Roster transition in the Shanny era

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

There's been a lot of hand wringing over the state of the roster right now and how good or poor of a job Shanahan is doing with it..

It's been 2 years and most new management around the NFL gets at least 4 years. Do some of us really forget how bad that 2009 roster was? To wit, of all of the players who were here then and are no longer on the roster, how many players have moved on and are contributing vs. those no longer in the league?

From the final 2009 roster (including IR), by my estimation, these players are out of the league completely or not in a contributing role on their current team:
Richard Bartel
Todd Collins
Quinton Gather
PJ Hill
Marcus Mason
Malcolm Kelly
Marko Mitchell
Todd Yoder
Paul Fannika
Levi Jones
Casey Rabach
Phillip Daniels
Corneilius Griffin
Anthony Montgomery
Renaldo Wynn
HB Blades
Alvin Bowen
Curtis Gatewood
Robert Henson
Chris Wilson
Lendy Holmes
Marcus Macauly
Kareem Moore
Fred Smoot
Ethan Albright
Ladell Betts
Clinton Portis
Colt Brennan
Chris Horton
Jeremy Jarmon
Chris Samuels
Randy Thomas
Eddie Williams
Mike Williams
That's 35 players that either are retired or are no longer NFL caliber players within 2 years.

From the 2010 roster (without duplicating):
Andre Brown
James Davis
Ryan Torrain
Roydell Williams
Artis Hicks (he may be on a roster, I can't recall)
Anthony Bryant
Joe Joseph
Macho Harris
Reggie Jones
Sha'reff Rashard
Sam Palescu
Josh Bidwell
Mike Furrey
Ma'ake Keymoyatu
Clint Oldenburg
Anderson Russell
Chad Simpson

That's 17 more players for a total of 52 players who are no longer in the NFL. Is it any question why it is going to take more than 2 years to restore this roster to the level of respectability? Even now there are probably about 10-15 players that wouldn't be on other rosters but we had SO many holes to fill we had to plug bodies in. With a couple more off seasons like this past one there is hope for 2013 and beyond but it's going to be a while before we see the results.

Good post. I feel like I can use this as a starting point for some research into other teams who also have struggled to win over the last two years and see if the Redskins have made more progress than those teams.

If my assertion that the Redskins aren't better off in 2011 than 2009 is correct, then our current roster will end up looking a lot like that list you made by 2013. Is that a good bet? I'd say it probably is. But you still made a pretty good indictment of the Cerrato/Zorn rosters (the point that no one wanted these guys).

And I think I've also made good points that Shanahan gave up on more players that ended up as starters elsewhere than maybe any other coach in football over the last two years.

The truth may very well be that the 2009 roster sucked, the 2010 roster sucked, the 2011 roster sucked, and the 2012 roster will suck. That's not my opinion on the matter, nor anyone else. It's a really negative view of the Redskins that I do not hold. But sometimes the truth hurts.

And if the truth is that the Cerrato-Zorn Redskins were worse than we thought and the Shanahan-Allen Redskins were still bad, then I hope our analysis leads us there. Likewise, if the truth is that our roster is deeper and talented than any scout currently acknowledges, I hope analysis of this sort leads us there.