A New Start! (the Reboot) The Front Office, Ownership, & Coaching Staff Thread

[Darrell Green Fan]

2 minutes ago, Skin'emAlive said:

LA took 2 years, and still absolutely blew it on their rebrand. No one likes their new logo. The alumni were not even consulted about it either. They are an arena league team compared to the chargers branding. 
 

I would rather Snyder take his time here and get it right, rather than rush it and have it look like the rams. 

While I agree the new logo is not a good look for the Rams there is absolutely no guarantee Snyder won't F it up even in 2 years.  I can't believe you guys are OK with this no name name for anther year. I assure you I am not alone in this thought. 

[Skin'emAlive]

I’m not ok with the name change in general. The fact that the dogs were called off on every other native affiliation in sports only strengthens my opinion there. 
 

But like many, I’m just trying to accept this situation and make the best of it. As long as the new name/logo doesn’t end up a travesty ( see: Wizards). I like the redwolves. And I personally think Wright will do right by the fans. He’s a good dude. 

[Spearfeather]

22 minutes ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

While I agree the new logo is not a good look for the Rams there is absolutely no guarantee Snyder won't F it up even in 2 years.  I can't believe you guys are OK with this no name name for anther year. I assure you I am not alone in this thought. 

 

And. I can assure you we are not alone either.

[Dissident2]

I heard an interesting theory from Cooley and Kevin Sheehan, basically that, if the owner is planning to sell (or forced to sell), he could possibly get a great deal more for the team by allowing the new owner to also rename/rebrand the team rather than inheriting a rebrand immediately. That would make the idea of owning the team that much more attractive. Cooley was wondering if that could be playing into all of this. 

 

The ONE thing I still am happy with when it comes to Snyder is his commitment to keeping the team colors and as much of the tradition as we can. One of the reasons I'm all in for Redwolves. Colors would work perfectly, still a NA vibe, etc. I would worry that a new owner with no connection to that history might be fine just starting from absolute scratch. That said, I've arrived at the point in my fandom that I just want Snyder gone by any means necessary, and anything we have to deal with as a result of that happening would ultimately be worth it. 

 

Best case scenario: Snyder rebrands to Redwolves, keeps the colors, gets kicked to the curb shortly thereafter. The thing that contradicts this conspiracy theory, though, is that Cooley also said the new name has already been chosen. So I guess we'll see. 

[veteranskinsfan]

I hope that Kyle Smith gets promoted to General Manager at the end of this season.  I have seen enough to believe he can find the players we need.  He is miles

better than Allen and politics should not prevent him from getting promoted.  We lost several young assistant coaches who have become head coaches in the past.

Do not let this guy go to another team.  Rivera needs to go to bat for him to the owner asap.

[Thinking Skins]

I don't know if this goes in here but I'm not one to start new threads and I saw the last post relating to the name change, plus with Wright's latest comments this is more ownership related. 

 

But for the life of me I don't see the problem with calling them the Skins. What's wrong with doing what other teams have done to distance themselves from names that have aged and still keeping the history (I'm thinking Knicks and Rays)? The old joke was that we'd just put a potato on the helment, but why does it have to be anything? Doc Walker was talking about Alabama's logo and their name and how it makes no sense but it doesn't care. 

 

If we go with some animal, I'd hope that we could keep the Skins part - pigskins or wolfskins.

 

Or is this consided offensive too? From what I'd think the name Skins is a break from the NA those type of ties to the past and it doesn't take a reporgramming. heck I've been saying Skins for the last 15 years after so many arguments about the team name that got tiresome. But I wonder if this is even a part of the discussion. 

 

Sorry if this is the wrong thread. 

[drowland]

14 minutes ago, Thinking Skins said:

I don't know if this goes in here but I'm not one to start new threads and I saw the last post relating to the name change, plus with Wright's latest comments this is more ownership related. 

 

But for the life of me I don't see the problem with calling them the Skins. What's wrong with doing what other teams have done to distance themselves from names that have aged and still keeping the history (I'm thinking Knicks and Rays)? The old joke was that we'd just put a potato on the helment, but why does it have to be anything? Doc Walker was talking about Alabama's logo and their name and how it makes no sense but it doesn't care. 

