The Bruce Allen/GM Thread

[carex]

23 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

One of the more interesting sides to the Dan/Bruce homers is that they dump blame on coaches, players, "GM"'s, etc. yet Dan and/or Bruce are responsible for employing these folks.

 

Quote

Moral of the story: Dan and Bruce both suck no matter which way you try to spin it.

 

see the thing I can't figure out is why everyone who complains this way expects things to change.  If you believe Snyder is the same guy he was 18 years ago, then you shouldn't be calling for anyone's firing, you should be demanding he sell the team.  Firing people would do nothing.  The only way firing Allen does anything is if Snyder is competant  enough to find a new guy. and if Allen is the problem with player acquisition despite frequently handing off that duty.

 

ou're blaming them for stuff the evidence says they aren't in charge of. 

 

sorry about the double post, I figured someone else would have replied by now

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

I'd love for Snyder to sell the team but thats not happening any time soon.  No amount of fan outcry will ever force that.  Our best bet is he gets caught for doing something terrible and is forced to sell the team.

 

You are right in that I don't trust him to ever hand the keys to the franchise to anyone unknown to him, and unfortunately for us he doesn't appear to actually know any winners.

 

But none of that escapes the fact that neither Dan or Bruce are good at their jobs.  

[TK]

1 hour ago, Makaveli said:

Not sure how legitimate SportingNews is or how credible the author is, but could there be any truth to this?

 

SN: Bucs should keep Dirk Koetter as coach, for sake of Jameis Winston

 

This is the first I've heard of "rumors" about Allen leaving and it seems unlikely.

Clearly Alex Marvez started his New Year's Eve party off a bit early. 

[88Comrade2000]

1 hour ago, Makaveli said:

Not sure how legitimate SportingNews is or how credible the author is, but could there be any truth to this?

 

SN: Bucs should keep Dirk Koetter as coach, for sake of Jameis Winston

 

This is the first I've heard of "rumors" about Allen leaving and it seems unlikely.

Report: Tampa Bay Buccaneers sticking with Dirk Koetter in 2018

 

The Bucs are keeping Koetter.  They could take Bruce anyway but we all know Bruce is here for life.  Better hope Doug Williams is the next Ozzie Newsome.

[SkinsFTW]

22 minutes ago, Rdskns2000 said:

 Better hope Doug Williams is the next Ozzie Newsome.

 

At least 2 decades too late for that man.

[Burgold]

2 hours ago, Rdskns2000 said:

Report: Tampa Bay Buccaneers sticking with Dirk Koetter in 2018

 

The Bucs are keeping Koetter.  They could take Bruce anyway but we all know Bruce is here for life.  Better hope Doug Williams is the next Ozzie Newsome.

Welcome back Koetter is a very underrated 1970's sitcom. I can see why the Bucs don't want it to end.

[Wildbunny]

Interesting stuff in BRBN from Brewer regarding the FO and where we're going:

 

 

That would summarize my feelings regarding this whole thing quite well. Time for some to step up and tell Bruce to  stay in his lane and do what he should be doing football wise.

[goskins10]

10 hours ago, Burgold said:

Welcome back Koetter is a very underrated 1970's sitcom. I can see why the Bucs don't want it to end.

 

[Skinsinparadise]

...Bruce Allen, the team president, isn’t as bulletproof as many believe after seven disappointing years with the franchise, but he still has a close relationship with owner Daniel Snyder, and he’s still at the center of the team’s quest for a new stadium. I can envision a scenario in which his role shifts, and he’s not as involved with the daily football operations, but as of now, a firing is unlikely.

 

Snyder’s 18 years in charge have been far from logical, but it would be hard for him to justify rampant change after exhibiting so much patience in letting a rebuilding process go this far. The process has neither failed nor succeeded. It’s still, uh, processing.

 

...Assuming there are no firings, this will be the great question the front office must answer soon. The franchise is merely surviving right now. It’s better than being a dumpster fire, but the goal isn’t to minimize embarrassment.

