Brunell Back in 2007?

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

Bottom line. Brunell does not have the ability anymore to lead a team to the Super Bowl. Defenses do not respect his arm and why should they? Does anyone remember the last 6-8 games last year? If a veteran QB has a problem throwing for 170 yards a game then somehting is seriously wrong. He should have been benched coming into this year just like John Kitna was. Do you happen to remember that 2 number one picks are invested in JC? Keeping him on the bench serves no purpose. JC is going to have his lumps just like every young QB does. The future is JC not a 36 year old QB on a losing team. At this point Brunell is 3rd string material.

Hmm. I think the Kitna situation was a bit different, and actually I'd like to take a moment to revisit it. Kitna 2003 and Brunell 2005 were very similar seasons, so lets make them the same player for sake of arguement. We will call him Quarterback A.

(The Bengal 2003-2004 and Redskin 2005-2006 are VERY different situations, and you have to treat them as so)

So you are saying that the Bengals made a good decision moving right to Palmer in 2004, days after the '03 season ended? I'm not sure I agree with that. The Bengals were an 8-8 team in 2003, made the switch to Palmer suffered a ever so slight offensive dropoff (consistent for the sake of arguement), and ended up 8-8 again. Would they have been a playoff team with Kitna? I don't know, but there certainly would have been a better chance.

Since then, Palmer led the Bengals to the division crown in 2005, and coming off last nights win, appear to be in good postion to grab a WC birth this year, maybe the division if the Ravens drop 3 out of their last 4.

But was Palmer's "experience year" the reason for the offensive explosion in 2005? I tend to think it wasn't.

Now, the Redskins were a 10-6 playoff team in 2005. That's different from an 8-8 3rd place team. So right off the bat, expectations are sky high. Moving to Campbell preseason certainly would have knocked expectations down a few pegs (this is argueably a good thing). But a move like that would not have been well received at the time, because the goal was to improve on the 10-6 and win the division/get a first round bye/make a playoff run. Not to delay a year in mediocrity as we make the change to Campbell.

Obviously, the defensive dropoff threw a huge kink into our plans. Had we forseen this, we could have made the change to Campbell earlier. But once we went out in FA and sacrificed our long term well being for 2006 and 2007, we were committed to the playoffs this year and next year.

Which is why I asked you to answer the question about whether our offense was better with Brunell or Campbell thus far. I think you have to evaluate your decisions in the context they were made. Yes, I think if we had made the move to Campbell preseason, and were 4-7 at this point, our playoff prospects this year would look better than they do now. But Gibbs didn't have that knowledge at the time...so it was the RIGHT decision.

Unlike the Bengals, our future is now comprimised. This team doesn't ahve a whole lot of dead weight to cut loose, and our contract restructuring is going to begin to catch up to us. At some point within the next two years, we will either start cutting the vets loose (best possible move), or we simply wont have the cap room to resign young guys like Cooley and Sean Taylor (bad move, but not beyond us).

But looking at 2007, much of this team (offensively at least) will be back. Now, ask yourself this: Would Campbell be a better player with regards to 2007 if he had started this season at QB?

I really don't think so. He's going to get 7 starts this year (barring injury), and then hes going to have the offseason. Thats a lot of playing time. Come August 2007, I don't think anybody in the organization will be like "man, I wish JC started 16 games instead of 7". Over the offseason, Campbell will progress as a player mentally no matter how many starts he got.

So I think Gibbs made the switch when he did to make use JC got SOME playing time, and we really are only going to have one year to make a run at a title (and even that depends on the D finding itself these last 5 weeks). I think Gibbs also realized that although he is going to try to make the playoffs now, a 6 seed isn't going to get us to our season expectation. So at some point, he had to compromise the present for the future. That point was Week 11.

Lots of things went wrong for us this year, just don't blame the QB position for things beyond the control of one player.

[freddyg12]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

Hmm. I think the Kitna situation was a bit different, and actually I'd like to take a moment to revisit it. Kitna 2003 and Brunell 2005 were very similar seasons, so lets make them the same player for sake of arguement. We will call him Quarterback A.

(The Bengal 2003-2004 and Redskin 2005-2006 are VERY different situations, and you have to treat them as so)

So you are saying that the Bengals made a good decision moving right to Palmer in 2004, days after the '03 season ended? I'm not sure I agree with that. The Bengals were an 8-8 team in 2003, made the switch to Palmer suffered a ever so slight offensive dropoff (consistent for the sake of arguement), and ended up 8-8 again. Would they have been a playoff team with Kitna? I don't know, but there certainly would have been a better chance.

Since then, Palmer led the Bengals to the division crown in 2005, and coming off last nights win, appear to be in good postion to grab a WC birth this year, maybe the division if the Ravens drop 3 out of their last 4.

But was Palmer's "experience year" the reason for the offensive explosion in 2005? I tend to think it wasn't.

Now, the Redskins were a 10-6 playoff team in 2005. That's different from an 8-8 3rd place team. So right off the bat, expectations are sky high. Moving to Campbell preseason certainly would have knocked expectations down a few pegs (this is argueably a good thing). But a move like that would not have been well received at the time, because the goal was to improve on the 10-6 and win the division/get a first round bye/make a playoff run. Not to delay a year in mediocrity as we make the change to Campbell.

Obviously, the defensive dropoff threw a huge kink into our plans. Had we forseen this, we could have made the change to Campbell earlier. But once we went out in FA and sacrificed our long term well being for 2006 and 2007, we were committed to the playoffs this year and next year.

Which is why I asked you to answer the question about whether our offense was better with Brunell or Campbell thus far. I think you have to evaluate your decisions in the context they were made. Yes, I think if we had made the move to Campbell preseason, and were 4-7 at this point, our playoff prospects this year would look better than they do now. But Gibbs didn't have that knowledge at the time...so it was the RIGHT decision.

Unlike the Bengals, our future is now comprimised. This team doesn't ahve a whole lot of dead weight to cut loose, and our contract restructuring is going to begin to catch up to us. At some point within the next two years, we will either start cutting the vets loose (best possible move), or we simply wont have the cap room to resign young guys like Cooley and Sean Taylor (bad move, but not beyond us).

But looking at 2007, much of this team (offensively at least) will be back. Now, ask yourself this: Would Campbell be a better player with regards to 2007 if he had started this season at QB?

I really don't think so. He's going to get 7 starts this year (barring injury), and then hes going to have the offseason. Thats a lot of playing time. Come August 2007, I don't think anybody in the organization will be like "man, I wish JC started 16 games instead of 7". Over the offseason, Campbell will progress as a player mentally no matter how many starts he got.

So I think Gibbs made the switch when he did to make use JC got SOME playing time, and we really are only going to have one year to make a run at a title (and even that depends on the D finding itself these last 5 weeks). I think Gibbs also realized that although he is going to try to make the playoffs now, a 6 seed isn't going to get us to our season expectation. So at some point, he had to compromise the present for the future. That point was Week 11.

Lots of things went wrong for us this year, just don't blame the QB position for things beyond the control of one player.

Good post GT, this is deserving of a mega merge brunell closed thread w/this as the eulogy to Brunell threads in 06!
Only thing I would add is that if we'd started JC from the get go he would have had some serious pressure to deal with. As for when Gibbs decided to make the change this year, he sees more than we do, but it could've been earlier.
W/the new cba, I wouldn't say we're in cap hell after only 1 year, but you're right there are a # of guys that we'll be cutting in the next couple years.