 

If we go with some animal, I'd hope that we could keep the Skins part - pigskins or wolfskins.

 

Or is this consided offensive too? From what I'd think the name Skins is a break from the NA those type of ties to the past and it doesn't take a reporgramming. heck I've been saying Skins for the last 15 years after so many arguments about the team name that got tiresome. But I wonder if this is even a part of the discussion. 

 

Sorry if this is the wrong thread. 

 

If you shorten the name it makes more sense to shorten it to the Reds but you already have a baseball team that did that.  Skins as the official name sounds creepy lol.  Even Wolfskins is weird.  Might as well call the team the Fur Trappers. 

 

The Elephant mascot at Alabama was based off a newspaper article describing the team running on the field and it caught on with Alabama fans.  The Hogs is kinda the same with Washington and the Browns have a Dawg logo which was also fan made nickname.  I like doing something with Hogs but that hasn't seemed to catch on with many people.  

Edited October 28, 2020 by drowland

[Thinking Skins]

9 minutes ago, drowland said:

If you shorten the name it makes more sense to shorten it to the Reds but you already have a baseball team that did that.  Skins as the official name sounds creepy lol.  Even Wolfskins is weird.  Might as well call the team the Fur Trappers. 

 

I don't know. What's a Knick or a Ray? It means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. Skins will be what we set it to be, and just like we have been saying about ***Skins not referring to Native Americans but to the football team instead, if we call the team the Skins then that's what we are referring to and its not anything about the Skin of an animal or the Skin of a person or of a potato whatever else. I don't know. If we become whatever else then fine. But I do wonder why I don't hear this in the name change conversation. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

I'd bet everything I own on 'Skins' not being part of the new name.  Just let it go. 

 

 

[Thinking Skins]

11 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

I'd bet everything I own on 'Skins' not being part of the new name.  Just let it go. 

 

 

OK, I would probably bet that too but as fans can we still refer to them as that? Is Skins offensive too? What do we call the 1932-2019 seasons? The pre-Redwolves era? This site is ExtremeSKINS. I know its going to be renamed in the future, but I'm really confused as a fan as to what I am allowed to say. 

[CTskin]

I was against the name change. Now I may be numb to it or something but I just don’t really care where it goes from here. Keep the football team, fine, change it to redwolves or red tails, cool, just please don’t change it to something goofy like the wizards.

Edited October 28, 2020 by CTskin

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 hour ago, Dissident2 said:

I heard an interesting theory from Cooley and Kevin Sheehan, basically that, if the owner is planning to sell (or forced to sell), he could possibly get a great deal more for the team by allowing the new owner to also rename/rebrand the team rather than inheriting a rebrand immediately. That would make the idea of owning the team that much more attractive. Cooley was wondering if that could be playing into all of this. 

I would love this to be the case. 

[Riggo#44]

1 minute ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

I would love this to be the case. 

 

Me too, but I am not holding my breath.

[Darrell Green Fan]

17 hours ago, Spearfeather said:

 

And. I can assure you we are not alone either.

Oh no doubt, that's obvious by the responses here as well as other places. But enough people feel as I do that Jason Wright felt the need to address our concerns at length in his blog.

 

https://www.washingtonfootball.com/news/presidents-weekly-brief-lets-talk-about-the-name

 

 

 

 

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

1 hour ago, veteranskinsfan said:

I hope that Kyle Smith gets promoted to General Manager at the end of this season.  I have seen enough to believe he can find the players we need.  He is miles

better than Allen and politics should not prevent him from getting promoted.  We lost several young assistant coaches who have become head coaches in the past.

Do not let this guy go to another team.  Rivera needs to go to bat for him to the owner asap.

 

I don't see Ron giving up that much control, it probably played a big part in his decision to come here.  What I have been wondering is how is Ron supposed to be making calls and handling personnel while still putting in the time to create a game plan?  Oh and that little cancer treatment thingy as well. 

 

I never like the coach centric approach. There is only one Bill Bilichick, most fail when they try to do both jobs.   

[Riggo#44]

1 hour ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

I don't see Ron giving up that much control, it probably played a big part in his decision to come here.  What I have been wondering is how is Ron supposed to be making calls and handling personnel while still putting in the time to create a game plan?  Oh and that little cancer treatment thingy as well. 

