A Confidence I Haven't Had in 25 Years

[skinny21]

The strange thing to me, is looking at the defense (the guys who would start if healthy), I like every single one of them.  Scratch that, I should say I like everyone in our nickel package:

Swearinger and Nicholson

Norman, Breeland and Fuller

Foster and Brown

Smith, Allen, Ioannidas and Kerrigan.  

 

Mae even have reasonable depth at corner, safety, ILB and OLB.  

Seems apparent we need to add dline guys that can play in the base D as well as sub for Allen/Ioannidas, but outside of that... I don’t know how we really help this D step up.  Losing a rookie safety and dlineman, and playing a 3rd/4th string ILB shouldn’t mean we expect 30+ points most weeks.  

[Wildbunny]

4 hours ago, hail2skins said:

Looking at it right now, does anyone anticipate that our schedule is going to be any easier next season? The NFC South may well send three teams to the playoffs and the AFC South has improved. And we may well have to face Aaron Rodgers from the NFC North.

 

And that isn't even counting our division. Even assuming Kirk is back and with average health, I still have trouble seeing us stacking up well against Philly or Dallas, whether its at their place or at FedEx. 

I would say that those teams that will finish 3rd (or 2 if by some miracle we finish 2nd) won't be pleased to have us on their schedule.

 

2 hours ago, skinfan2k said:

Sometimes you have to take a step back to take 2 steps forward.  Look at teams like Jacksonvile, Tenn, New Orleans or Carolina this year.

 

The makeup of htis team is there.  We need to add playmakers and real talent to the D-line.  

You could add the Rams to the list. They were perennial 8-8 guys that went 4-12 last year...

But mostly in the NFL right now, it's a bunch of 8-8 teams that somehow go on a streak at some point.

 

24 minutes ago, skinny21 said:

The strange thing to me, is looking at the defense (the guys who would start if healthy), I like every single one of them.  Scratch that, I should say I like everyone in our nickel package:

Swearinger and Nicholson

Norman, Breeland and Fuller

Foster and Brown

Smith, Allen, Ioannidas and Kerrigan.  

 

Mae even have reasonable depth at corner, safety, ILB and OLB.  

Seems apparent we need to add dline guys that can play in the base D as well as sub for Allen/Ioannidas, but outside of that... I don’t know how we really help this D step up.  Losing a rookie safety and dlineman, and playing a 3rd/4th string ILB shouldn’t mean we expect 30+ points most weeks.  

I like Nicholson but he looks like our Jordan Reed playing D. Hopefully injuries will move away from him, but I'm not really expecting it. He needs some serious teaching about tackling safely.

Other than that I would have liked to see what Taylor could do during the regular season. Maybe move Anderson to ILB, right now he didn't impress much. So I could add a real good SS at some point just in case Nicholson doesn't stay away from injuries.

[sebestian]

22 hours ago, LightningBuggs said:

And it's not going to improve.  Even if Allen is fired, Dan will just find another yes-man to take his place.  Then we'll start this whole process all over again.

 

This. 

 

This is without a doubt the root, core problem that exists. 

 

Unless this changes, we may fluke a year or two here and there, but will never obtain sustainable success. 

 

The likelihood of of this changing is unfortunately is not very high.  

 

From a fan perspective, this is dis-heartening.  

[pjfootballer]

I’ve already come to grips with the fact that I’ll never see another SB win from them. I’ll have to take good care of my 3 SB game broadcast DVDs. 

 

We’re never one of those teams that goes from 4-12 to 12-4. We’ve tried literally everything over the years, to no avail. I’m out of answers. 

[88Comrade2000]

2 hours ago, pjfootballer said:

I’ve already come to grips with the fact that I’ll never see another SB win from them. I’ll have to take good care of my 3 SB game broadcast DVDs. 

 

We’re never one of those teams that goes from 4-12 to 12-4. We’ve tried literally everything over the years, to no avail. I’m out of answers. 

We all know the answer and the answer will never happen.   For Dan to sell the team to competent people.