Washington has hit a wall. In 2015, it finished 9-7, won a weak NFC East division and made the playoffs. In 2016, it finished 8-7-1 and missed the playoffs on the season’s last day. On Sunday, it will finish 7-9 or 8-8, and it was eliminated from the playoffs three weeks ago. Without a huge offseason, 2018 could be another season around .500. And if things don’t go well — if Kirk Cousins flees and the team doesn’t have a good quarterback succession plan — it could be looking at a 6-10 season, at best.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/the-redskins-are-building-toward-something-what-that-is-we-dont-yet-know/2017/12/29/6a7e8708-ecf7-11e7-8a6a-80acf0774e64_story.html?utm_term=.02b13fc39805

 

[OVCChairman]

3 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

...Bruce Allen, the team president, isn’t as bulletproof as many believe after seven disappointing years with the franchise, but he still has a close relationship with owner Daniel Snyder, and he’s still at the center of the team’s quest for a new stadium. I can envision a scenario in which his role shifts, and he’s not as involved with the daily football operations, but as of now, a firing is unlikely.

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/the-redskins-are-building-toward-something-what-that-is-we-dont-yet-know/2017/12/29/6a7e8708-ecf7-11e7-8a6a-80acf0774e64_story.html?utm_term=.02b13fc39805

 

This is odd coming hours after the report that there were no 'major changes expected' with the team... I've heard the minority owners are not happy with Allen's production thus far, so maybe the shift is actually a possibility.

[Thinking Skins]

So I woke up this morning thinking about Doug Williams and really wondering what he brought to the table. I know @Skinsinparadise has commented on not being blown away by his interviews so I wanted to see about that. I'll admit that most of the interviews I've seen/heard have been about his quarter so I was interested in his stuff about scouts. 

 

https://www.si.com/mmqb/2017/06/14/doug-williams-washington-nfl-front-office-peter-king-mailbag

 

Williams is close to several of his front-office peers, going back to his playing days. Williams and Baltimore GM Ozzie Newsome were drafted six picks apart in 1978—Grambling quarterback Williams at 17 by Tampa Bay, Alabama tight end Newsome 23rd by Cleveland—and they’ve remained close over the years. Newsome knew Williams was interviewing for the job, and a couple of weeks ago told Williams: “You’ve been in the huddle. You know how to do this.”

 

This article speaks on the number of players from HBCUs on the Skins (its from last year though). I've wondered how our numbers compared with those across the league, and if Doug had any significant part in this. From DW's work at Grambling and Morehouse (two HBCUs) I tend to think he scouts and knows about HBCU talent more and 

http://wtvr.com/2016/08/03/hbcu-players-find-a-home-with-the-redskins/

 

https://ontaponline.com/2017/09/05/day-life-redskins-vp-doug-williams/

Quote

 

On Tap: Your permanent office is a couple of hours away at the team’s headquarters in Ashburn, but today you’re out here under the hot sun watching your team get ready for the 2017 season. How would you describe your new role with the Redskins?
Doug Williams: The good thing about it is we don’t have the title of general manager anymore. A lot of the things [McLoughlin] was in charge of, that’s me now. I don’t deal with the strength coach, I don’t deal with the equipment manager and I don’t deal with the trainer. But everything else, I’m a part of. My job is to look over the personnel department and make sure we have a great department with the guys in there. And I think we do.

OT: What’s the most important element in an effective front office responsible for assembling a winning team on the field?
DW: Continuity. We’ve been together here for a few years now, and some a little longer, and I think we have a good team. Even with our road scouts and bringing [eight-year Redskins front office veteran] Kyle Smith up as the new director of college scouting and [16-year Redskins veteran] Tim Gribble as the assistant, we still maintained continuity. We added a couple of new pieces, but we’re kind of like a football team. You bring in pieces to fit the puzzle. My job is to make sure when we are out on the road, whether it’s the road scout or the free agent market scout, we try to find the best talent that we can for this football team. We’ll always be in the market for the best football player.

OT: As a longtime talent scout, who among the rookies are you most excited about this season?
DW: I’m excited about all of them, but all eyes are going to be on [first-round draft pick and defensive end] Jonathan Allen. You’ve got [linebackers] Ryan Anderson and Hardy Nickerson. I think Anderson, who had a great career at Alabama, is going to come in and give us some depth. But we’re looking to Jonathan Allen [also a college standout at Alabama] to come in and just be who he is.

OT: When you look at the team as a whole from a scouting perspective, what is the most important piece of the puzzle?
DW: When are you are building a football team, to me, it’s very important to start from inside out. And I say that from the trenches – on both sides of the trenches, whether it’s O-line or D-line. If you can build your offensive and defensive lines, you can work around the other pieces of the puzzle. If you’ve got that offensive line, you give your quarterback a chance to stand up.

