My first post here. Long and Depressing

[RedskinsNation]

Solid post, I def. feel your frustration and do agree with a lot with what you have said because your statements represent the results of say maybe a 1-4 team which (by the way) is our record.

I do think S.Taylor has played above average (for a rookie) and I think he will get better. I think G.Williams will help his development and Taylor will give him the respect, that is if he hasnt already, and will learn a ton from him.

Gardner is a mystery.

Brunell is a mystery or more of a wasted acquistion/draft pick if you want my opinion.

These last 3 losses have made me want to cry...If I was a 12 yr old boy I would have cried my weight probably - LOL... but our schedule over the next 4 weeks isnt exactly littered w/quality teams and if we want to get back to being an "average" team then the time is now.

I still believe Portis will gain 1,500 yards this year. Yes I DO BELIEVE that and the best is yet to come from him.

Anyways though...your post was solid and you sound frustrated just like the rest of us so I have to respect that.

Welcome!!!

[JRAB]

Hey friend,

I just wanted to let you know how it came off...

You can change your screenname anytime in your profile options, which you can access at the top left of each page.

Thanks man. I think I'll change it this evening when I get home from work.

I'm going back to read your post now!

:laugh:

Don't judge it too harshly... I'm in off the ledge now.

[RDSKNfaithfull]

Originally posted by Dirk Diggler

Someone talk this guy in off the ledge.

I'm not sure where to start with you as you are quite the misguided fellow but I will point out your most egregious error.

As far as the Portis/Bailey trade goes, you know - the one that you simply "can't believe we did." I'm wondering exactly how much better you believe our team would be with Bailey?

If you have been paying any attention, you'd see that our defense has allowed 6 TDs in 5 games. I'm doubt we ever had a stretch like that with Champ.

As far as Portis goes, he hasn't been great. But do you believe Betts would be better? When we do get the offense turned around, who else would you rather have at RB?

Devils advocate kept Champ signed Duecceeeeee still have a 2nd round pick.

And for those who said Champ didn't want to be here lets see Portis attitude if we go threw another 5 years like the past 5.

Im a UM fan though and happy Portis is hear though:D

[skins4eva]

As much as I agree with some of the points made by the original poster, and as much as I, at times, feel the same way, football is a sport with too many variables to allow accurate prediction. I really do believe that Gibbs will figure out a way to turn this around, this is a guy who never gives up, and this initial struggle will be no exception

[denverdan]

Originally posted by RedskinsNation

I still believe Portis will gain 1,500 yards this year. Yes I DO BELIEVE that and the best is yet to come from him.

Believe is the key word here, believe on all fronts. If I can believe in richie, norv, marty and steve, I sure as hell can believe in Gibbs.

Believe in Portis; we've seen what he can do when he gets the blocks. Believe that Bugel will get the o-line rolling, believe that Gibbs will figure out what to do about the QB.

Stop believing in champ, he wanted out bad, he plays in denver now. Stop wishing for players we don't have; we look great on The D with several second stringers playing.

Believe because your not gonna become a stinkin' cowboy fan and your not gonna jump on the eagles or the vikes or the patriots bandwagon.

Most of all believe that this bad streak is gonna end on Soldier Field.

[FullbackIsKey]

sweet, another realist around here. These things are the reason i've been avoiding the boards here over the past few weeks. I know if i said the stuff I've been feeling i'd just get blasted or ignored.

I'm in complete agreeance with everything but Sean Taylor, he's young, he thinks he's superman in the secondary, he'll figure out soon enough that, yeah, I'm pretty damn gifted physically, but really not a whole lot more than the other guys around me, i need to get smarter.

And Portis is young too, so i have to think the same of him, that he'll run around and away from a few more blocks before he'll realize to slow up a bit, and wait for the 335-pound OT to move that guy out of my way for me.