[kleese]

3 hours ago, pjfootballer said:

I’ve already come to grips with the fact that I’ll never see another SB win from them. I’ll have to take good care of my 3 SB game broadcast DVDs. 

 

We’re never one of those teams that goes from 4-12 to 12-4. We’ve tried literally everything over the years, to no avail. I’m out of answers. 

 

It can be overcome but it will

take a stroke of good luck

to be sure. I DO think Snyder has changed. I think he TRIES to do the right things but probably just isn’t very good at this so it can crumble even when the plan is sound on paper. 

 

And I don’t think he meddles in-season really and a guy like Gruden is able to move about freely. So if we did get it rolling I think they’d be allowed to sustain it. 

 

Other teams have kind of fallen bass akwards into titles even with shaky ownership. What it takes is getting lucky and getting the right 1-2 guys in place. An elite QB could be that guy. Or a HOF coach. No doubt harder to find those guys (obviously) if you don’t trust the guy in charge of finding them, but let’s face it— luck matters too. Cardinals ownership is notoriously awful-and cheap. And anyone in the league could

have had Kurt Warner. And the Cards didn’t even bring him in to start-/ he was backing up

their first round bust QB. And they wind a play away from winning a SB. 

 

Thats probably our best hope. We have a little stability right now. If we can sustain it, maybe we get lucky and things break our way and the stars align one year. 

 

 

[Taylorcooley1]

Maybe Snyder can just put an ad out in the new York Times or even Craigslist for a manager position that needs to be filled...than just tell Bruce sorry things aren't working I'm gonna Trump your ass.."your fired"..there has to be some way Snyder has seen comment's about how he needs to shake things up in the management area... he needs to let go of his childhood Wonder Years and focus on bringing in a management team that can help us win again.

[Taylorcooley1]

3 hours ago, pjfootballer said:

I’ve already come to grips with the fact that I’ll never see another SB win from them. I’ll have to take good care of my 3 SB game broadcast DVDs. 

 

We’re never one of those teams that goes from 4-12 to 12-4. We’ve tried literally everything over the years, to no avail. I’m out of answers. 

Yes you will..we all will..I truly believe we have a super bowl team with the talented players we.....oh **** who am I kidding you're exactly right...it will take the hand of god for ..SOMEONE to just sit Snyder down and say look this is what's going wrong **** can everyone in management and hire this management team to build a Superbowl winning team..that's the only chance..aaaiiint no way in hell he's sailing the team, that's for sure.

[Veryoldschool]

It is sad to revisit all the early season optimism in this thread before injuries hallowed out the team but it is probably something Snyder ought to do before pressing the reboot button.  I was angry enough to want to burn it all down after the Dallas debacle but I am thinking better of it today.  The defense was better before injuries took their toll.  Doctson improved as the season progressed and so did Perine.  The year may get uglier before it is finally over given all the injuries but I want this coach and this team to get a chance to get healthy and thrive in 2018.  

[skins island connection]

The Giants are floundering, the Cowboys are the Cowboys, and the Eagles have vastly improved.

The Redskins will hover around 2nd or 3rd place in the division for the foreseeable future, unless some drastic changes are made.

 

It all starts with Bruce Allen. He will be the one turning down contracts of ANY player who excels and wants a deserved pay raise.

DJax-- nah, you're not worth it

Garcon-- you're getting up in age and wear, so you're not worth it

Cousins-- you still haven't proven you're worthy of a contract, and maybe you'll get the hint

Do you see a trend here?

[Jumbo]

2 hours ago, skins island connection said:

Do you see a trend here?

 

 

Yes. It's been obvious to most of the mods.  Are you seeing a professional?

[skinny21]

I believe I already said this a few months back (regarding optimism for the season)... but the handling of Cousins’ contract has cast a pall on the season.  If he had been signed long term, I think we’d be bummed about the state of this season, but have some hope going forward.  

 

I bring this up because of the news that we’re working on extending Brown - the other big puzzle piece going forward.  

