Some optimism on the 'Shanaplan'

[GMScud]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

Our offseason focus has to start and end with QB and OL.

That's it right there. The O-line has to get better. And man oh man, we've GOT to draft the right QB. It's so huge.

[celts32]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

I'm curious, of our 22 healthy starters (as of yesterday) who would start for a good team in the NFL? I'd go with T. Williams, F. Davis, C. Cooley, L. Fletcher, A. Otogwe and L. Landry. It's not about 'stars' but it's about the ability to consistently win matchups at a high level. Let me be clear, I'm talking about starters on a top 8 team in the NFL, not just someone who would start on another bad team.



I'm not making excuses for the Shanny regime so far, just giving a perspective outside of the 'he's lost it, fire him, what the hell are we doing' chorus. That being said, I am far from giving up on this coaching staff. Part of the full 'Shanaplan' as I see it is a 5 year build before Mike steps off of the sideline and upstairs for good and hands things off to Kyle. And that's not a bad thing. One thing we've sorely lacked is a long term plan, vision and system. Look at the successful teams, they have had a system in place from the top down for a long time and stick with it through good and bad. Even through coaching changes they don't vary from the system. At the end of Mike's contract, Kyle would have had 7 years as a coordinator, hopefully be 3 years into a young stud QB and have the pieces to fully run a Pittsburgh style 3-4 defense.

I don't answer that question by matching up players on other teams. The way I would answer it is to look at our players and ask myself if we can build a top 8 team with this person starting. I think in the future we can have a top team with these players starting:

1. T. Williams
2. F. Davis,
3. L. Fletcher,
4. A. Otogwe
5. L. Landry
6. Kerrigan
7. Orakpo
8. Jenkins
9. Moss
10. Cofield
11. Chester
12. Rocca
13. Wilson

I am sure if i took the time to see where they fit best I could place all these guys in a good teams lineup. And we also have some other young players who could become good starters with more experience. The bottom line is we suck at QB and when you don't score it makes everyone look bad and leads fans to think that there are no good players on the team. I don't think it's true...sure we still have holes and a lack of depth but the roster is 1000% better then it was when Vinny got canned.

[Bucket]

I think our Oline is actually pretty solid, and our depth has looked solid as well.. LB's and Oline are something we shouldn't worry about at the moment

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by celts32

I don't answer that question by matching up players on other teams. The way I would answer it is to look at our players and ask myself if we can build a top 8 team with this person starting. I think in the future we can have a top team with these players starting:

1. T. Williams
2. F. Davis,
3. L. Fletcher,
4. A. Otogwe
5. L. Landry
6. Kerrigan
7. Orakpo
8. Jenkins
9. Moss
10. Cofield
11. Chester
12. Rocca
13. Wilson

I am sure if i took the time to see where they fit best I could place all these guys in a good teams lineup. And we also have some other young players who could become good starters with more experience. The bottom line is we suck at QB and when you don't score it makes everyone look bad and leads fans to think that there are no good players on the team. I don't think it's true...sure we still have holes and a lack of depth but the roster is 1000% better then it was when Vinny got canned.

I completely forgot about Kerrigan and Rak and in my original 6 had them in place of Atogwe and Cooley. (damn multitasking and forgetting what I was doing!) I think there is some young talent and we will be much better 12 months from today than we are today.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

I'm not making excuses for the Shanny regime so far, just giving a perspective outside of the 'he's lost it, fire him, what the hell are we doing' chorus. That being said, I am far from giving up on this coaching staff. Part of the full 'Shanaplan' as I see it is a 5 year build before Mike steps off of the sideline and upstairs for good and hands things off to Kyle. And that's not a bad thing. One thing we've sorely lacked is a long term plan, vision and system. Look at the successful teams, they have had a system in place from the top down for a long time and stick with it through good and bad. Even through coaching changes they don't vary from the system. At the end of Mike's contract, Kyle would have had 7 years as a coordinator, hopefully be 3 years into a young stud QB and have the pieces to fully run a Pittsburgh style 3-4 defense.

I don't think Shanahan has "lost it", I just don't think he was a smart hire, or more to the point, a hire that suggested that we had broken out of the loop of hires/fires that alternated between someone unproven and an overvalued retread. It was natural to follow Zorn with Shanahan, much as it was natural to follow Spurrier with Gibbs. Gibbs, at least, made a ton of sense as a hire for the franchise in 2004, Shanahan made no sense, ever. He's pretty much coached like a guy who doesn't have a clue, and I don't understand why more was ever expected.