OT: Aside from raw physical talent, what do you look for in a player?
DW: Mental toughness, character and passion. You want them coming hard at practice! There ain’t nothing like coming to practice, and you have guys who love to practice because the hardest part of the game is coming to practice. Sunday is supposed to be fun. If you bring that passion and attitude to the practice field and have great days, you look at those guys and see it.

OT: How do you assess that?
DW: We go in the back room and we watch tapes. It’s about finishing plays. We watch how a guy finishes plays and moves around, and it’s those types of things that inform you as a personnel coach or whatever.

On Tap: What’s the missing ingredient to help the Redskins get back to the Super Bowl?
DW: No doubt about it – it’s getting to the playoffs. When you get there, strange things can happen. But you’ve got to get there. We were on the verge last year and we made it the year before, but we’ve got to be consistent. If we can get [over] the hump and get to the playoffs, I think we’ve got the talent to compete with any team in this league.

OT: What does it mean to you to be a Redskins legend and the only black quarterback to win a Super Bowl?
DW: It’s when I come across a guy in his late 60s or 70s and he says, “Man, that day…”  They don’t have to say anymore. I’m fortunate to be that guy. It could have been somebody else, but it was me, and I appreciate that was given the opportunity to do that.
 

 

 

 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/02/21/doug-williams-says-good-ol-boy-network-is-alive-and-well-in-front-office/

 

Quote

 

 

 

“I look at it this way, you’ve got guys sitting in the front office that never coached,” Williams said.  “I just didn’t coach college, I coached high school.  If you’ve got the patience and time to coach high school, you can do other jobs.  There are guys who learned the [football] language and never got their hands dirty, per se.  They can’t go back and get their hands dirty again.”

 

“I laugh, when I hear them talk about Josh Freeman,” Williams said. “I know they wanted Mark Sanchez.  I sat right there while they were talking about trading up and getting Sanchez and all these different scenarios. Raheem Morris was the strongest guy [pushing Freeman] in there. I remember the owners asking me which quarterback I liked.  I said, ‘If you want someone to play right now, take Sanchez.  But I think over the long haul, Josh is going to be better,’ and I think he’s proven that.  Raheem had the strongest conviction because he had been around the kid [at Kansas State].”
 

 

 

 

http://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2012-05-04/hard-times-swac

“A lot of NFL scouts come with a negative mentality,” said Williams, now head coach at Grambling. “They come in thinking there’s no players there. They will grade the school instead of the player. They’ll think, ‘There’s nobody [worth drafting] at Grambling, or Jackson State or Southern. I’m not saying all scouts are like that. But I know there are some.”

 

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2017/07/ryan_anderson_has_the_look_of.html

"I can understand why Alabama was good defensively," Williams told WTEM-AM in Washington this week. "That kid Ryan Anderson, if you're going to have an alpha male in the locker room, he looks like that guy. He don't smile that much, man, but he loves to practice. He loves the game of football."

Kyle Smith, Washington's director of college scouting, agreed Anderson is serious about football.

"He is mean, nasty, tough," Smith said. "He's got a different way about him. Intense. He's a great guy. He's a really good person. But it's like he gets into that mode and he is intense. He's really going to change the way this defense plays. We've got a lot of tough guys. But he's got a different way to him."

Some of these quotes give me hope because while J.Allen may have just slipped in the 2017 draft, hopefully in the years to come we will not be ignoring the DL and OL in early rounds of the draft. I think Kenard Lang was the last first rounder used on a DL before that. That was too long ago. 

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2017/06/14/doug-williams-long-journey-to-running-redskins-personnel-department/

“I love Doug and I don’t think there’s many people who know Doug who don’t love Doug,” Schaffer said. “Really he’s a great leader…Whether it’s with a group and we’re with young guys, we’re with old guys, whether we hang out, we come down here for lunch, we go out for dinner, Doug is just one of the guys. He’s found a way being a Super Bowl MVP that he could still be just part of us.“

 

More than one Redskins employee noted Williams has an innate ability to gain the trust of players, who know his standing in the NFL as the first African-American quarterback to lead a team to a Super Bowl and everything that he endured as a pioneer at the position in the 1970s and 80s. That credibility allows Williams to have off-the-record conversations with players when they have issues with management or the coaching staff.