[TSO]

12 hours ago, skinny21 said:

 

I believe I already said this a few months back (regarding optimism for the season)... but the handling of Cousins’ contract has cast a pall on the season.  If he had been signed long term, I think we’d be bummed about the state of this season, but have some hope going forward.  

 

 

That, and the structure of this FO. They’ve once again placed way too much on the plate of the HC, and we have a garbled mess of accountability in terms of personnel decision-making. Just how Dan and his top exec like it so the targets for the sheep are multiple and they can villify someone as necessary. 

 

That’s what hurts most about this season. This was the culmination of stability, for the most part, at the coaching ranks, at QB, and a roster built (significantly at least) by a legit talent evaluator (including the moves made this past offseason), so my feeling was this was the best chance we’d have at a great season before the uncertainty and concern kicks in. 

 

Because after it? We fired said legit talent evaluator, didn’t replace him with someone of the same caliber or title/responsibility, and we’ve got quite the situation at QB. Only good thing future-wise with this entire setup is Jay Gruden and him getting extended. But it won’t last for him either without those other two essential support structures, as good as I believe he has been in overcoming a ton of bs as it stands already. 

 

Frustrating to say the least. Can only hope they figure it out with Kirk and that, miraculously, this FO setup that has failed over and over and over again somehow works this time. You never know, I guess. 

[cakmoney61]

On 12/2/2017 at 12:22 PM, Wildbunny said:

I like Nicholson but he looks like our Jordan Reed playing D. Hopefully injuries will move away from him, but I'm not really expecting it. He needs some serious teaching about tackling safely.

Other than that I would have liked to see what Taylor could do during the regular season. Maybe move Anderson to ILB, right now he didn't impress much. So I could add a real good SS at some point just in case Nicholson doesn't stay away from injuries.

 

Totally agree regarding Nicholson.  If he doesn't learn to tackle without hurting himself, he will definitely become the Jordan Reed of the defense (in regards to persistent unavailability). 

[MassSkinsFan]

On 12/1/2017 at 1:10 PM, kleese said:

If he isn’t back, then it will basically be impossible to rationalize how we can carry any momentum into 2018 unless they have some sort of secret genius back up plan. 

 

Here it is:

 

 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

On 12/2/2017 at 12:43 PM, pjfootballer said:

I’ve already come to grips with the fact that I’ll never see another SB win from them. I’ll have to take good care of my 3 SB game broadcast DVDs. 

 

We’re never one of those teams that goes from 4-12 to 12-4. We’ve tried literally everything over the years, to no avail. I’m out of answers. 

 

You know, I just ordered 10 DVDs of games from the 1980s and 1990s. I feel like I'm sinking back into "relive the glory years" self-preservation mode. 

[kleese]

To me, it all depends on what "does it for you" as a fan. I know for many, returning to a Super Bowl caliber level is really the only thing that will get them juiced up again-- or at least being a legitimate threat to do so. That is certainly the ultimate goal for me as well.

 

But for me there is a bare minimum requirement to keep my fanhood alive and strong. A few times in this past 25 year stretch they've come in under that minimum and during those seasons/stretches, I've drifted for sure. But what they've always managed to do it seems is get back to that minimum very quickly, so I'm generally always pretty invested. For me, the minimum is a simple, undefinable question over whether or not I personally enjoy following the team and enjoy the games during the season. These past three years are probably the longest stretch since 90-92 where I consistently answer "yes" to those questions.

 

No doubt "enjoy" is a personal and subjective word. I cannot argue with anyone who says they don't enjoy it as much. That's their deal. But this is the third year in a row where I've enjoyed football season more or less start to finish. I'm not overjoyed or doing cartwheels or anything, but the Redskins kept me engaged and interested. I'm not overly frustrated or embarrassed and I don't find it painful to watch other games like I sometimes do when we are awful. I look forward to game day and enjoy watching the games. I've had fun at the games I've attended. For now, I feel like rooting for the Redskins is at least like rooting for a "normal" NFL franchise. We shall see this off-season if it remains that way.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

@kleese good post. 