A 5-year rebuild seems like a total give up at winning at this point. Just move in the right direction. I don't think Kyle is ever going to head coach any team, much less the Redskins. I don't know or think that this will be his last shot at calling offensive plays in the NFL or at least college, he's young enough to earn a chance.

The biggest problem with a 5-year rebuilding plan is that it is essentially an admission that nothing we're doing right now matters. Rookie contracts are only 4 years long, and beyond that, the entire roster has already been overturned since the Shanahan's took over. It's not that there aren't positives to take away from the last two years, it's just that we have no more young talent now than we did when Shanahan took over, gutted the young talent from the roster, and set us back.

No, I'm not suggesting he's going to cut Kerrigan or Orakpo or something crazy, but the Cerrato picks that panned out are all at the end of their contracts and there's still no clear picture as to where guys like Landry, Fred Davis, Will Montgomery, Rob Jackson, Graham Gano, Anthony Armstrong, and Darrel Young fit into a long term organizational philosophy. Fletcher is at the end of his contract, as is Carriker, Golston, Buchanon, et al. The Shanahan pickups that have contributed such as Banks, Wilson, Gaffney, Chester, Torain, Cofield, and Bowen, have done so incredibly inconsistently.

Who are the best players on the Redskins? Ryan Kerrigan, London Fletcher, Brian Orakpo, Fred Davis, LaRon Landry, Santana Moss? Anyone else belong in the top six? That's two Cerrato acquisitions, three Gibbs acquisitions, and just one from Shanahan/Allen.

[BringBackJoeT]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

So here we sit 10 games into another lost season, one that started with what turns out to be false hope. Injuries and overall crappy play have been the signatures of what we've seen and calls for the coach's head have predictably started. I was thinking over the past two weeks about how bad our overall roster is and it's been pointed out that Shanny has turned over about 70% of the roster he inherited from Zorn/Vinny so this is 'his team/his fault'. But, with the project he had, could we have really expected much more than where we are today?

Food for thought on the Shanaplan as I see it:
1. 2010 season-Shanny 'went for it' by going after McNabb but otherwise, started the season with pretty much the same core roster and starters. Think about our starting offense on opening day last year outside of T. Williams and McNabb. Portis, Sellers, Rabach, Dockery, Cooley, Moss were all returning. The change to the 3-4 was questionable but necessary for the long term. This was a way to gauge what he had, who fit-who didn't and to see how big of a project was ahead of him or see if he could win with what was here. The 2010 draft class contributed starters in Trent Williams, Perry Riley and Adam Carriker (via trade) and depth players in Terrence Austin and Brandon Banks (RFA) plus Erik Cook who is on the roster but showed in his brief action he's probably not an NFL player.

2. 2011 offseason-this was a complete bust as a result of the lockout. At the beginning of the season it seemed that the loss of OTA's and the offseason wasn't a big deal but as we got into the depth of the roster we saw a dramatic dropoff. The gap between raw talent and coached skill was huge. We also saw the slow development of rookies like Hankerson and Paul where a full offseason would have made an impact. However, as noted in a separate thread, our draft class has given us at least 7 players (Kerrigan, Jenkins, Hankerson, Helu, Paul, Hurt, Neild) who will likely contribute in 2012 and beyond. In two years, we've added 10-12 players via the draft who should be valuable through their rookie contracts.

In addition, with a whole offseason, I think the Beck experiment would have never happened. I think another veteran QB would have been brought in to truly compete for the starting job and Beck-mania never would have gotten off the ground.

3. 2011 season-Let's be real, this season sucks. A good start, a hard crash down to reality. Reality as I see it is that we still have one of the worst rosters in the league, probably bottom 2 or 3 from a talent perspective. I've stated that no more than 6 of our 22 starters could start for a competitive NFL team. That being said, we are making progress. This is our first season of truly 'rebuilding'. Last year was trying to win with what was here + a vet QB. This year is playing young players to see who develops and who is not a piece to work with going forward. For the rest of the season we will continue to see young players get experience and players who won't be here getting phased out. Positives are the play of Kerrigan, Jenkins in the preseason, Helu, Paul and Neild. Hankerson showed the light starting to come on before his injury. Our 2010 rookies have played decently, none have fallen off from their prior season performance which is a positive.