[Wildbunny]

@Skinsinparadise Nice from you for quoting articles, but could you be gentle and link it to the BRBN post instead of straight to the article, I would really appreciate that

[Skinsinparadise]

1 hour ago, Thinking Skins said:

So I woke up this morning thinking about Doug Williams and really wondering what he brought to the table. I know @Skinsinparadise has commented on not being blown away by his interviews so I wanted to see about that. I'll admit that most of the interviews I've seen/heard have been about his quarter so I was interested in his stuff about scouts. 

 

 

I stand by what I've said about Doug over the off season.   So I don't want to belabor over it including Chris Russell's take on him which I thought was amusing because he was trying to advocate for him.  I talked about it at length back then.  Really nice guy -- good ambassador for the team -- people say he's a great cheer leader within the building.     When I listen to the typical personnel-scout or former personnel-scout in interviews if not right away eventually I hear things that go beyond standard 101 football speak.  From Doug, I've yet to hear that in interviews.  I am not suggesting that he doesn't know football -- what I was saying it would reassure me more if Doug talked football publicly the way lets say Louis Reddick does. 

 

Doug is in his 60s.  He's been around a long time.  Still, never heard him mentioned as one of the top executives.   His primary top personnel jobs in the league have been given to him by Bruce.   I am trying to recall which beat guy said it but I recall one of them said months before Doug even got his latest promotion that no one in that building has Bruce's back more than Doug. 

 

I got no animosity towards Doug.  I'd take the job, too if I were in his shoes.  Good for him.  Just from what's been said by some, I don't think Doug is really the defacto guy in charge in that building of personnel.  So I am really not worried about him one way or another.   The only reason why Doug to me is a topic here is that I am not buying that Scot's departure has been taken care of and more some via elevating Doug.  I think that's ridiculous.  And I've stated why and in detail many times.  I don't feel like doing it again. I don't enjoy pounding Doug.  Doug's done nothing wrong. 

 

My beef with the FO is squarely centered on Bruce-Dan.  

16 minutes ago, Wildbunny said:

@Skinsinparadise Nice from you for quoting articles, but could you be gentle and link it to the BRBN post instead of straight to the article, I would really appreciate that

 

OK, didn't know we should be quoting things from BRBN specifically but sure I'll try to recall to do that.

[Tsailand]

1 hour ago, Thinking Skins said:

“I love Doug and I don’t think there’s many people who know Doug who don’t love Doug,” Schaffer said. “Really he’s a great leader…Whether it’s with a group and we’re with young guys, we’re with old guys, whether we hang out, we come down here for lunch, we go out for dinner, Doug is just one of the guys. He’s found a way being a Super Bowl MVP that he could still be just part of us.“

 

More than one Redskins employee noted Williams has an innate ability to gain the trust of players, who know his standing in the NFL as the first African-American quarterback to lead a team to a Super Bowl and everything that he endured as a pioneer at the position in the 1970s and 80s. That credibility allows Williams to have off-the-record conversations with players when they have issues with management or the coaching staff.

 

Nothing in that quote makes me think Doug Williams should be making the final personnel decisions, for us or for any other team.

 

[Thinking Skins]

5 minutes ago, Tsailand said:

 

Nothing in that quote makes me think Doug Williams should be making the final personnel decisions, for us or for any other team.

 

Well, i included it because i noticed the word love. I hear the word like a lot in describing relationships, but rarely love. I wonder how much frustration there was inside the front office and between the scouts and coaches and GM. I wonder if DW being a QB got Gibbs on a team with Manley and Clark and some players who are personalities and b being able to steer them forward helps right now in a room of highly opinionated scouts and personnel men. Did Scot step in Gruden's toes with Breeland and Cravens ( and possibly others)?

 

After that quote in the article was a similar one by Hall saying similar things but from a player perspective. Just saying how respected and loved Doug is. 

 

Maybe it won't convince the people who already have their minds made up but i am a fan of chemistry and cohesion and coming to an understanding. The proof will be in the pudding come January through August but I've been impressed with the free agency, draft, and in-season player acquisitions by this front office. I hope it continues 

[Skinsinparadise]

9 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

 

After that quote in the article was a similar one by Hall saying similar things but from a player perspective. Just saying how respected and loved Doug is. 