 

I think you're probably right on the money with enjoyment of seasons. I would put two other periods in the running of "sustained" enjoyment:

 

1995-1997: This is mostly due to the fact that 1994 reset expectations for Redskins fans. It was easy to enjoy the progress in 1995 and then we vaulted up to a winning team in 1996 and 1997. Even though in hindsight it's easy to see that it was fool's gold, in the moment it felt like we were ready to take the next step. 

 

1999-2002: This one is weird because it spans three different coaching tenures, but we were a division-winning team in 1999 (out of the blue) and pretty strong until Norv was fired in 2000. I was interested going into 2001, definitely had a lull after the horrible start, but then got some hope when we rattled off 5 wins to get back into contention. In 2002, I was pretty excited about Spurrier too and we were a decent team for the most part that season. However, because "starting fresh" was necessary twice to sustain this run, I don't really consider it a challenge to the current streak or 95-97. 

[zCommander]

On 12/2/2017 at 3:21 PM, Rdskns2000 said:

We all know the answer and the answer will never happen.   For Dan to sell the team to competent people.

 

True. Too bad I don't have a billion $+ to initiate a hostile take over of the Redskins...lol

[NoCalMike]

I think a big part of the reason that I am ok with the overall team despite the injuries and record of the team is because 2017 still mostly feels like a GMSM built team.  The players drafted by all reliable sources are the ones GMSM wanted to draft and the current FO pretty much stuck with it......beginning with this offseason though, that is where the confidence level could waiver.  I think the future beyond this season has suddenly become cloudy for multiple reasons, but the largest is that without a legitimate GM who has a clear direction and system in place for continuing to build the team, we don't have a grasp of where the franchise goes from here.

 

That is a big part of why 2017 has ended up disappointing. This team was in position to make a lot more noise had they stayed healthy.

[skinny21]

@thesubmittedone Yeah, losing Scot was the other big reason I cited months ago.  Didn’t address it this go around because well, water under the bridge I guess.  

 

The FO situation is likely untenable, or at least unlikely to succeed.  My only hope is that our scouts can carry the load and that Allen really only steps in if needed.  

 

The good news is that if we re-sign some key guys 1) Allen won’t have money to play around with in FA and 2) even if our drafting isn’t very good, the team can still take a major step forward.  It’s really a shame the team was hit so hard by injuries, because it a variable that makes it far tougher to evaluate the team.  If we had stayed relatively healthy and stunk, I’d feel a lot less nervous about the Cousins situation.  

 

If we had performed much better, hopefully Allen would get out of his own way and do whatever it takes to re-sign Kirk (ie. stay the course).  Cousins would also likely be more inclined to want to stay (not saying he doesn’t) if the team had another successful season and was trending in the right direction.  

 

 

I’m gonna keep banging this drum though - this team has more talent, youth and depth (and is more complete) than we’ve had in a long time.  We have talented coaches and a very good quarterback.  If the FO can manage to not completely soil themselves, we’ll still be on the right track.  

[kleese]

35 minutes ago, NoCalMike said:

I think a big part of the reason that I am ok with the overall team despite the injuries and record of the team is because 2017 still mostly feels like a GMSM built team.  The players drafted by all reliable sources are the ones GMSM wanted to draft and the current FO pretty much stuck with it......beginning with this offseason though, that is where the confidence level could waiver.  I think the future beyond this season has suddenly become cloudy for multiple reasons, but the largest is that without a legitimate GM who has a clear direction and system in place for continuing to build the team, we don't have a grasp of where the franchise goes from here.

 

That is a big part of why 2017 has ended up disappointing. This team was in position to make a lot more noise had they stayed healthy.

 

I think that is a fair and reasonable concern. It's one thing though about GMSM that I don't see brought up much. I actually DON'T think he was a guy that provided much "organizational direction." I don't get the impression he was a real leader type. He seemed to be a tad of a loose cannon and we all know about his previous personal struggles which may or may not have surfaced again during his time here. He was also pretty buddy-buddy with players by all accounts and that is something we've had issues with in the past from FO people as well. I think GMSM was essentially a super-duper scout. I think it is clear that he was a HUGE step up for us in terms of player evaluation and the draft. Even some of his failed picks seem to have been good in theory. But I actually don't think I would have felt much better with him "running the show" so to speak. As a matter of fact, I think the presence of Bruce with GMSM in the house was a really good idea/pairing. Obviously it fell apart and I wish it hadn't. But when lamenting the loss of GMSM I lament our lost talent-evaluation resource, not so much the "organizational leader" part.

