New Trevor Walters Article

[RedskinLifer]

Here's the link:

http://www.midatlanticsports.net/wa002.htm

Just in case any of you would like to read it, I wanted it to be simple for you. I thought that last week's article (NFC East Off-Season Grades) was the best so far, but what do I know.

I hope you enjoy.

[jimster]

More Than One Way To 'Skin A Cat

By Trevor Walters

For Mid-Atlantic Sports

If you have read anything I've written up to this point, and here's hoping you have, you know that I'm an advocate of how our team has been assembled, from the coaching staff on down. But our way isn't the only way, and it has been the object of much ridicule, ridicule that won't be alleviated until Coach Gibbs returns us to the playoffs.

Currently, the model of success in the NFL is the New England Patriots, who have won two of the last three Super Bowls. They have drafted well, kept who they should have kept, and cut who they should have cut. They occasionally venture into the free agent market with players like Roosevelt Colvin and Ted Washington (both during last off-season), and they're not afraid to make a trade, as was the case this off-season when they brilliantly swapped a late second rounder to the Bengals for Corey Dillon.

Before we convince ourselves that the Patriots' front office can walk on water, let us not forget that there has been one constant in place during their time on top of the football mountain; their coaching staff. Now that we have a coaching staff in place that is even better than the one in New England, we'll see if that makes all of our moves as successful at the end of the season, as they are promising at this point.

Other than New England, there are other teams that have remained among the better squads in the league for what seems like forever. Green Bay, Denver, and the Eagles have stayed in the leagues upper echelon with a mixture of continuity, scouting, talent, coaching, and, well, luck. Assuming Terrell Owens wanna-be Mike McKenzie gets his way and leaves town, Green Bay would still only have two new starters next season. They have remained consistent with a good coaching staff, a great offensive line stacked with Herculean blockers you've never heard of, and of course, with Brett Favre.

Denver, while not necessarily a perennial Super Bowl contender, is never a bad team. Sure, they may sprinkle a 6-10 in every so often, but they are never Cardinals bad. Though I question this season's off-season philosophy of signing every archaic defensive lineman that set foot in Colorado (Luther Eliss, Raylee Johnson, Marco Coleman, etc.), I can't argue with sustained success. I do, however, vehemently disagree with the inexplicably accepted notion that their offensive line and blocking schemes are the sole reasons that running backs have any success in Denver. This is the same notion that holds you could plug in any warm body at halfback, Bea Arthur for instance, and success will surely follow. This would be like saying that Harvard graduates are only successful because they went to Harvard, when in actuality, those graduates, or in Denver's case, halfbacks, were good enough to succeed without being just products of an elite institution.

We are often criticized for signing big names, and not drafting to fill our needs. I won't argue with some of the facts behind that complaint, but I will present my case that we are not a rag-tag group of prima donnas that are only here to collect checks. We have a team that has been built from free agency in many places, but often forgotten is our drafts have produced quite a few starters too, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

Consider that it is quite feasible that this season's offensive starters could have as many as eight players (Rod Gardner, Chris Samuels, Derrick Dockery, Corey Raymer, Jon Jansen, Chris Cooley, Patrick Ramsey, and Darnerian McCants) that we're original Redskin draftees. This lineup obviously is subject to change based on what formation we start out with, and assumes that players like Ramsey and Raymer will win their respective positions. It also includes three receivers, which will be one of the many formations that we're sure to see at various times this season. Also figuring into the offensive fold are Redskin selections Taylor Jacobs, and Ladell Betts, who at this point are not penciled in as starters, but who should earn time on the field in this powerful offense.

I'm sure now that there are those who would point out that the defensive starters are almost all free agent acquisitions, with only Lavar Arrington, Fred Smoot, and Sean Taylor projected as starters that have been Redskins from day one. This is a true statement, but what lies beneath it is the fact that our draft strategy for the last few years has been to draft chiefly for offense. This strategy probably is due to coaches that were in place or the needs we had at the time. My personal belief is that we were afraid of drafting another David Terrell, so we just stayed away from that side of the ball as much as we could.

We've only drafted nine defensive players this millennium. That's nine defensive players drafted out of a possible 31 selections in our last four drafts, and four of the nine are no longer on the roster. These numbers do not a "home-grown" defensive make.

If we are going to be truthful with ourselves, we are not the greatest drafting team in the league anyway. Like most teams, we have made great selections, Jansen ('99) and Fred Smoot ('01) in the second round, and Shawn Barber ('98) in the fourth round, to name a few. But, we have also fallen flat on our face more times than I care to remember. The NFL Draft, though, is a fickle mistress. There are very few sure things, so to endeavor to fill one's team with free agents, a more "known" quantity, really doesn't seem to be as ludicrous as Len Pasquarelli would have you believe.

Some teams like to develop their own strategies for building a winner. Before their Super Bowl winning season, the Baltimore Ravens loaded up on free agents, but ruined their cap for the next few seasons. Now, they have chosen a particularly interesting path wherein they attempt to have as many criminals on the roster as possible. I wonder why a team who is so easy to hate would adopt such a questionable practice. I sure Brian Billick will find a way to make it all work together, if you don't believe it, ask him.

The fact that teams can alter their roster from season to season is one of the best things about the NFL. Teams aren't destined to dwell in the basement from season to season. There also isn't a fix working like there is in the NBA, but that is am entirely different column. There is indeed more than one way to build a team, but for all the building we did this off-season, our coaching staff will ultimately make the difference in our record in 2004, and our showing in past years.

June 1st is right around the corner. Keep checking back in as I review how the events of June 1st effect our division, and more than likely, take another cheap shot or two at David Terrell.