 

I don't see how you are introducing a new point with this.  As heavy handed as you've been backing anything relating to Bruce Allen including Doug -- there is one person who has been even more heavy handed than you specifically talking up how lovable Doug seems to be -- and that person would be me.  In fact, the gist of my point about Doug is you hear over and over again about how lovable he is (and I don't doubt it) -- you don't hear much about his personnel skills.

[Thinking Skins]

No new point. just what I was reading this morning. Hadn't read some of them before, especially the one bout a day in his life. Its interesting to hear/read some of his thoughts. As much of a backer as I am of Bruce, its based on what I've seen the last 4 years that's driven that. I would not be happy if we go out and sign a bunch of free agents this year or traded away draft picks, or (and this one is more difficult to determine) simply didn't have a good draft come late April. So I'm wondering how the front office will put together scouting reports, what they will value, how much of Scot's "football player" mentality will come into play, how much did Gruden and others in the FO agree with that (what else would they be drafting)? Stuff like that. 

 

I doubt we find something like their actual grades on a player, but it was interesting finding Williams's quote on Freeman vs Sanchez. Freeman was a good QB whose coach threw him under the bus because (I believe) he was taking prescription drugs for ADHD and the coach. I think that kind derailed his career in Tampa but he had been looking like the better QB up til that point. 

 

Linking this to the draft thread, I wonder if we would value an undersized but ready player vs a prototypical guy who has all the measurables but is "raw"; or the big school backup vs the small school superstar, the guy with speed or the guy with size? Those kinds of questions. I think Scot (or our coaches, I'm not sure) preferred size. We see it on defense with Kerrigan, Murphy, Smith, Matt I, Baker, etc. Then with Cooley calling for us to get a speedy guy like Galette in the draft, our new front office went with Anderson, who seems to have size other than small arms, and it kinda seems like a Scot pick. But they also went with Monte Nicholson and although Scot approved of it, he is different than all the guys we've brought in at the position in terms of both size and speed, but appareantly he was raw and/or afraid of contact. 

 

I really want to know more about some of the scouts lower on the totem pole, but they're less likely to be interviewed so hopefully I can interpret what they think from Doug and other people's comments. 

[Skinsinparadise]

29 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

 

I really want to know more about some of the scouts lower on the totem pole, but they're less likely to be interviewed so hopefully I can interpret what they think from Doug and other people's comments. 

 

Craig Hoffman who is covering the team this year for 106.7 said this below.  If he's right than we've seen Scott Campbell in action before.  He's been here for a long time.   Just the general vibe I get from different media people who spoke about this:  Campbell and Smith are the draft guys.  Scot raved to me about Jay's personnel skills.  Others have said nice things about Jay, too.  So my hope is that its Campbell-Smith-Jay on the draft. 

 

And hopefully Bruce-Doug stay out of the college scouting.  I've read that story before about Doug related to Josh Freeman and talked about it in previous posts -- but unlike you I actually wasn't impressed by it.   We can dress it up any which way but Freeman was a bust. He had one good year.  So did Sanchez. Sanchez had the longer career.  Freeman's good year was better than Sanchez's good year.  But both were busts in the end.  

 

Most importantly for me though is for Dan to stay out of it.  You talk about ruing the days when they trading draft picks.  I rued that too but it bothered me just as much to hear about Dan personally traveling to college day scouting sessions before the draft.  

 

Craig Hoffman‏Verified account @CraigHoffman 3h3 hours ago

Craig Hoffman Retweeted Tyler

No one wants to hear this, but it's collaborative. This is why you have a board. The arguments happen over the next four months. Scott Campbell runs college scouting. He has a big voice. Jay has a big voice. Bruce always has a voice, but Scott "runs" the draft w/ lots of help.

Craig Hoffman added,

 

[Wildbunny]

3 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

OK, didn't know we should be quoting things from BRBN specifically but sure I'll try to recall to do that.

 

I'm not sure there's a rule about that, I'm just trying to improve the numbers of click there

2 hours ago, Thinking Skins said:

Well, i included it because i noticed the word love. I hear the word like a lot in describing relationships, but rarely love. I wonder how much frustration there was inside the front office and between the scouts and coaches and GM. I wonder if DW being a QB got Gibbs on a team with Manley and Clark and some players who are personalities and b being able to steer them forward helps right now in a room of highly opinionated scouts and personnel men. Did Scot step in Gruden's toes with Breeland and Cravens ( and possibly others)?