4. 2012 offseason-This is where the work begins to take shape. Our strategy should be clear. Get a QB, get a playmaking WR, build depth on the OL, get a CB. The great thing about Beck/Rex is that we aren't tied to either one of them. Same goes for most positions that need to be upgraded. The only veteran WR we are tied to is Moss. Our opening day starting OL wasn't elite but they were good enough. I don't think we have 5 INT from our entire secondary so that needs to be a focus as well.

The future is brighter than the present and a far cry from our past. Thoughts?

Ultimately agree. Good post.

I was listening to Grant Paulsen while in the car Saturday, and he was talking about the sheer reluctance on the part of the fan base to accept that the organization is rebuilding (although he acknowledged that the refusal of team Shanahan to either say the word or concede it is happening is partly to blame). But there cannot be any doubt that it's both true and necessary.

The fact is that Shanahan took over a team that had lost 18 of its previous 24 games and had made the playoffs twice in the previous 16 seasons. So, for starters, he was beginning with a house that needed gutting, not some patchwork changes. Thus, regardless of whom Snyder chose to replace Zorn, it is HIGHLY unlikely that our record would be any different than it is right now. With regard specifically to Shanahan, despite even the McNabb fiasco, I'm overall in favor of the roster moves he's made. Shanahan has said that he told Snyder this is a five-year project, and it's hard to disagree with that.

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by GTripp0012

A 5-year rebuild seems like a total give up at winning at this point. Just move in the right direction. I don't think Kyle is ever going to head coach any team, much less the Redskins. I don't know or think that this will be his last shot at calling offensive plays in the NFL or at least college, he's young enough to earn a chance.

The biggest problem with a 5-year rebuilding plan is that it is essentially an admission that nothing we're doing right now matters. Rookie contracts are only 4 years long, and beyond that, the entire roster has already been overturned since the Shanahan's took over. It's not that there aren't positives to take away from the last two years, it's just that we have no more young talent now than we did when Shanahan took over, gutted the young talent from the roster, and set us back.

No, I'm not suggesting he's going to cut Kerrigan or Orakpo or something crazy, but the Cerrato picks that panned out are all at the end of their contracts and there's still no clear picture as to where guys like Landry, Fred Davis, Will Montgomery, Rob Jackson, Graham Gano, Anthony Armstrong, and Darrel Young fit into a long term organizational philosophy. Fletcher is at the end of his contract, as is Carriker, Golston, Buchanon, et al. The Shanahan pickups that have contributed such as Banks, Wilson, Gaffney, Chester, Torain, Cofield, and Bowen, have done so incredibly inconsistently.

Who are the best players on the Redskins? Ryan Kerrigan, London Fletcher, Brian Orakpo, Fred Davis, LaRon Landry, Santana Moss? Anyone else belong in the top six? That's two Cerrato acquisitions, three Gibbs acquisitions, and just one from Shanahan/Allen.

Help me out, exactly what 'young talent' did Shanahan gut? I don't see ANY young players who were here in 2009 that are not here now who are out there killing it for another team.

As for the best players on the team I'd put T. Williams, Moss, Davis from the offense, Kerrigan, Rak, Fletcher, Landry from the defense and sadly, Rocca from ST. That adds two more Shanahan players. Plus the Shanahan/Allen free agency moves have been depth/upgrade moves (backups to starters for now but nobody outside of Cofield getting major money for their position) rather than splashes that commit us long term to any players so the slow build of the roster isn't disrupted. This offseason I expect us to ratchet up the aggressiveness a lot and make some big plays for positions of major need.

[SmootSmack]

Healthy and with a solid AND consistent QB, we'll make tremendous strides next year. The players truly buy in to Shanahan and Allen's plan

That said, it's all for naught without that QB

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

Help me out, exactly what 'young talent' did Shanahan gut? I don't see ANY young players who were here in 2009 that are not here now who are out there killing it for another team.

As for the best players on the team I'd put T. Williams, Moss, Davis from the offense, Kerrigan, Rak, Fletcher, Landry from the defense and sadly, Rocca from ST. That adds two more Shanahan players. Plus the Shanahan/Allen free agency moves have been depth/upgrade moves (backups to starters for now but nobody outside of Cofield getting major money for their position) rather than splashes that commit us long term to any players so the slow build of the roster isn't disrupted. This offseason I expect us to ratchet up the aggressiveness a lot and make some big plays for positions of major need.

