How Scouting College Players Has Evolved Under Shanahan

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Sure, if you wanted passes under 10 yards and a QB that had worse pocket presence than Rex Grossman. Campbell continously held the ball too long and never knew how to move around in the pocket worth a damn. He was called Captain Checkdown for a reason. The year he went to Oakland, guess which player I picked up in Fantasy Football? Yup, the Raiders tight end Zack Miller.(at the time) I knew exactly how those games were going to go. No yards to the WRs and mostly to the TE. I was right and he helped me win a ton of games by the way.

We aren't even going to go down the Carlos Rogers avenue again. Much like Haynesworth, Carlos can play when he decides to play. Since it's a contract year, he's playing his ass off for that big pay day. He never played like that while he was here.

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

There's a reason that I feel I am right and many others are wrong, but it may just be an empty feeling because I'm doing such a poor job stating my case. So I'll try again.

I was not intending to assert a consistent approach because my argument only relies on the recognition of unchanging results. The people who disagree with the argument I am *attempting* to make necessarily must believe that the Redskins have enjoyed improved results in the last two years in the influx of quality talent as well as the on field product. If you are in agreement with that, then we're on the same page. If you recognize that the on field product hasn't improved, but believe that the roster behind the performance has actually improved, then we are in partial agreement.

With that said, there are very critical elements of the approach that have remained consistent. We still have a tendency to trade draft picks for middling veterans (McNabb in April 2010, Jammal Brown in June 2010, Hightower in July 2011). I do think they are less careless with picks, but saying the Redskins have a newfound emphasis in the draft isn't entirely accurate. Are the days of trading second rounders for Jason Taylor over? Probably. I don't think that ends the player evaluation issue or the tendency to trade picks for middling veterans, but it is a start.

I'm not sure what the greater meaning of having 12 picks in a single draft is. It seemed to me like a simple function of being willing to trade down in the first round and then again in the second round. Is that a re-emphasis in the draft? If so, what do we call the 2008 Redskins draft when the Redskins traded down there? The Redskins didn't actually pick up any picks in that trade down which certainly suggests that the guy who executed the trade may have been trading for the sake of trading, instead of team building. But it seems to me that drawing a line between between Shanahan's moves in 2011 and Cerrato's moves in 2008 is simply trying to put a label on what was functionally the same intent.

Now if we want to argue who was more effective in their execution, there is no contest. Vinny turned his first three picks into a guy who is a punt gunner for the Giants, a guy who played three seasons and is out of the league because of health, and a four and a half star tight end for a team that already had Cooley. That's a below expectation return. I feel much more confident in Kerrigan/Jenkins/Hankerson to pay off than I did on draft day with Thomas/Davis/Kelly. And ask anyone you want: I had those three career paths pegged from day one.

The other thing is I think if you compare the roster in Feburary 2009 to the current one, you'd find them to be pretty similar. The biggest difference is that the Feb. 2009 one had limited depth, aging stars, and a couple of recent first round draft picks. The current one has (in Shanahan's own words) limited depth, a couple of recent first round picks, and no stars. Basically, any better position we are in now relies on the strength of the 2011 free agent class: guys like Cofield, Bowen, Chester, and Wilson. If you like all of those guys, then we almost certainly have a better roster now than in Feb. 2009. If you're taking a wait and see approach on all of those guys, than we're really at the same place we were in Feb. 2009.

It really comes down to how you rate Shanahan's acquisitions to date. If you're like NC_Skins, and pickups from the CFL make you scream "I LOVE THIS GUY" at the top of your metaphorical lungs, then yeah, our roster is better now. If you're thoroughly dumbfounded by most of the personnel moves Shanahan makes (beyond the draft because like I said before, if he can string a second good draft to the 2011 one, we're in good shape depth-wise) then I don't see enough differences in the processes of the new front office to support the idea that things are completely different now.

I am not denying the new-ness of the procedural stuff, I think we should be skeptical of how valuable it is though until the results turn around.

As always, I'm hedging somewhat as not to look totally foolish if the team starts 6-0 in mid October, but want to be on record saying that anything leading to a good season in 2012 would be a departure from the process that have led us to the last two years.

Originally Posted by Schneed10

I'm sorry Tripp but I have to really rip you for saying it's the same front office, because that makes no sense. Is it the same scouting group, sure. But when people refer to the "front office", they are referring to the person(s) who are ultimately making the player acquisition decisions.

Scouting departments are front office support people, not decision makers. They evaluate the talent. They evaluated it for Cerrato and now the evaluate the talent for Shanahan. But that's a huge delineation.

Shanahan, his son, and Haslett are defining and communicating the type of players they are looking for, while Campbell and his team go find them. In the past, Campbell and his team would go find them, and Vinny would end up picking whoever he thought would work best for Zorn.

But Vinny and Zorn weren't communicating, and it's clear in this article that Campbell was saying he wasn't getting much in the way of direction from the decision makers at the top. So it's no wonder Vinny went with the BPA strategy when he was in charge - the communication was so poor between coach, GM, and scouts that he didn't even adequately grasp what the team needed.

Scouts are only as good as the decision makers they support. You can provide all the quality analysis in the world, but if the decision makers can't communicate well enough to put the analysis to good use, then shitty decisions get made.

I think with the way Shanahan is making better use of Campbell's abilities, it bodes well for improved drafting and team composition going forward.

Originally Posted by Schneed10

You're exhausting and exasperating, GTripp. The bolded part is the entire purpose of this thread.

Draft results look better under Shanahan. And I (and others) are at least partially attributing that to a better working relationship between boss and scouting department.

In other words, the scouting department was never the problem. It was the knucklehead making the decisions.Sheesh.

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

There's a reason that I feel I am right and many others are wrong, but it may just be an empty feeling because I'm doing such a poor job stating my case. So I'll try again.

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Smoot just won this thread.