[sportscurmudgeon]

Leadership is the ingredient that can take a very good team to the level of a dominating team or a championship team.

The Redskins squad is not very good - - in fact, it is sub-standard. I am looking at the depth chart here on 12/22/09. I don't think General George S. Patton Jr. had sufficient leadership skills to take these players and make them into playoff contenders:

OL: D.Batiste, L. Jones, P.Fanaika, C.Rabach, W. Montgomery, M. Williams, E. Williams, C. Reinhart, S Heyor, W. Robinson. A very good team MIGHT have one or two players of that caliber on the practice squad in the hopes they might some day turn into a serviceable offensive lineman. The Skins have 10 of them and play lots of them most of the time. Leadership is not the issue here.


WR: S. Moss, A. Randle-El, M. Kelly, D. Thomas, M. Mitchell. Moss and Randle-El have been here for years and have yet to keep opposing defensive coordinators awwake at night. We have had Thomas and Kelly here for two seasons now and the excuses made for the two of them are starting to wear thin. Mitchell so far has shown that he is a training camp wonder. Might the youngsters develop with mentoring? Possibly. But this quintet is hardly at the top of the talent ladder across the league.


RB: Clinton Portis is the anti-leader; the only thing he seems to care about is that he gets to play a lot without practicing a lot. Oh and he likes to goof with reporters at press conferences too. Betts is workmanlike; he does not provide leadership; he does not need a leader to get him to play hard. The other three guys are - - just guys. No GM in the league is trying to figure out how to steal Ganther, Mason or Cartwright away from the Skins.


DL: Here are the players who are NOT journeymen: Haynesworth, Carter. Here are the players who are OK: Griffin, Golston.
Here are the space-fillers: Daniels, Wynn, Jackson, A. Montgomery.
Alexander is a special teams player; Jarmon might turn into something very good. Bottom line here is there is not enough talent here for a leader to take to the next level.


LB: Fletcher and Orakpo are really good players. After that ... McIntosh has some good days and more bad days and Blades aspires to mediocrity. There are no diamonds in the rough among Henson, Bowen, Gatewood and Wilson. Neither Fletcher nor Orakpo need leaders to make them play hard or play well. For the others, it just does not matter...


DB: Hall, Smoot and Rogers all think they are a whole lot better than they actually are. Landry and Moore seem to be in a competition to see who can miss the most tackles. I don't see how leadership is going to help that situation much. As for Tryon, Barnes, Westbrook and Doughty, they seem to give whatever they have on the field. It is hard for me to believe that their shortcomings are a lack of leadership on the field.


Here is where leadership is lacking: On the sidelines and in the FO. There is none.

When you go out in the middle of the season and raid a Bingo Parlor to find a guy to call your plays, there is no managerial leadership.

When you are the owner and you have a few select favorite players who are given access to your private phone # and you allow them to question the coaches (note the use of the plural noun there!) decisions and competency, there is no executive leadership either.