Year three under Rivera and we still have no identity

[Warhead36]

Establishing an identity is important in the NFL.

 

You look around the league. The good teams have an identity. They have a style they play. They build their roster around that style. The players buy into it. The coaches buy into it. It acts as a rallying point for your team. Even in terms of adversity, you have your identity to fall back on. Those teams even when they have off years, you expect them to bounce back because they've built something. When this franchise was good, it had an identity. Strong OL and solid QB play and a coach that could out scheme almost anyone.

 

Hell even some of our teams in the Snyder era had an identity. Shanahan's teams could always run the ball well. Gruden maximized the QB/passing game(until he was stuck with complete trash but heck the guy won a game with Josh freaking Johnson once). The Gibbs II teams had strong line play and were tough. And some of the rebuilding teams, you can sense they're establishing an identity. For example, the Giants are gonna be a tough, physical team. They've already set that tone in just four games.

 

Meanwhile, we're in year three under Rivera. THREE. That's almost an eternity in today's NFL. And I still have no clue what we're trying to build. Are we trying to be a tough, hard nosed physical style football team? Are we trying to be an aggressive spread it out passing team? Are we gonna run the ball and take shots downfield or try to run quick passes? 

 

We spend a lot of money and some decent draft capital on a QB and then draft a talented WR in the 1st round, but deplete our OL depth that we need to protect him. The year before we draft an athletic LB and then in year one force him into playing MLB and read/react. We sign man to man CBs and ask them to play zone, or sign slot CBs and ask them to play man. 

 

There is no real...DIRECTION with this team, whether it comes to on field strategizing or offseason roster acquisitions. Nothing we do is with a plan or a purpose. Its just random moves and hoping it all sticks.

 

This is my real issue with Ron Rivera. He inherited a mess sure and it has gotten a little bit better, but by year 3 there should be a clear cut direction. There isn't any. I see teams in first year regimes that look further along. I don't necessarily mean roster-wise(which isn't really that great either)but you just get a sense that they know what they're doing. Does ANYONE get that sense here anymore?

 

I said before this year that I was willing to give Scott Turner until he got a real QB before I evaluated him. Well he has one now and the offense is a mess. Yes I know there are injuries on the OL. So what? Everyone has injuries. The Lions were without Deandre Swift AND Amon ra St. Brown, who are better than just about anyone on our roster, and still managed to put up 45 points today(albeit in a loss, but still, we haven't scored 45 in the last two games combined). And Turner was a Rivera choice. 

 

I'm normally not a 'FIRE THE COACHES" guy. I think too much blame gets placed on them when its generally a players issue, but now I'm officially on the Fire Ron Rivera bandwagon. And all the other coaches can go too(although I think Del Rio has mostly righted the ship on defense the last two weeks scheme-wise, the issues are clearly personnel at MLB and CB right now).

[88Comrade2000]

And he never will. Ron has built nothing and we are even worse than year 3.

 

 

We will have an identity with the next guy; putrid. Losses of 12 or more.

It will be a ****ty identity but at least we know where we will stand.

[Zim489]

Its abundantly clear they never had a plan from beginning. It has been just a year to year get as best as we can. No idea on how to build a franchise. They just get "good" players and plug them in and hope they do well.

 

Its why I am such a stickler for a GM lead franchise a HC only thinks in one year increments. A true GM in this spot would start shopping some players for some picks when its clear the team isnt going anywhere. Ron isnt trading a sole. In fact I wouldnt be surprised if they traded for Roquan smith using our top 5 pick .

 

There needs to be a clear and coherent plan set by the FO. 

[Warhead36]

3 minutes ago, Zim489 said:

Its abundantly clear they never had a plan from beginning. It has been just a year to year get as best as we can. No idea on how to build a franchise. They just get "good" players and plug them in and hope they do well.

 

Its why I am such a stickler for a GM lead franchise a HC only thinks in one year increments. A true GM in this spot would start shopping some players for some picks when its clear the team isnt going anywhere. Ron isnt trading a sole. In fact I wouldnt be surprised if they traded for Roquan smith using our top 5 pick .

 

There needs to be a clear and coherent plan set by the FO. 

Agreed. The good teams get a GM. GM hires a coach. Coach chooses his QB. Everyone is on the same page from the get go. 

 

Its gonna suck when the Giants get a QB next year and immediately become a contender AGAIN while we're stuck in another era of mediocrity(at best).

 

This will forever be a directionless franchise because we have an owner that doesn't have a clue. Strong ownership is THE most important part of a successful franchise.