48 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

@kleese good post. 

 

I think you're probably right on the money with enjoyment of seasons. I would put two other periods in the running of "sustained" enjoyment:

 

1995-1997: This is mostly due to the fact that 1994 reset expectations for Redskins fans. It was easy to enjoy the progress in 1995 and then we vaulted up to a winning team in 1996 and 1997. Even though in hindsight it's easy to see that it was fool's gold, in the moment it felt like we were ready to take the next step. 

 

1999-2002: This one is weird because it spans three different coaching tenures, but we were a division-winning team in 1999 (out of the blue) and pretty strong until Norv was fired in 2000. I was interested going into 2001, definitely had a lull after the horrible start, but then got some hope when we rattled off 5 wins to get back into contention. In 2002, I was pretty excited about Spurrier too and we were a decent team for the most part that season. However, because "starting fresh" was necessary twice to sustain this run, I don't really consider it a challenge to the current streak or 95-97. 

 

I definitely think the 95-97 run was more enjoyable than the 99-2002, but I would agree that both kept me engaged. I fell off big time midway through 2003 and I wasn't necessarily planning on diving back in head first, but then Gibbs came back and I was beyond pumped like everyone else... I didn't like 2001 as much as most people did. It was a cool month we had, that was about it. The beginning and end of that season were terrible.

 

You know how I feel about 1997; a tortured season, but I was certainly engaged week to week.

[NoCalMike]

23 minutes ago, kleese said:

 

I think that is a fair and reasonable concern. It's one thing though about GMSM that I don't see brought up much. I actually DON'T think he was a guy that provided much "organizational direction." I don't get the impression he was a real leader type. He seemed to be a tad of a loose cannon and we all know about his previous personal struggles which may or may not have surfaced again during his time here.

 

That's fair.  I think what gave me comfort having him here was that he definitely had a track record from his time with the 49ers, and even moreso with the Seahawks that you at least sensed he was going to build an identity for this team. You knew what the DNA of this team would be or at least what he was trying to make it be, which also made evaluating his performance a lot more cut & dry since he had a clear goal in mind for what prototype team he wants to build over the much more vague "we want a winner"

 

I suppose the worry is the loss of identity going into the offseason. I could be worried over nothing, since there is still a month of football to go, it's more the uncertainty.  Players are going to come & go every offseason. Every team will lose some players they don't want to. It's how the front office responds to the loss that matters.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

4 hours ago, kleese said:

 

I definitely think the 95-97 run was more enjoyable than the 99-2002, but I would agree that both kept me engaged. 

 

You know how I feel about 1997; a tortured season, but I was certainly engaged week to week.

Yeah, maybe it was the youthful naivety or still living in the shadow of a dynastic run, but it just felt like we were a top franchise (at least in my historical context) so it was just a matter of rebuilding the team. Almost like we couldn't really do it wrong, but we just had to be willing to bite the bullet and do it. I don't really think I worried that it might not work out until 1998. 

 

So to me, bottoming out under Richie and going 3-13 in Turner's first year was just the natural course. The fact that we went from 3-to-6-to-9 wins from 95 to 97 really had me believing that we'd contend again any day now. I STILL remember Peter King picking us to make a deep playoff run (either win the NFC or lose to Green Bay in the NFC Championship) either before the 97 or 98 season based on that very progression. Even to the national media, we were the storied Redskins surging again...not a joke of an organization who was incapable of winning without Beathard and Gibbs. 

[pjfootballer]

6 hours ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

 

You know, I just ordered 10 DVDs of games from the 1980s and 1990s. I feel like I'm sinking back into "relive the glory years" self-preservation mode. 

 

Where do you order those DVDs?