 

He's not, Smith is. Rivera raved about how well they work together.

[Busch1724]

If a name has already been chosen, it's likely they have to get a trademark from another team (Arkansas State).  The legal end will take a while, then marketing, branding, production, etc. It takes a while. 

[FootballZombie]

Gotta take everything that comes from the team on the name change with a massive grain of salt as there is heavy insensitive to milk this thing for all its worth for a myriad of reasons.

 

There is almost no way we hear anything concrete as long as the season is alive. (Zombie Pun)

 

Any smart run operation would not be fully invested in a single name either. They should be jumping through the legal hoops on several possible names and focus testing a deep pool of designs. While they could certainly have narrowed down option A, options B,C and D should be ready to go as well, and that will add to the timetable.

 

-Gotta compare and contrast the cost of doing business with Ark St vs the free uses of just plain Washington Wolves.

 

-Gotta figure out how much time/money you want to invest in the WFT brand as that becomes lost assets the moment you change. The longer you wait, the more that financial band-aid will hurt coming off.

 

-Without vaccines for the general public coming until the middle of next yr (likely) how would you market the new stuff to get it to sell? You cant exactly bring players in to model it, which would be the ideal option. You wont have that same herd effect of seeing all the new gear all over the DC area, which is important for acceptance. From a financial and acceptance standpoint it may be smart to wait.

 

The more I think about it, there is a good number of reasons for a longer timetable.

 

That being said, I am dreading another yr of WFT. 1 is enough.

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

12 hours ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

 

I don't see Ron giving up that much control, it probably played a big part in his decision to come here.  What I have been wondering is how is Ron supposed to be making calls and handling personnel while still putting in the time to create a game plan?  Oh and that little cancer treatment thingy as well. 

 

I never like the coach centric approach. There is only one Bill Bilichick, most fail when they try to do both jobs.   

 

I think Ron is big into trust and delegating, then he observes how it's going and makes changes if he thinks it isn't working.

 

This is my guess:

 

He's got fingers into the OC and DC gameplans, but not a full hand in telling them how to operate.  He wants to control the locker room, the practice field, and manage overarching gameplans from week to week.  But executing the gameplan and letting the OC and DC decide how to implement is on them.  There's been a few occasions where he'll tell Del Rio or Turner to change something.  But he lets them do the changing.

 

I have no idea if this is true, but this is kind of the vibe and impression I've gotten so far.  I could be way off base, lord knows I have with precious coaching arrangements.

 

If we take last year's Senior Bowl, Rivera seemed to really want to make sure that the Front Office and the coaching staff were on the same page.  They had dinners.  They sat together to evaluate players, and what the coaches were hoping to accomplish.  He forced one-on-one time between coaches and scouts.

 

Right now we still seem to be in a bit of a honeymoon phase.  What does Rivera do if he decides Turner can't cut it?  What if he thinks Del Rio's vision for positions within the defense is wrong?

 

How does he override the coaches?  We haven't had that yet.  Benching Apke, or Wes Martin, or Haskins is a bit different than grabbing control from the OC or DC.  And I believe he is letting both Turner and Del Rio have more control than say, Kevin O'Connell had last year with either Gruden or Callahan.

[Darrell Green Fan]

Good post @Alcoholic ZebraI agree with most of what you said.  I'm still fine with Ron Rivera, he inherited a crappy roster and a crappy QB.  There is little doubt in my mind that he is a fine NFL head coach.  The problem is every accomplished head coach leaves here with his reputation tarnished. 

 

It's the reverse car wash that is the Washington Football Team and without a change in ownership I don't see that changing. I mean is Danny even humbled in the least after his insistence on drafting Dwayne Haskins has failed so miserably? I highly doubt it.  

Edited October 29, 2020 by Darrell Green Fan

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 hour ago, Darrell Green Fan said:

Good post @Alcoholic ZebraI agree with most of what you said.  I'm still fine with Ron Rivera, he inherited a crappy roster and a crappy QB.  There is little doubt in my mind that he is a fine NFL head coach.  The problem is every accomplished head coach leaves here with his reputation tarnished. 

