TK Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31388-2003Oct28.html washingtonpost.com Snyder, Spurrier: Redskins' Men Of the Hours By Sally Jenkins Wednesday, October 29, 2003; Page D01 It's assumed by certain owners that, having paid all that money for a team, they can run things any way they choose. Danny Snyder paid $800 million for the Redskins, and presumably that's why he runs the franchise with such lunatic impatience and excess. Self-restraint is apparently not an option. A stunning sentence ran in this newspaper a couple of days ago regarding Snyder and Redskins Coach Steve Spurrier. It read as follows: "The approximately six-hour get-together between Spurrier and Snyder on Saturday came amid ongoing reports . . . that the two are having their differences and could part ways after the season." The remarkable thing was not that Spurrier and Snyder are having differences. The remarkable thing was that they met for six hours. Who meets for six hours? Maybe the U.N. Security Council. An intelligence debriefing could take six hours. It takes six hours to finalize a merger. But surely it shouldn't take six hours for something as trivial as a conversation between an NFL owner and his head coach. In addition to holding six-hour meetings with his owner, Spurrier also mentioned last week that he would be watching film with "Mr. Snyder." Can you imagine the conversation in that room? Spurrier: Pass the clicker. Snyder: Pass it? Why don't you run it? Could Spurrier be spending his time more productively? Yes, one suspects that he could be. Does he have a choice? No. Not if he wants to coach the team next season, which it appears that he does, very much. It behooves Spurrier to humor his owner and publicly Spurrier has said he welcomes the input. Spurrier has said from the outset of his tenure that the third season would be the critical one -- if he can't turn it around in three years, he should be fired or quit. While no one at Redskins Park should give up on this season, their big shot will come next year. Realistically, this season is simply a midway point, and while the Redskins are on the verge of being a better team, they aren't yet as good as their schedule demands. They just don't have all the pieces yet -- particularly on their offensive and defensive lines. And that problem is not fully curable until the offseason. But Snyder apparently wants to cure it right now. Immediately. This week. He hired coaching "consultants" Joe Bugel and Foge Fazio to study the line play. He's considering signing defensive tackle Darrell Russell, whom even the Oakland Raiders were so morally revulsed by that they let him go. His tenure as an owner has been marked by a constant, exhausting cycle of hirings, and firings, and signings and re-signings, and it has gotten the Redskins exactly nowhere. It shouldn't take a six-hour conversation to figure the problem behind the Redskins' 3-4 record. It's not their offensive scheme, or the snap count, or the penalties. You only have to watch a Skins game for five minutes to see that the offensive line is porous and unable to protect Patrick Ramsey, and that the defensive line gets thrown backward on nearly every play. Not pushed, or shoved, but pancaked. In seven games, the Redskins have 10 sacks, while Ramsey has been sacked a league high 22 times. Until this changes, the Redskins will not win many games. One wonders what Bugel's advice was to the Redskins. Here's what Bugel should say to Snyder: Stop micromanaging your coach and roster down to the 10th string, and instead tell your personnel genius: "Here's my checkbook. Go buy some big strong fat guys." Danny Snyder thinks he knows a lot about football but in fact he seems to know little about football -- or he would recognize that even in the most flamboyant Spurrier-type offense, the eternal truth continues to hold, which that the team that dominates the trenches will almost always win the game. You can't win championships without decent line play (repeat until comprehended). And building two dominating lines takes time -- sometimes years -- and it certainly takes cohesion. Cohesion will be elusive as long as Snyder indulges his destabilizing impulse to fire and hire over a three-game losing streak. There are two kinds of Redskins right now, guys like LaVar Arrington who desperately want to win, and then there are the locker room laughers, those guys that Arrington is so livid at for joking around losses. Spurrier is trying to find out exactly who's who, for the sake of next season and the rest of this one. But in the midst of this tough analysis, he has to indulge an owner who keeps interjecting himself, cutting players and undercutting coaches and staffers, until no one can tell what is what, and the loyalties of everyone in the building are divided. Cohesion, the most important factor a coach must develop, isn't exactly fostered this way. What's more, at a strategic level, Snyder does not seem to understand that the head coach must rule the team. To an extent not true even in baseball or basketball, the head coach must have authority. It's not true that every great baseball team has a great manager, and it's certainly not true that every great basketball team has a great coach. But you can't name one great football team that did not have a commanding head coach. So long as Snyder keeps undercutting his coaches, and preventing a consistent building process, he'll never get the team he wants. As a boy, Snyder grew up revering the Joe Gibbs-Jack Kent Cooke Redskins. You didn't see the Squire in six-hour meetings with Gibbs, and you didn't see the Squire firing Doug Williams behind Gibbs's back. Unfortunately, the Redskins kid who grew up to be a zillionaire seems to have decided that Cooke's management style was wrong, and that Riggo was just joking when he gave all the credit to the Hogs. No one questions Snyder's love for this franchise -- but maybe there's a danger in owning your passion. Snyder can't create a winning team on his own, by bending things to his individual will. He needs talented people to do it. Talented people will not work long for a person who ignores/second-guesses/humiliates them. Talented people want to work for owners who point the direction, give a slap on the