[abdcskins]

Honestly he seems super apathetic as a coach, just reading his body language and tone of voice.  I think he is already tired of coaching.  And the roster construction is a result of his bad scouting/evauluation.

 

Team needs a young passionate head coach who will light a fire and yell at these dudes.  Lack of effort reflects on the head coach.  

[Daniel.redskins]

Strong post Warhead. Modern day football has turned into a game of chess. Coaches are more important now than ever. The offense and defense both look lost. It's pathetic. I mean Doug Peterson has completely turned the Jags around in one off-season. 

I really like Kellon Moore. He is winning with a backup QB and a banged up o-line. I love the downfield jump balls that end with either a catch or pass interference. Turner just runs stupid *** screens. 

Edited October 2, 2022 by Daniel.redskins

[Zim489]

6 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Agreed. The good teams get a GM. GM hires a coach. Coach chooses his QB. Everyone is on the same page from the get go. 

 

Its gonna suck when the Giants get a QB next year and immediately become a contender AGAIN while we're stuck in another era of mediocrity(at best).

 

This will forever be a directionless franchise because we have an owner that doesn't have a clue. Strong ownership is THE most important part of a successful franchise.

And I think it can all get turned around with one hire. Thats the most maddening thing to me. He can offer the SAME contract he gave to ron to a GM and itll be the highest paid GM in sports history and itll be the path to the one correct thing he has never done before. 

[BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93]

I honestly think his health situation took some of the fire out of him. 
 

still, he sucks at both of his jobs 

[Warhead36]

5 minutes ago, BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93 said:

I honestly think his health situation took some of the fire out of him. 
 

still, he sucks at both of his jobs 

Way too much was placed on Ron's plate from the get go. Its bad enough he was given total roster control, but why TF did he have ANYTHING to do with the rebrand? Just let him coach the team. 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Daniel.redskins said:

Strong post Warhead. Modern day football has turned into a game of chess. Coaches are more important now than ever. The offense and defense both look lost. It's pathetic. I mean Doug Peterson has completely turned the Jags around in one off-season. 

I really like Kellon Moore. He is winning with a backup QB and a banged up o-line. I love the downfield jump balls that end with either a catch or pass interference. Turner just runs stupid *** screens. 

Football is the one sport where the coach actually matters a lot when it comes to Xs and Os. It means almost nothing in baseball and very little in basketball and hockey(relatively speaking). Its really hard to win if you're significantly behind the curve coaching wise. Either your head coach has to be on point, or he needs to be a tremendous leader of men who has assistants who are on point, but that's harder to maintain because teams just hire those assistants, in which case you need to be able to consistently hire good assistants(that's one strong point of Andy Reid and appears to be a strong point of Sean McVay now as well).

 

Say what you will about Jay Gruden as a leader of men but Xs and Os wise I would say he was well above average offensively. I can guarantee the offense would be putting up yards and points if he were coaching the team now. Not sure our record would be that much better but we'd all feel a lot better if we lost the last two games 27-24 ish instead of the double digit routs they ended up being.

[Skintime]

13 minutes ago, abdcskins said:

Honestly he seems super apathetic as a coach, just reading his body language and tone of voice.  I think he is already tired of coaching.  And the roster construction is a result of his bad scouting/evauluation.

 

Team needs a young passionate head coach who will light a fire and yell at these dudes.  Lack of effort reflects on the head coach.  

He's different than he was his first season. I think whatever handicapping Snyder did in the off season made him want out.

13 minutes ago, Zim489 said:

And I think it can all get turned around with one hire. Thats the most maddening thing to me. He can offer the SAME contract he gave to ron to a GM and itll be the highest paid GM in sports history and itll be the path to the one correct thing he has never done before. 

We had 3 SB winning coaches on this team and chased them away. 

[Voice_of_Reason]

I think when he took the job he thought they were going to be a defense-led, tough-nosed, run the football team.  

 

Then he got into the season and figured out that wasn't actually going to work.  And then changed tactics.

 

The one thing I will give Ron, he was delt a crap hand at the beginning of his tenure with inheriting Haskins and then having the off-season wiped out by COVID.  That kindof put everything back a year to start with.

 

That said, I think they completely mismanaged the off-season, and maybe just at a few spots, particularly the OL.  But they screwed that pooch so much it's derailing everything they want to be.