Well, you have Edwin Williams starting for the Bears and you have Chad Rinehart in for the Bills. Keiland Williams wasn't here in 2009, but he's a nice piece for what Detroit is doing this year. Heyer is a reserve in Oakland now, but in that role, I like him. Jason Campbell isn't young anymore but, yeah. The Redskins? Well, they employ Tyler Polumbus, Tashard Choice, John Beck, and Jammal Brown now.

I ommitted Trent Williams before, and I can't say that was a good decision. He may not be a top six player or a great use of a fourth overall pick, but he's a good player at a critical position. Love Rocca, but I think the Redskins need to produce more from the draft (you can blame the coaches and injuries that the 2011 draft hasn't produced multiple starters at this point) and all they showed this offseason was that they can spend a ton of money in free agency while improving the team just a little bit.

When you look at the FA class, they might be able to avoid a FA bust pending the next couple of years, but the only guy who is providing value on the contract he signed is Rocca.

[redsk1]

We're really building for 2013 and on. I do think we can make some good strides next year though w/ a QB and another OL as was mentioned.

I don't have a problem w/ our coaching. It's pretty simple.

Cruddy mismagement for 15 years...year 2 under new management...lots of injuries= bad record.

Big/Huge draft for us in April. Hopefully we'll have some QB options.

[GTripp0012]

I'm not a Gano hater by any stretch, but I'd like to add Shaun Suisham to the list of ex-Redskins who are doing well elsewhere. That, however, was a Cerrato move.

[Bushead]

I made a post last year about how poor our talent was and that was the reason for us losing games. I still think that is a major concern.

I know everyone has as an opinion on the Donovan Plan, but I always thought it was to use an experienced veteran at the position for a few years to be competitive while cultivating a QB they drafted. Obviously, it didn't go that way.

It's interesting to see people complain that we don't have good back ups and that falls squarely on the head coach's shoulders. I guess that is a point, but you can do it all in one offseason. He drafted a solid 5-6 guys in this previous draft that are going to contribute. They brought in smart free agents. You can't do everything in one season or even two.

I believe next year will be more of a focus on offense and a few smart defensive players. So, obviously a QB and some OL, but also probably some play maker WR. I wonder what the defense pick ups will be though. Another CB, but outside of that, I don't see a glaring problem.

[GusFrerotte]

I would draft two QBs in April, with of course our first pick and with a 3rd or 4th for depth. This QB class is deep,very deep, and we could assure of getting a franchise QB or at least a decent backup if our franchise guy went down. Get a Barkely or RG III with our first pick. Even Tannehill from Texas A&M would be a nice pick. Keenum, Moore, etc. Obviously these guys probably won't be around for the 3rd rounds, but guys like Dan Persa, and other solid starters would be. Is the QB from Okla St a senior? Hecould go in the 2nd or 3rd round. Just so many QBs coming out that we might get some studs in the 3rd or even 4th rounds.

[artmonkforhallofamein07]

Originally Posted by Paintrain

I'm actually fine with the OL we started the season with. None of them will likely be Pro Bowlers (maybe Williams if he fully dedicates himself) but they can be competitive week in and week out.

Chester, Wiliams, KL, and Monty to a point are decent. Brown is not back to what he should be. We need upgrades on our line. Some of these guys would be good depth.

[artmonkforhallofamein07]

Originally Posted by Bushead

I made a post last year about how poor our talent was and that was the reason for us losing games. I still think that is a major concern.

I know everyone has as an opinion on the Donovan Plan, but I always thought it was to use an experienced veteran at the position for a few years to be competitive while cultivating a QB they drafted. Obviously, it didn't go that way.

It's interesting to see people complain that we don't have good back ups and that falls squarely on the head coach's shoulders. I guess that is a point, but you can do it all in one offseason. He drafted a solid 5-6 guys in this previous draft that are going to contribute. They brought in smart free agents. You can't do everything in one season or even two.

I believe next year will be more of a focus on offense and a few smart defensive players. So, obviously a QB and some OL, but also probably some play maker WR. I wonder what the defense pick ups will be though. Another CB, but outside of that, I don't see a glaring problem.

Especially when we only had 5 weeks to get ready for football and sign rookies, FA, and RFAs.