 

After that quote in the article was a similar one by Hall saying similar things but from a player perspective. Just saying how respected and loved Doug is. 

 

Maybe it won't convince the people who already have their minds made up but i am a fan of chemistry and cohesion and coming to an understanding. The proof will be in the pudding come January through August but I've been impressed with the free agency, draft, and in-season player acquisitions by this front office. I hope it continues 

Doug is a likeable guy. . No one's denying that. But I believe most of all thinks he would fit better as a Team President than a GM.

 

Putting Doug at Bruce's plan would be fine for many around here. And if Bruce was staying in his lane, nobody would complain as we would have not that debate.

[skinzplay]

One amazing, other-worldly quarter of football does not equate to FO acumen. I love Doug, but let's face it, he's a legacy hire. It helped even more that he was a member of Pi Tampa Phi, along with all the rest that Last Name Allen has brought to Ashburn at one point or another. I say keep Doug around in some capacity, even if (PLEASE GOD!!!) LNA is stripped of his responsibilities over football operations. But it's insulting to an informed fan's intelligence to pretend that Doug is really making any substantive evaluations/decisions when it comes to player personnel.

[TK]

1 hour ago, Wildbunny said:

 

I'm not sure there's a rule about that, I'm just trying to improve the numbers of click there

There's not. As always, reading them would have already told you.   And there's no prize for clicks there or anywhere else on the board.  

 

Look at it this way.

 

By linking back to RBN you have to click there the click to go to the source, creating an extra click/load time in an age of mobile innerwebz with a "now, now, NOW mentality".  

[Makaveli]

8 hours ago, Thinking Skins said:

On Tap: Your permanent office is a couple of hours away at the team’s headquarters in Ashburn, but today you’re out here under the hot sun watching your team get ready for the 2017 season. How would you describe your new role with the Redskins?
Doug Williams: The good thing about it is we don’t have the title of general manager anymore. A lot of the things [McLoughlin] was in charge of, that’s me now. I don’t deal with the strength coach, I don’t deal with the equipment manager and I don’t deal with the trainer. But everything else, I’m a part of. My job is to look over the personnel department and make sure we have a great department with the guys in there. And I think we do.

So Williams is asked about his new role and his first response is that it's good to not have someone with the GM title. Umm... ok. Why is this a good thing? After checking, I see there are only three teams in the NFL without a GM: the Patriots, the Eagles, and the Redskins.

The rest of his response seems to imply that McCloughan overstepped his boundaries, or was perceived to have overstepped his boundaries by people in the Front Office. He also states that he doesn't deal with the equipment manager, trainers, etc. and "overlooks the personnel department". It sounds like he won't be doing the nitty gritty of scouting players and will simply manage the personnel people, which is not necessarily a bad thing since his reputation as a scout isn't renowned.

 

So the structure appears to be:

 

Snyder -> Allen -> Williams -> Everyone else reporting to Williams

 

IMO this is essentially Williams "playing" the role of GM (without the title) and the people who report to him doing the dirty work. And if history is any indication, Allen will make sure his voice is heard in decisions. I still believe accountability is an issue with this structure. If this is really how things are set up just give him the GM title with the same responsibilities he outlined.

[HigSkin]

These applicable snipits from a Peter King article when all of it went down this summer.

 

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/heres-what-doug-williams-promotion-means-for-the-redskins-front-office-061417

 

“When I interviewed for the job,” Williams said from Virginia, after being named Washington’s senior vice president of player personnel, “I didn’t put ‘GM’ on my proposal. When we did the draft board this year, we met for two-and-a-half weeks, and we had a good discussion and put it together as a team. We did it without a GM. So I thought, ‘Do we really need a GM?’ A GM oversees everything. But I looked at our team—I don’t want to be in charge of the coaches. That’s [coach] Jay Gruden’s job.”

 

“I have not been in the Kirk Cousins negotiations,” Williams said. “And I don’t know if it’s smart, a month before the deadline, for me to stick my head in there and get involved. I think [vice president of football administration] Eric Schaffer is doing a good job with that.”