back, and say, "Go get 'em!" Over time, Snyder needs coaches and players who want to work for him. This means the Kim Jong Il management style won't work. Danny Wuerffel taught us a very interesting lesson this week: There is no law that says somebody must play for the Redskins. A good owner doesn't run a team any way he chooses, because he's rich. A good owner of a semi-public institution understands something: The institution is not entirely his. The value of the Redskins as a franchise lies in the fact that people care about it. The employees care about it, and the people who buy tickets care about it. But if they don't feel useful or enriched, if the Redskins are no longer worth caring about, Snyder will face a long-term problem. The team will not be something anyone would want to own. © 2003 The Washington Post Company Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wicked Wop Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 This means the Kim Jong Il management style won't work. Danny Wuerffel taught us a very interesting lesson this week: There is no law that says somebody must play for the Redskins. Yeah, when you have Danny Wuerffel turn you down, you may have a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OaktonSkins/BushFan Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Superb article, but I doubt Snyder will ever change his ways. Of course, this is a terribly bad thing for us fans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Montilar Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Well, Sally jenkins just lost her skins credentials. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PCS Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Who knows? Alot, and I do mean alot of speculation based on too little info in that article. though to the Posts credit, it was a scathing article on Snyder. Something some here thought they wouldn't/couldn't do. Well, we'll see if all this is true or not come end of season, or at least after S.S. retires and writes a tell all book. Maybe he turns about to be the meddling little tyrant that he's portrayed to be. Or maybe one day we look back and find out things like this. The more things change the more they stay the same. Well, in some ways anyway. Not saying S.S. and Snyder are all close and such, but ya gotta start somewhere. Joe Gibbs was actually asked to Cookes house shortly after the 0-5 start. Gibbs was worried about his job and Cooke told him you da man. No real storys of of how long the meeting was but I doubt that the length of it was any more worthy of a story than this one. Sigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SkinsHokie Fan Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 PCS that article was great. JKC though wasn't just an owner, he was a special guy and quite a charcter. If anyone on this board got to meet him, or see him at training camp they know that he had that presence about him Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba9497 Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 It is not only the owner whose impatient...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prophet Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 "One wonders what Bugel's advice was to the Redskins. Here's what Bugel should say to Snyder: Stop micromanaging your coach and roster down to the 10th string, and instead tell your personnel genius: "Here's my checkbook. Go buy some big strong fat guys." that tells you everything you need to know. If SOS leaves he will get picked up by another team, and they will be winners Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeletor The Invincible Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Wow, an Article from the WP questioning the Redskins. That's the first. Sure this ain't the WT? It's fair enough though. I'd probably do the same thing Snyder is doing. And that's the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS-Skin Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 SOS has always won with the good offensive line play necessary to compliment the passing game. If he gets undercut here while trying to get it, then Sally Jenkins will end up looking like a magic 8-ball. And yes, SOS has ALWAYS been a winner. If he fails to win here over the long haul, then I would look to some factor outside of the SOS situation for the reason. Hail :coach: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inmate running the asylum Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Sally Jenkins? .... Sally Jenkins?..... WTF is she? Broads don't know anything about pro football, do they? :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REDALERT Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 If I spent that kind of money and was constantly giving you basically every player or thing you ask for. I'd be looking for atleast some positive results sooner or later as well. But when these players are brought in and things look worser than what they did before you had them. Then people we have a problem here. Contrary to what Sally was saying, did she forget that the line was one area that most of the money was spent on. Also did she forget that the coach was ecstatic that the new additions were brought in to help bolster his fun-N-Gun offense. Oh! did she forget that not only Danny, but Spurrier was 100% sure his offense would be much better this year if only Danny gave him better weapons to fight with. Personally, I don't blame Danny one bit for being concerned about pathetic play from pro-bowl type players and why a jacked up offensive line can't seem to keep a block or jumping like freaking jumping beans. I remember Bull-Dog saying in one of his post "how is it that Samuels/Jansen" can go from pro-bowlers to sh!t in less then 60 seconds:laugh:. Well! something to that extent. I would want somebody to explain this to me. How come you can't get stuff going and why can't nobody block. Oh! and why can't you find a way to protect your QB, your only on pace to break the "F!CKING" record for most sacks allowed in NFL HISTORY!:hammer: Somebody SPLAIN....:whippin: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Sisko Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Ask Cooke about the role of an owner and he