 

It's the reverse car wash that is the Washington Football Team and without a change in ownership I don't see that changing. I mean is Danny even humbled in the least after his insistence on drafting Dwayne Haskins has failed so miserably? I highly doubt it.  

 

Exactly right. Nothing changes at a macro level until Snyder is forced to sell. 

[Always A Commander Never A Captain]

The one thing the fan base can almost unanimously agree upon.  We want new ownership.

 

I think a difference between Shanahan and Rivera is that Shanahan had, in hindsight, a lot less control than Rivera.  He had to swallow the McNabb trade.  And then the massive trade up for RG3.

 

He was dealing with the brown noser Bruce Allen.

 

Contrast that with Rivera, who hired a new Team President himself, and set the scope of the Team Presidents powers.  Changed the media department around.  Fired some suck ups to Snyder, some problem people as well.

 

Shanahan was having power struggles from Day 1.

[Est.1974]

26 minutes ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

He was dealing with the brown noser Bruce Allen.

Indeed. Amongst all of the turbulence we should always reflect on the positive associated with Bruce being out of the door.

[Voice_of_Reason]

On 10/28/2020 at 8:56 AM, veteranskinsfan said:

I hope that Kyle Smith gets promoted to General Manager at the end of this season.  I have seen enough to believe he can find the players we need.  He is miles

better than Allen and politics should not prevent him from getting promoted.  We lost several young assistant coaches who have become head coaches in the past.

Do not let this guy go to another team.  Rivera needs to go to bat for him to the owner asap.

If you're saying to promote him to GM just to keep him, that's fine. He said a couple of times in the off-season while of course he would like to be a GM, he's very comfortable with his role.  Would another team come calling after the draft and try and hire him as a GM?  Maybe.  I think WFT could counter the offer as well, as long as he was under contract.  Not sure, but I think I heard that.  

 

If you're saying it because you think he should have final voice, or more of a voice than he does now, eh, I think I'm in the minority but I don't think it really matters. As long as Kyle Smith gets to run the draft with input from the scouts and coaches, and both he and Ron agree on free agency, I just don't think it matters.  

 

I think a lot of that changed with the hiring of Jason Wright.  By hiring Jason Wright, it took an enormous amount of the superfluous stuff which was on Ron's plate, like the name change, organizational culture, etc.  Jason can now handle all of that, which reduces the load on Ron's plate significantly.

 

And as long as Ron and Kyle are working together, I don't care who works for who.  There are some who are adamant that the GM should pick the players and the coach.  I don't really care who picks who as long as somebody has the final say and that person is accountable, and (most importantly) they work together. 

 

No matter what, the coach should have 100% say on who's playing, who's not.  I think everything else should be collaborative.  The off-season roster, the first set of cuts, the final cuts. And if you have two people who work well together, they can have disagreements, and work them out.  Disagreements are actually really positive, because it forces people to defend their position and convince the other side one way or the other, OR puts the cards on the table that the final decision was not unanimous, and whoever made it, owns it, and can be held accountable for it.   

 

14 hours ago, Alcoholic Zebra said:

 

I think Ron is big into trust and delegating, then he observes how it's going and makes changes if he thinks it isn't working.

 

...

I completely agree.  

 

The one concern I do have, which is interesting because it's a strength and a weakness, is Ron is extremely loyal.  Potentially loyal to a fault.  And it might take him some time to move on from those who he really trusts. 

 

I also think he's got a very good understanding of football, so if something is being done stupid, I'm pretty sure he can tell that, and will work to correct it.  

 

Something I haven't looked up, did he fire any coaches in Carolina?  They did have several OCs over the years, but I don't know if they just sortof moved on.  I know at least one of his DCs became a HC.  I don't know if there was churn at the position coach level.

 

We'll see.  He's familiar with Scott Turner.  He hasn't worked with JDR before, so I'm sure he's still evaluating him, but Jack seems to be passing most of the tests.  Except the one McVay presented, where Jack was taken to the woodshed early and often.  

[Reaper Skins]

Whatever happened to Doug Williams?  Is he still even employed by the team?   Demoted into purgatory somewhere once Ron was hired?