 

For those below him in the Washington personnel power structure, particularly the man Williams appointed director of college scouting on Tuesday, Kyle Smith, the hire should be a sign Allen and owner Daniel Snyder will promote from within. And it should be a sign that the normally impatient Snyder likes the direction of the team and of this front office. Why rip it apart again, or name an outsider like McCloughan to come in over personnel men the franchise respects? “I think it’s a significant day for the front office, and a significant day for the players in that locker room,” Williams said. “I know—I talk to them.” Williams’ point: This was a move for stability.

[Tsailand]

8 hours ago, Thinking Skins said:

Well, i included it because i noticed the word love. I hear the word like a lot in describing relationships, but rarely love.

 

Some players might love Belichick the coach.  They certainly play their asses off for him.

 

I promise you, nobody in or out of the NFL loves Belichick the GM.  They hate and fear him.  Which is what it should be.

[Skinsinparadise]

13 hours ago, Makaveli said:

 

IMO this is essentially Williams "playing" the role of GM (without the title) and the people who report to him doing the dirty work. And if history is any indication, Allen will make sure his voice is heard in decisions. I still believe accountability is an issue with this structure. If this is really how things are set up just give him the GM title with the same responsibilities he outlined.

 

The fact that we are trying to figure this out and some of these people when interviewed say some things that make you pause -- in combination with what beat reporters have said.  I've read and listened to everything I could and I am still confused.

 

We got Craig Hoffman, 106.7 beat guy saying he's heard Scott Campbell is de-facto in charge of the draft.  I've also heard Kyle Smith is and Kyle is the one with the title.  But Scott has the "senior" consulting role.  I've heard multiple times that Doug doesn't get too involved in college scouting.  Then I heard he sometimes does.  Then in one Doug interview, he seemed to suggest he's more involved in pro not so much college.   Then I hear Russell say he's heard that Bruce likes to dabble some in watching tape and be perceived there as having some scouting value.

 

All we need really next is to hear about Dan going on all these individual player scouting sessions -- just like we would hear him doing extensively in the pre-Shanny era.  And we will be completely back to old school Redskins FO. 

 

Whose in charge? is it Kyle?  Scott?  Doug?  Bruce?  Dan?

 

We will start hearing again... Hey these picks didn't work out but don't blame that on Doug.  He has nothing to do with it.  Or hey yeah don't blame Scott Campbell his draft board was excellent if only he could show it to you -- but he was overruled by Bruce and Dan who fell in love with X player on one of their scouting expeditions.  

 

If anything Doug not having the title and being a free for all -- ditto Scott Campbell just adds more layers to the confusion where the bottom line is never really evident publicly.  Anyone of those guys can cover their backs easily publicly on anything based on that arrangement and also if Dan is involved its the perfect set up for him -- because Bruce/he have the final say and no can complain about them usurping their power-title considering no one has the power-title to challenge them.

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/the-blow-it-up-redskins-appear-ready-to-gamble-on-stability/2017/12/30/7b9fe5da-ecda-11e7-b698-91d4e35920a3_story.html?utm_term=.4a7d76b9dd1b

As the Washington Redskins’ 2017 season limps to a close, owner Daniel Snyder is said to be disappointed with the team’s performance and angry over the public debacle that resulted from the firing of general manager Scot McCloughan in the spring.

 

His marketing team, meanwhile, is tracking less-than-rosy data on game-day attendance; season ticket sales; TV ratings; and the confidence (or lack of it) of premium-seat holders in “team executives,” “the team’s overall visions/strategy” and “team performance in 2017,” via a recently circulated email survey.

 

But Snyder doesn’t plan to fire Coach Jay Gruden regardless of whether the team finishes 8-8 or 7-9 after Sunday’s regular season finale at the New York Giants, according to a team official and associates familiar with his thinking. Nor does he intend to replace team President Bruce Allen despite evidence of his unpopularity, believing that continuity is the best course.

 

...“There are two barometers: If Bruce Allen stays, I would be more likely to give the tickets up,” Schultze said. “I lay all of this game-day experience at his feet, and it hasn’t improved since he has been here. Also the general direction of the team, which has not been good.

“And if Kirk Cousins goes? Are you kidding me? After all these years we didn’t have a quarterback, and because you didn’t have a wherewithal to look ahead, we’re going to lose him? That’s what I’ll be looking at. I will be evaluating the Redskins like they evaluated Kirk.”