And i still would really like to punch whoever it was that decided we need to pay Mark Brunell:

Now: $760K

2005: $1.5M

2006: $4M

2007: $5.2M

2008: $6.4M

2009: $7.6M

2010: $8.8M

over the next 7 years, plus an 8.6 mil SB, which is spread at approx. $1.229mil/year for 7 years

Which means that if we cut/trade Brunell before next year, we take a cap hit of 7.37 Mil.

after that, it's 6.14m

then in 2006: 4.91m

and in 2007: 3.69m<--------This is our first opportunity to get rid of Brunell and also gain back money on the salary cap

Are we gonna wait that long to let P-Ram start?

[Butz65]

Originally posted by ButterfingerPortis

What if back then Gibbs simply had more talent than most teams? The front office was great and undeniably, those past Gibbs teams had plenty of talent. What if Gibbs schemes *are* simply about execution, not innovation? What if he won because his guys couldn’t be whipped when they executed because they were just better?

The Skins teams of the 80's weren't necessarily more talented. Most of the hogs were UFA's or very late round picks. Theisman was a converted punt returner. The wide receivers were smart but not fast. Darryl Grant (one of their best D-linemen) started out on the O-line. Doug Williams was considered washed up when he arrived with the Redskins and no one had ever heard of Mark Rypien. Gibbs won because his teams were better coached than most others. The one big difference between then and now was that the Redskins had great GM's during Gibb's tenure who were able to scope out players that fit his mold.

Look what we pay Brunell, Portis, Arrington, Taylor, Coles, Samuels, Morton, Springs, Thomas and others. Who in that group is earning their pay?

I'd say Taylor, Springs, Samuels and Arrington (can't ding a guy for being injured) are earning their pay. Coles and Portis can definitely play better and I think the jury is out on the others.

Brunell is already clearly a horrible decision. Can you believe what we paid that guy? Gawd almighty! And now we can’t get him out as QB (something 80% of the fans want) because we have so much money tied up in him.

Perhaps - he did put 325 yards against the Cowboys. Give Gibbs some time - people wanted him to bench a floundering Theisman in 1981 as well.

Lavar?

LaVar's an impact player who's had to play with some pretty poor tackles in front of him. Once he's healthy I'll bet he thrives under Greg Williams.

CB's are sooooo much more difficult to find in the NFL than RB's, and what do we do? We trade the best one in the league for an average RB and just to make it even... we throw in a second round pick!!! Please!!

Champ was out of here - he burned his bridge with Snyder last year. We got a good running back in the trade - better than anyone else on the roster. Don't be surprised if he still manages 1,400 yards this season. He's still adapting to a new system.

Springs isn’t a tenth of the player Bailey is. Imagine what Champ would’ve done with Williams as his coordinator. Gawd!!

Note sure where this is coming from Springs has had a pretty strong season to date. By the way, how many times did we make it to the playoffs with Champ?

Samuels.

He's a Pro Bowl caliber player. Fact is if he doesn't renegotiate his contract he's out of here - similar to Champ.

Taylor? He’s all ability and no brains. He seriously may never make much of an impact in the NFL because his ability to process information is painfully lacking.

What - the kid's a rookie! Please - Champ didn't do so well in his rookie campaign either.

Why spend not only that kind of money for a safety, but that high of a pick. I’ll say it again… our money on D should be tied up at CB and DL with solid role players at safety and LB.

??? didn't you say spending money on Springs was a mistake. As for $$$ spent on the D-line - remember Big Daddy and Dana Stubblefield - how'd that work out? The current D-line is playing pretty well. The defense has kept us in games.

They try hard. I haven’t seen any quit in this team. I wish I had. At least then you could say, “Gibbs is going to whip them in shape as the year goes on.” No, these guys work hard and try… they just can’t do it. And this is our roster guys.

This team plays not to lose instead of playing to win. If Gibbs can't turn that around no one will. I still trust that he will even if it means waiting until next season to see the fruits of his labor.

