Best 5 Moves of Dan Snyder Era

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

The past month has been a tumultuous time for the Redskins faithful with the will he/won't he on the Cutler trade, the rumored infatuation with Mark Sanchez and the potential cost of that move and really just a general sense of uneasiness among us all. It was touched on in another thread that the Sanchez trade/draft could be one of the 5 worst moves in Snyder's ownership reign so it seemed like it could spawn 2 threads of their own- so in this one what are your best 5 moves of the Dan Snyder era?

Best 5 (in no particular order)
1. Trading for Clinton Portis. Without revisiting the issue too much, let's just be clear in agreeing that Champ Bailey wasn't coming back. The move for Portis did a few things. It gave us a chance, every time he stepped onto the field, to win the game. He's consistently been a top 10 back each year he's been a Redskin. For better or worse, he's been the face of the franchise and what successes we've had in his 5 years, he's always been at the forefront of.

2. Firing Norv Turner. The timing of it was awful and he cut Norv's legs out from under him the previous offseason, but the writing was clearly on the wall for most of the 90's that Norv was simply over his head as our head coach. His subsequent career has reinforced what we already figured that he is a great offensive coordinator but not a good HC. He's in a great situation now with a HOF RB, great QB, great TE and a solid organization but still has come up short. While his successors have been less than stellar, it's hard to imagine Norv would have found much sustained success with us.

3. Trading for the #3 pick in the '99 draft to pick Chris Samuels. We can go into the wayback machine and look at what could have happened if we had kept the 3 #1 picks we had and who was available and who we could have gotten, but realistically we don't know who we would have drafted or how they would have turned out in our system(s). Samuels has been the rock of our OL and will go down as a Redskins great when his time is up.

4. Hiring Joe Gibbs. This is a mixed bag for me. Gibbs brought back respectability to the franchise after the Spurrier era. He took us to the playoffs twice and brought in some solid young talent with Cooley, Portis, Moss, Landry, S. Taylor and Rogers. His 4 years restored the faith that many of us had lost in 'Redskins football.

5. Buying the Redskins. Look, despite the decade of mediocrity he has done anything he thought would make us a Super Bowl champ. The results have been absent, but you cannot discount the effort. To a man, if any of us had the means, we would probably buy our favorite team as well and do all that we could to field a winner.

What are yours?

I respectfully disagree with the buying the Skins part. The Skins should have stayed in the Jack Kent Cooke family.

1) Gibbs
2) Samuels
3) Cooley
4) London Fletcher
5) Sean Taylor - beginning and end with the team

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Lotus

I respectfully disagree with the buying the Skins part. The Skins should have stayed in the Jack Kent Cooke family.

1) Gibbs
2) Samuels
3) Cooley
4) London Fletcher
5) Sean Taylor - beginning and end with the team

Cooke screwed that up not Snyder.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Cooke screwed that up not Snyder.

I would argue that the Cookes screwed it up but Danny Boy disrespectfully exploited the situation.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by Lotus

I would argue that the Cookes screwed it up but Danny Boy disrespectfully exploited the situation.

How so?

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

How so?

Jack Kent Cooke, as much as I admired him, screwed things up by not just leaving the team to his son, John. Instead he made John compete for the team. John needed time to raise the necessary cash. Into this brew leapt Snyder. Snyder could have respected the Skins as a family venture but instead exploited the fact that he could raise cash faster than John Kent Cooke. Further, Cooke, if given enough time, likely could have raised more money than Snyder and bought the team, but Snyder made a high bid and then began threatening lawsuits to force the issue early.

Years later I still see Snyder as a vulture intent on feasting on the difficulties of others. Again, he could have respected the Redskins as a family enterprise. He could have given John Kent Cooke the time to keep the team in the family. He always could have waited respectfully until it became clear that Cooke was not going to get his act together, should that have happened, and then bought the team. Instead Snyder showed the same "me, me, me, my money buys everything, I want it NOW" attitude that I still see him exhibit.

Feel free to disagree but I've thought this way for ten years now.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Jack Kent Cooke, as much as I admired him, screwed things up by not just leaving the team to his son, John. Instead he made John compete for the team. John needed time to raise the necessary cash. Into this brew leapt Snyder. Snyder could have respected the Skins as a family venture but instead exploited the fact that he could raise cash faster than John Kent Cooke. Further, Cooke, if given enough time, likely could have raised more money than Snyder and bought the team, but Snyder made a high bid and then began threatening lawsuits to force the issue early.

Years later I still see Snyder as a vulture intent on feasting on the difficulties of others. Again, he could have respected the Redskins as a family enterprise. He could have given John Kent Cooke the time to keep the team in the family. He always could have waited respectfully until it became clear that Cooke was not going to get his act together, should that have happened, and then bought the team. Instead Snyder showed the same "me, me, me, my money buys everything, I want it NOW" attitude that I still see him exhibit.

Feel free to disagree but I've thought this way for ten years now.

I don't think you have the story entirely accurate, for one thing it seems you're forgetting all about Howard Milstein.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

I don't think you have the story entirely accurate, for one thing it seems you're forgetting all about Howard Milstein.

Milstein was Snyder's buying partner, no? When I talk about Snyder I'm also talking about Milstein.

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Jack Kent Cooke, as much as I admired him, screwed things up by not just leaving the team to his son, John. Instead he made John compete for the team. John needed time to raise the necessary cash. Into this brew leapt Snyder. Snyder could have respected the Skins as a family venture but instead exploited the fact that he could raise cash faster than John Kent Cooke. Further, Cooke, if given enough time, likely could have raised more money than Snyder and bought the team, but Snyder made a high bid and then began threatening lawsuits to force the issue early.

Years later I still see Snyder as a vulture intent on feasting on the difficulties of others. Again, he could have respected the Redskins as a family enterprise. He could have given John Kent Cooke the time to keep the team in the family. He always could have waited respectfully until it became clear that Cooke was not going to get his act together, should that have happened, and then bought the team. Instead Snyder showed the same "me, me, me, my money buys everything, I want it NOW" attitude that I still see him exhibit.

Feel free to disagree but I've thought this way for ten years now.

It may be the case but there was a bit of time that elapsed before Snyder's approval came through. It wasn't exactly an overnight scenario.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by tryfuhl

It may be the case but there was a bit of time that elapsed before Snyder's approval came through. It wasn't exactly an overnight scenario.

No, we're talking $800 million, so it was not overnight. Please understand that I was summarizing. Let's say that I see the drama playing out that way in slower motion.