Quote:
Originally Posted by JoeRedskin
Of these guys only McNabb, Beck, Atogwe, Brown and possibly Hicks were guys counted on to make a difference. The rest were, in my opinion, simply guys MS took a flyer on or stop gap folks who did not have a big impact on the ability to subsequently acquire talent (i.e. - delayed development of youth or limited flexibility in free agency). As to MS's "big" signings Wilson, Cofield and Bowen seem to have been solid signings. (Also, I disagree with your take on the M. Williams thing - he was dirt cheap and was progressing nicely until his injury and, if I recall your game analysis, was one of the better linemen when he played)(Also, did we overpay for S. Moss? Maybe, but, in light of our options at the position, I disagree that he was a "miss".
As for the questionable releases, I am sure there are a few. At the same time, every roster in the league (including ours: Jabar Gaffney, K. Lichten, L. Fletcher, W. Montgomery, S. Rocca) includes guys - either through free agency or outright release - that other teams gave up on, didn't value, etc. who later turn things around. Hell, B. Lloyd bilked a few teams before he got his act together. It happens. Has it happened here? Yup. You seem to believe it has happened to MS an inordinate amount. Without a detailed look at other rosters, I think that is a leap.
I get the "MS is not a good talent evaluator" line - that was his rap in Denver and it has followed him here after his epic fail on McNabb. At the same time, I look at the successes he has had in the last two years (Riley, Bowen, Cofield, Wilson, this year's crop of rookies, Carriker, D. Young, Gaffney (again)) and see the aquisition of some good young talent with a sprinkling of maturity.
Bottom line, while the talent management has not been exemplary, it has not sucked either. It seems to me to be somewhere near the league norm with the potential to be much better dependent upon this off season. All the "diamonds in the rough" were not retained for more development; at the same time, some were and some were acquired from other teams. Although MS/BA missed on a couple of important acquisitions, they hit on a few also. Other than the McNabb trade and the reliance on Beck/Grossman, there haven't been any other (in my opinion) epically bad moves. In fact, the trades of McNabb and Haynesworth seem to have gotten us something when nothing was expected. Further, to balance the mismanagement of the QB slot, we have just had the type of draft that may allow the sort of flexibility in talent development/acquisition that this franchise has not had in years, decades even. A follow-up draft in 2012 that even approaches the 2011 one would set right many a wrong. In fact, if the 2012 offseason talent acquisition/managemnt is a duplicate or approaches the 2011 offseason of the same, I will feel pretty damn good about this team for 2012 and beyond.
Like I said, to date, the MS/BA talent management team has, IMHO, been solid if unspectacular (with a couple of truly bad decisions) and, come this time next year, we will see if it can join the ranks of the well managed teams or if MS/BA are just are just singing the same old song to a different melody.
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I think it's more than possible that no team truly has sucky talent evaluation, and every GM in the league has a defense for keeping his job somewhere in his record. The Redskins may not be any different than the worst teams with the worst records in this aspect. I mean, Matt Millen hasn't been employed by an NFL team for three seasons, but he's still the go-to punchline for people making fun of talent evaluators. Al Davis isn't alive anymore.
I think the only main disagreements I have with you here are that we can look around the league and you'd be hard pressed to find a team that has managed its talent worse. I think a lot of fans will do analyses where they just write off everything that the Redskins did in 2010, blame it on Cerrato, and then compare the 2011 season to other teams and find out that the Redskins stack up pretty well with other teams, including other teams in their own division.
But if you go back to the start of Shanallen, I don't think any one franchise has done less with more. I think you can go out and find teams whose list of failed additions match the length of that list over the last two years, and you can find other teams who have made a number of really silly releases who have gone on to find success elsewhere. You can find teams like the Bears (in 2009), Cardinals, and Raiders who overpaid for quarterbacks just like the Redskins did. You can find successful teams who have struggled just as much over the last couple years to build a roster as the Redskins.
But I don't think we can stretch the evidence to put the Redskins into the middle of the pack over the timeframe of 2010-2012. They are, charitably, in the bottom third of the NFL in building up a roster in the last two years.
And the reason there is such a prolific misunderstanding for what the Redskins have actually accomplished is because it became so popular to put whatever went wrong in Shanahan's first year on what Cerrato had done the past two years. Look around these parts. It's still really popular to blame Cerrato for the lack of success enjoyed by Shanahan.
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To try to support my point, I want to name other teams that have a talent issue, similar to the Redskins, that prevents them from being a winning team on the field.
-Jacksonville Jaguars
-Tampa Bay Buccaneers
-Minnesota Vikings
-Cleveland Browns
-St. Louis Rams
-Seattle Seahawks
-Buffalo Bills
-Arizona Cardinals
-Indianapolis Colts?
And I will open up the floor for anyone who wants to totally rip one or more of these teams for totally silly personnel moves that make us so lucky to have our roster and coaching staff lead by Mike Shanahan's wisdom. In the won/loss column, these teams have been just as bad as the Redskins. So if we're rebuilding the right way, we're doing stuff better than them, right?
Or at the very least, we should be able to get a list of personnel gaffes longer than those of the Redskins over the last two years, right?