 

I think they wanted to be a down-the-field, explosive play offense with an attacking defense.  They invested in RB in the draft, WR in the draft, and WR last year in FA, re-signed Terry. They traded for a QB with a big arm who can hit the deep ball.  Everything they did said "we want to attack down-field and play off of that."

 

But they forgot you can't do that when your QB is looking up at the sun/roof of the stadium.  So now we're in the middle of a "huh, what are we going to do to score points" situation.

 

And it's mad frustrating.  

 

 

[@DCGoldPants]

Snyder is the identify. Snyder has been the identify. No coach or GM or coach/GM can overcome that. 

[NoCalMike]

The non-plan plan?  One of the main criticisms I have of the Rivera era is that the team doesn't seem to have the ability to build one unit without seeing a different unit fall apart, that tells me that they going into each season hoping that a specific unit can carry the team and the rest of the team is juuuuuuust good enough to not lose games.  That isn't building.  Most franchises, when they are rebuilding, they will start in specific areas and once those are stout they will focus elsewhere, but the unit that was initially a strength doesn't go right back to being a liability right after. 

 

Right now I am wondering just what the hell was going on during training camp to make the coaches think they were okay with the current O-line?  Was the D-line not dominating and blowing up plays when they were practicing?  It is one thing to have a bad game, but the way the O-line has been pushed around constantly, how was none of this seen before the season started?

Edited October 2, 2022 by NoCalMike

[Warhead36]

1 minute ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

I think when he took the job he thought they were going to be a defense-led, tough-nosed, run the football team.  

 

Then he got into the season and figured out that wasn't actually going to work.  And then changed tactics.

 

The one thing I will give Ron, he was delt a crap hand at the beginning of his tenure with inheriting Haskins and then having the off-season wiped out by COVID.  That kindof put everything back a year to start with.

 

That said, I think they completely mismanaged the off-season, and maybe just at a few spots, particularly the OL.  But they screwed that pooch so much it's derailing everything they want to be.

 

I think they wanted to be a down-the-field, explosive play offense with an attacking defense.  They invested in RB in the draft, WR in the draft, and WR last year in FA, re-signed Terry. They traded for a QB with a big arm who can hit the deep ball.  Everything they did said "we want to attack down-field and play off of that."

 

But they forgot you can't do that when your QB is looking up at the sun/roof of the stadium.  So now we're in the middle of a "huh, what are we going to do to score points" situation.

 

And it's mad frustrating.  

 

 

His mismanagement of the OL has been nothing short of criminal. 

[Renegade7]

Do the BB Pat's have an identity other then "take their strength, attack their weakness, don't beat yourself"?

 

Chiefs and Packers identity is let their QB go sportscenter, "identity" jus feels overrated or more code for medicore teams owning their limitations in order to be above average, see Ravens...

[Voice_of_Reason]

1 minute ago, Warhead36 said:

His mismanagement of the OL has been nothing short of criminal. 

Total disaster.  I wouldn't have paid Scherff $18-20m either.  But they had to do more to replace him than what they did.  And I know they wanted to move on from Flowers and they thought he was overpaid.  Fine, the rest of the NFL did also. But maybe you just suck it up for one more year.

 

They needed to do MUCH MUCH more on the OL.  

 

I bought, hook line and sinker, Masko could just make it work. 

 

But he couldn't.

 

Who played Center today?  I don't even know.  I missed the first half of the game because of work.

 

[Captain Wiggles]

1 minute ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Who played Center today?  I don't even know.  I missed the first half of the game because of work.

 

 

Nick Martin 😬

[Warhead36]

2 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

Do the BB Pat's have an identity other then "take their strength, attack their weakness, don't beat yourself"?

 

Chiefs and Packers identity is let their QB go sportscenter, "identity" jus feels overrated or more code for medicore teams owning their limitations in order to be above average, see Ravens...

When I say identity I mean it more as an over aching term of having a strategy of how to sustain success. Their pieces all fit together. They'd never for example sign a man to man CB like William Jackson and make him play zone, or draft an athletic OLB like Jamin Davis and make him play MLB. 

 

There is no real planning or strategy with this team. Its just a mish mash of moves. 

4 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Total disaster.  I wouldn't have paid Scherff $18-20m either.  But they had to do more to replace him than what they did.  And I know they wanted to move on from Flowers and they thought he was overpaid.  Fine, the rest of the NFL did also. But maybe you just suck it up for one more year.

 

They needed to do MUCH MUCH more on the OL.  

 

I bought, hook line and sinker, Masko could just make it work. 

 

But he couldn't.