But you know Snyder will sign free agents. That means were going to lose a lot of the guys we now have. Who goes? Coles, Arrington, who?

These players are over-paid any way right? Why not get rid of them?

I hope I get more positive about the Redskins so I can write something on here that isn’t so depressing.

Here are some facts to keep hope alive. Philly was 2-3 last year at this point, Eagles fans (I live in Philly so I get to hear from them a lot) were calling for Feeley to replace McNabb as Feeley had gone 5-1 in relief the season before. Anyone remember the 6-0 Vikings? There's still a lot of football to be played.

Nonetheless, if you think the season is a bust consider that Vermeil went 5-11 and 4-12 in his first 2 seasons back with the Rams before winning the Super Bowl in year three (with an Arena League QB that no one had heard of). I don't want to wait that long but after 12 years with one playoff appearance I would take the same results.

I think Gibbs will prove his legacy was no fluke. Perhaps not this season but sooner rather than later.

[G.Smitty]

One thing that I disagree with in your initial post is the point where you talk about the impact positions on a defence. In a traditional defence I do agree that DE and CB are likely the most important positions. Greg Williams defence is so much different then anything else in the NFL right now that I think the impact positions are actually LB and Safety.

It is hard to argue that this season our biggest impact players on D have been Washington, Pierce, Bowen ( ) and to a slightly lesser extent Griffin.

Now it is possible that Williams has taylored his defence to the strengths of the individuals that he has here in Washington but I think if you look at his previous stops around the league you will find a similar trend.

Williams has always got great production out of his safetys, from Blaine Bishop in Tenessee to Milloy and Wire (I believe that was the guys name in Buffalo). He has also always had great production from his LB's like Bullock in TEN and Spikes and Fletcher in Buffalo. Outside of Kearse in TEN he hasn't really had an elitle DE but he did get great production out of players like Kenny Holmes and Schoebel who I would consider averagely talented. I think that this is because of the mismatches that he creates because of all the blitzing from the safety's and LB's.

Let's not forget that Wynn and the combination of Evans/Warner are both on pace for about 8 sacks this year which is not bad production from the DE's.

Anyways, to sum up what I am trying to get at, is I think we have just scratched the surface of what we can do on defence and our core of players Washington, Arrington, Bowen, Taylor, Griffin and hopefully Pierce and Smoot are all the players that we need on D while the players on the D line remain largely interchangable.

[DallasCowpoke]

Nice post, and I have to commend your fellow skin fans for not wailin' on you.

75% of what you said is spot-on IMHO. I thought from the get-go the trade for Portis was misguided, it's seems much easier to get a capable RB than it is an above-average DB.

As far a Brunell goes, the first thing that goes through my mind when I first heard his name mentioned in free agency is, "what's that guy is done!!??"

It would be easy at first blush, to declare that the game has passed Gibbs by, or he's in over his head, but I think any rational thinker would realize that a person with his résumé will right the ship.

One can look at Parcells and make the obvious comparisons to what he's done with free-agent acquisitions this year. I will be greatly disappointed if the trend continues in the 05 off-season of signing the same type of aging free agents as he did in 04. Although, with the draft picks that we will have available, I find it unlikely.

As an interested, albeit not fully informed onlooker, it appears Washington's biggest problem is in the front office, not the coach’s.

[Vegas-Born]

Almost too much love around here today...good post. You have a right to say what you feel. I agree with some, not all of it. BUt your points are well made and for the most part you support them instead of just throwing them around.

Welcome aboard brother.

[RedskinsNation]

Originally posted by DallasCowpoke

Nice post, and I have to commend your fellow skin fans for not wailin' on you.

75% of what you said is spot-on IMHO. I thought from the get-go the trade for Portis was misguided, it's seems much easier to get a capable RB than it is an above-average DB.

As far a Brunell goes, the first thing that goes through my mind when I first heard his name mentioned in free agency is, "what's that guy is done!!??"