says he operates the Redskins about the same way he operates the Chrysler Building, the Los Angeles Daily News or any of his other enterprises. "I hire the best people I can afford and the best people I can find to run the various divisions," he said. "I ask that they keep me informed of what they're doing, and they must do that. Nowadays, it's called hands-on operation. I simply want to know what's going on. But I rely on their judgment to do what they think is best." Ahhh, The Squire....sigh. How we miss you:( Gibbs said he has never forgotten how lucky he is to work for an owner who has made winning the first priority no matter the cost and an owner who allows football people to make football decisions. "I'm one of the most fortunate guys in coaching," Gibbs said. "I think anybody could have come here and been successful because of him. Some of my friends got jobs other places and they didn't have the same kind of support. You're not going to win in those cases. In other words, Danny hire a GM and :stfu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saqs Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Superb article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. D Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 this was really published? my god! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbooma Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Not if he wants to coach the team next season, which it appears that he does, very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redskin56 Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 PCS that article was great. JKC though wasn't just an owner, he was a special guy and quite a charcter. If anyone on this board got to meet him, or see him at training camp they know that he had that presence about him I knew Jack Kent Cooke. He is the reason I am a die hard Redskins fan. "I hire the best people I can afford and the best people I can find to run the various divisions," he said. "I ask that they keep me informed of what they're doing, and they must do that. Nowadays, it's called hands-on operation. I simply want to know what's going on. But I rely on their judgment to do what they think is best." Seriously, this quote sums it up best. The man was in constant motion. He never stopped. However, he was not involved in every decision that was made in his various enterprises. He did exactly what the above quote states. He would find the best individuals to make the important decisions and then rely upon their judgment. But the term "caveat emptor" definately applied to Mr. Cooke. If you made a decision, you had better be correct. He held everyone accountable for their actions......... no matter what. In the Gibbs era, when Gibbs and Beathard would have a disagreement they would come to Mr. Cooke and state their various cases. Mr. Cooke was the tie breaker. Inevitably the decsions made were good for the team (obviously 3 titles reinforces this). I certainly miss Mr. Cooke's leadership and his uncanny ability to anticipate the situation and make the proper decision before it became a problem. If Mr. Snyder could take one thing away from Mr. Cooke's leadership, I hope that it was Mr. Cooke's ability to anticipate the situation and head it off at the pass. Snyder certainly hasn't done this yet (i.e. Schottenheimer, firing Norval in mid season, Deion, need I go on?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. D Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 that article was scathing!... I mean its par for the course here as a weekly "state of the team" thing from the more vigorous potsers... but ... the washington post? shocked I am..... then thinking in some pther part of my mind that does those sorts of things..I thought:"she really does not write THAT well at all ..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdsknbill Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 That article is what has been posted here over and over again. She won't be visiting Redskins park anytime soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OaktonSkins/BushFan Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 Originally posted by redskin56 I knew Jack Kent Cooke. He is the reason I am a die hard Redskins fan. Seriously, this quote sums it up best. The man was in constant motion. He never stopped. However, he was not involved in every decision that was made in his various enterprises. He did exactly what the above quote states. He would find the best individuals to make the important decisions and then rely upon their judgment. But the term "caveat emptor" definately applied to Mr. Cooke. If you made a decision, you had better be correct. He held everyone accountable for their actions......... no matter what. In the Gibbs era, when Gibbs and Beathard would have a disagreement they would come to Mr. Cooke and state their various cases. Mr. Cooke was the tie breaker. Inevitably the decsions made were good for the team (obviously 3 titles reinforces this). I certainly miss Mr. Cooke's leadership and his uncanny ability to anticipate the situation and make the proper decision before it became a problem. If Mr. Snyder could take one thing away from Mr. Cooke's leadership, I hope that it was Mr. Cooke's ability to anticipate the situation and head it off at the pass. Snyder certainly hasn't done this yet (i.e. Schottenheimer, firing Norval in mid season, Deion, need I go on?). How well did you know JKC? I would love to hear a good story behind JKC's decision to make continuing ownership of the Redskins by the Cooke family nearly impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redskin56 Posted October 29, 2003 Share Posted October 29, 2003 How well did you know JKC? I would loveyo hear a good story behind JKC's decision to make continuing ownership of the Redskins by the Cooke family nearly impossible. I knew Mr. Cooke for about 20 years. From the time a was a child until he passed away. I conversed with him often. I met him when he was living in Las Vegas after he divorced his first wife and before he moved to Virginia. I've got the answer your looking for, PM me and I'll tell you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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