 

Who played Center today?  I don't even know.  I missed the first half of the game because of work.

 

I think with NO injuries and assuming Roullier returns 100% and in form, Masko might have been able to make that work.

 

But you can't assume that. OL is probably the most injury prone unit of any in the league. They needed to continue to strengthen a unit that was actually fairly strong last year. 

3 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Nick Martin 😬

He wasn't even our worst lineman today. Trai Turner straight up got benched for sucking. 

 

Another brilliant Ron move.

[Voice_of_Reason]

3 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

I think with NO injuries and assuming Roullier returns 100% and in form, Masko might have been able to make that work.

 

But you can't assume that. OL is probably the most injury prone unit of any in the league. They needed to continue to strengthen a unit that was actually fairly strong last year. 

With Leno, Norwell, Rouiller, Schweitzer, Cosmi, I think they're fine.

 

The problem is Rouiller and Schweitzer were coming off of season ending injuries.  Neither practiced a lot this training camp.  Norwell and Turner, the 2 guys they signed, were hurt last year, or not very good.  Both had worked with Masko before, so the thought was, no worries.

 

As it turns out, Turner can't play.  Schweitzer is fine at guard, but isn't really a center. 

 

Larson is on PUP, and they knew that was going to happen.  They released Ismael, who wasn't great, but was an actual center.

 

I still think all things being equal, they should have bit the bullet and cut Heinicke and used the extra spot for another OL.  I get that would have been massively unpopular and put Howell in a position he would have to play before he's really ready to.  But they needed another center on the team, and they were asking Schweitzer to either be a starter, backup swing guard, and backup center.  So, potentially 3 roles.  For one guy.  Who was hurt last year. 

 

Total debacle.

 

They need to trade a 4th rounder right now to go get a starting guard, and PRAY Larson can come off the PUP soon so he can play center.  

10 minutes ago, Captain Wiggles said:

 

Nick Martin 😬

Who exactly is Nick Martin?

 

Turner must be horrendous if you get benched for Charles, who is going to be looking for work in the insurance sales business in Louisiana in 2 years...

[skinfan2k]

Rivera is coaching this game like its the 1990s.  We had piss poor time management today.  If we had Brady with 2 timeouts with 1 min, they would try to go for it vs running it 

[Renegade7]

1 minute ago, Warhead36 said:

When I say identity I mean it more as an over aching term of having a strategy of how to sustain success. Their pieces all fit together. They'd never for example sign a man to man CB like William Jackson and make him play zone, or draft an athletic OLB like Jamin Davis and make him play MLB. 

 

There is no real planning or strategy with this team. Its just a mish mash of moves. 

 

I feel you, understand and agree. 

 

Identity, imo, isn't the word for it,  there are some project management terminologies on tip of my tongue that would be a better description for longterm strategic exection of an overall team building philosophy.

 

Some GMs, like Lynch in SF, had in their mind they wanted a punch you in the face franchise, and they would look like that even if they had a good QB.

 

What you have in bold jus feels like competence issues and aggrogance problems.  I'm 100% sure Ron had a longterm strategy ready to go when he started here, now I'm 100% convinced it's just another bad plan in a long line of other bad ones.

 

Competence wouldn't of done the bold in the field place, arrogance is consistently using players against their strength and not to their strength. 

[Warhead36]

3 minutes ago, skinfan2k said:

Rivera is coaching this game like its the 1990s.  We had piss poor time management today.  If we had Brady with 2 timeouts with 1 min, they would try to go for it vs running it 

That end of first half overall decision making was just mind boggling on so many levels and just incompetence at its finest. Just talking about it again makes me want to break something.

[Captain Wiggles]

3 minutes ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

 

Who exactly is Nick Martin?

 

 

Zach Martin's brother and commanders third string center. He was with the Texans for a few years.

[Renegade7]

21 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

His mismanagement of the OL has been nothing short of criminal. 

 

What hurts me the most is I called this in the offseason when the Wentz trade ate all our cap space and instead of improving the oline we got rid of folks to stay under the cap.

 

Kept convincing myself they'd figure it out, truth is you can't and good franchises don't dig that type of hole in the first place so they don't have to figure out how to fix it.

[SpacePenguin]

This team has an identity. It's that of a doormat. Think of the Lions, the Browns, the Dolphins. That's what this team is now.

 

You just don't realize it because YOU'RE IN TOO DEEP. So am I. Who needs an offensive line, anyhow?

Edited October 2, 2022 by SpacePenguin