It would be easy at first blush, to declare that the game has passed Gibbs by, or he's in over his head, but I think any rational thinker would realize that a person with his résumé will right the ship.

One can look at Parcells and make the obvious comparisons to what he's done with free-agent acquisitions this year. I will be greatly disappointed if the trend continues in the 05 off-season of signing the same type of aging free agents as he did in 04. Although, with the draft picks that we will have available, I find it unlikely.

As an interested, albeit not fully informed onlooker, it appears Washington's biggest problem is in the front office, not the coach’s.

It appears/appeared that our talent is/was good enough to compete.

The front office is in charge of supplying talent/coaching etc.. not suiting up.

GIBBS was responsible for wanting to bring in Brunell & FA's & Draft pix. Therefore the front office cant continue to be the scapegoat.

Our current roster wasnt molded by the front office.

Gibbs is the say-all nowadays for personnell matters.

[DallasCowpoke]

Originally posted by Vegas Baby

Almost too much love around here today...good post. You have a right to say what you feel. I agree with some, not all of it. BUt your points are well made and for the most part you support them instead of just throwing them around.

Welcome aboard brother.

Thanks, I wanted to say h..... ohhh, wait!! You prob didn't mean "me," huh!!??

[DallasCowpoke]

Originally posted by RedskinsNation

Gibbs is the say-all nowadays for personnell matters.

Oh, is that right, I guess I didn't realize or overlooked that?

In that case, there may be a longer "learning curve" than expected.

[RedskinsNation]

Originally posted by DallasCowpoke

Oh, is that right, I guess I didn't realize or overlooked that?

In that case, there may be a longer "learning curve" than expected.

I think everyone thought it would take some time to get the ship righted. But back in the day Gibbs' right hand man was Bobby Beathard. He was the GM.

Now there is no true GM.

If Gibbs has a desire for a player(s) then its Vinny's job to chase it for him and Dan's job to pay for it. REAL SIMPLE

I think Gibbs will have to adjust his stubborn ways which would involve changing his philosophy slightly to keep up with some of the defensive schemes that are prevalent today.

[RDSKNfaithfull]

Originally posted by RedskinsNation

It appears/appeared that our talent is/was good enough to compete.

The front office is in charge of supplying talent/coaching etc.. not suiting up.

GIBBS was responsible for wanting to bring in Brunell & FA's & Draft pix. Therefore the front office cant continue to be the scapegoat.

Our current roster wasnt molded by the front office.

Gibbs is the say-all nowadays for personnell matters.

Wrong this is not fantasy football, that is what is wrong with our simple minded FO. All teams have different systems and great players dont fit certain systems. Trotter did not fit our system but everybody though he was a great pick up because of what he did in philly which played to his strenghts but our FO was not smart enough to put together we did not run a defense that had him attack the LOS rather play him 5-7 yards off in coverage. Portis was a great pick up and me being a UM fan love that he is here but could we have saved money by bringing in a Duece or drafting a steven Jackson who fits gibbs system better? Face it we say we need continuity but we will be saying bye bye to key players pretty soon due to crazy contracts. Yes all teams have to do this but we have done it so much we may not see the results b4 its time to say goodbye.

[Sknzfan]

I just hope you get to change your HANDLE soon !!!!

Maybe to say......TOUCHDOWNPORTIS or TDPORTIS or GOPORTISGO....U know something POSITIVE !!!

[JRAB]

How about TDPortis... or PortisTD?

I kinda liked PortisAuthority... by FreakOfTheNorth.

[Dead Money]

I'm not going to go into a debate over all of your "complaints" or "opinions" because deep inside of all of us we all have them... Frustration is rampant these days.

Welcome to the board!!!

If you present your happiness as fervantly as your disgust I'm gonna have to get new glasses!

[MonkeySkin]

I agree that the Skins have over paid players since Snyders been here...and unless players redo their contracts like Arrington did, we're going to be in some kind of mess.