[sportscurmudgeon]

A really good coach will usually make a difference of a win or two a year. Last year Parcells managed to get the Cowboys to overachieve by a humongous amount but that is very rare.

The bulk of NFL games are not decided by coaching matchups. If that were so, they could get the coaches to play chess and decide the outcome. Players win games and players lose games. And so it rationally and obectively follows that if a team has lost more than twice as many games as it has won, it is not nearly as superior in talent as its fans would want to believe.

Someone suggested that the problem was so many "first year coaches" here and that "first year coaches" tend to struggle. Maybe the reason that first year coaches tend to struggle is that MOST first year coaches are hired by teams that aren't very good - not enough talent - and so they don't do well in the first year of the new coach's tenure. Most Super Bowl teams bring back their coach next year unless he retires or has a spat with the owner that makes him pick up his toys and go elsewhere.

Part of the problem here is that folks fall in love with Redskin players and can't bring theselves to believe that some of them are merely average players and some others are below average in skill. If they were all really "stars" and "great" players, they would not be 8-17 over the last year and a half.

In some other thread, someone said that Patrick Ramsey - given time - could have a career that was equal to or better than Peyton Manning. Yes he could. But the chances are that he won't. You can wish for it and pray for it to happen, but the chances are, it won't. And when you go and try to evaluate the talent level on the Redskins, you shouldn't allow yourself to be sucked into that kind of wishful thinking.

I am not trying to argue that the coaching turnover - and the player turnover - on the Skins in the last 5 years has nothing to do with their lack of on-field success. Stability is good for a football team' see the Philly Eagles and New England Pats and Green Bay Packers as evidence. But stability is only a part of the equation and it is the part that takes a team from ordinary to sonsistently above ordinary. What the basis of success is talented football players at every position and depth and luck with regard to injuries. Given the right skill level - what the FO is supposed to provide - and the injury luck - from the football gods - then a stable coaching staff can mold a team into a contender. But without the talent, I don't care who the coach is.