being angry, lol, I know somehow that's how it comes across to you and you start telling me to calm down.

[rskin72]

I'd be with you on this point if Shanny didn't have his own horrific track record on defense.  Its why he got canned in Denver.  If you ran by a Denver fan and told them hey what happened to Shanny in Washington his defenses stunk -- their response wouldn't be, no way dude, that's impossible -- instead they likely would laugh and nod their head and say that's why we ultimately had to get rid of the dude.  

 

But heck lets forget all that, I think too much attention is devoted to how Shanny was involved or uninvolved with the game planning. Lets go crazy and say he wasn't involved one whit with it.  It's still more on him.   It was Shanny not Haslett who built this defensive roster.   I don't get how the guy who shops for the groceries is absolved?  If we are going to hang Cerrato for building a bad roster, why should Shanny get a pass for it?    

 

I am not trying to absolve Shanny of all blame...certainly (if nothing else) he was HC, so by proxy he is responsible for the entire team failure that was this past season.  I am not a Shanny supporter by any means.  I just think that the talk of his over-involvement in the defense is a bit out of proportion to what it probably was.  And.....you ask why should Shanny get a pass on this.....the answer would be that he should not....but I wonder why should ANY of the staff have received a pass on the debacle that was last season.  The HC, OC and ST coaches were canned, but somehow Shanny only interfered with the DC job...and to the extent that Haz could not effectively do what he wanted with the D.  Really? 

 

But at this time, this discussion is probably moot as against the desires of many here (and on other boards), Haz was retained. 

 

So hopefully he produces that top flight D next season that some here apparently believe him capable of (not specifically referring to you, Skinsinparadise)......

[darrelgreenie]

Sub-

Whatevs, I didn't even read all your post b/c it had almost nothing to do with my post.

You know what cracks me up about your posts? (besides being off base in regards to my views)

It cracks me up that you repond to a short post with a 6 volume epic. And there is always a point where you have a meltdown.

But let me sum up the point you blindly walked into: Reed Doughty's playing time is not Haslett's fault its Mike Shanahan's fault because Mike Shanahan is the GM.

Cheers-

[grego]

Sub-

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Like , the following paragraph you wrote a little while ago-

You know what's more likely to be true? That, yes, Shanahan mishandled the DB situation... but he did so BY RELYING ON AND TRUSTING THOSE GUYS. Of course the buck stops with Shanahan, but it looks like to me he'd have had to ignore ALL OF THEIR INPUT to have handled the situation better. So, yeah, Shanahan mishandled some things (historic salary cap penalty definitely aids one to mishandle things as well). But a huge part of that "mishandling" was because he listened to the men who are still on this team who had a very significant hand in its failures. I'm tired of seeing post after post and comment after comment (including from the likes of Cooley) downplaying it.

It sounds like you're saying shanahan screwed up, and while the buck stops with him, it's still not really his fault.

And what do you mean by shannys failure being that "he listened to the men who are still on this team "?

How do you know this? If we are agreeing that he meddled and micromanaged, how did he listen to them, to his own detriment?

Sounds contradictory.