Wrong and Wronger

Oops

After the game Sunday Rich Tandler, author of the superb Redskins from A to Z posted up in his blog that he is fed up with

Redskins fan[s] who can find all kinds of fault with a game that the Redskins win but refuse to acknowledge any positive aspects to a loss.

He continues with

if you can’t see that in these last two games, even though the Redskins lost, that Jason Campbell has made tremendous strides and that Gibbs and Saunders are willing to put the game in his hands, well, you’re not watching the same games that I am. That development has the potential to have positive implications that stretch far beyond the negative consequences of the losses to the Eagles and Cowboys.

Go read the whole thing, and he even posted a follow up today responding to some of the comments on this post.

Wrong Rich. The Redskins are sucking and there is plenty to critique, plenty going wrong and too many areas are affected. I am a Redskins fan and I want to see the team do well, get back to winning Super Bowls if for no other reason than to shut those fucking Eagles fans up.

But the team is not heading in that direction. When the passing game works the defense wilts. When the defense does its job the playcalling is too conservative. No one can predict injuries and injuries are a fact of NFL life, you have to have quality backups. How come the Redskins tried out 100 receivers in the preseason and none of them is on the roster yet two receivers on the roster were not with the team in preseason? Who is making these decisions?

The current Redskins administration is in its fourth season, it has the fourth largest player payroll, anecdotally the Redskins have more coaches than any team, and likely pay more in coaching salaries than any team. Joe Gibbs and his brain trust have allegedly total control over player selection and the team spares no expense for nuthin.

What has that gotten me as a football fan? 26 wins and 32 losses in the regular season and one win and one loss in the playoffs. Below .500.

It's the fourth year. In the fourth year we should not be talking about football basics like getting the play in. Or game management issues with these wise old men of football, issues like conserving timeouts. The so called crispness factor is not always there.

It is not enough to acknowledge these problems as Joe Gibbs has at least twice this season, here and here. The acknowledgement without improvement is just admitting it's ok to be mediocre. As for the game last Sunday? Yayy the team went into the critical part of the fourth quarter with all three timeouts available. What are these guys, a bunch of five year olds that need constant reinforcement when tying shoes and using manners?

When a game is that close and I thought it would be a blowout you have to win it. There are no moral victories. The running game was terrible. The deep defense was terrible. So Jason Campbell had a great day, that's great, we need all the pieces to work on the same day.

Oh and the bit about the playoff standing if the Lions beat the Packers and the Redskins beat the Buccaneers? The Lions are a 6-4 team playing a first place team, they will be underdogs and the Redskins are a 5-5 team playing at a first place team, they will be underdogs.

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Let's look at this another way. It's win now. Joe Gibbs signed up for five years but the team was built to peak no later than four years. The free agent class of 2004, Clinton Portis, Marcus Washington, Mark Brunell, Khary Campbell, Phillip Daniels, Shawn Springs, not all these guys will be back, maybe even most of them won't. Last year should have been the year.

Michael David Smith at Redskins AOL Fanhouse reports that the Redskins are already 19 and a half million dollars over the 2008 salary cap so next season when Clinton Portis' cap number rises to 8.9 million dollars, Shawn Springs' to 7.8 million and Marcus Washington's to 6.4 million how can they keep these key guys, allocate money to new contracts such as Sean Taylor's and sign all new players? The quality of the team is expected to level or get worse next year.

So the team Joe Gibbs built to win the Super Bowl is this team, this year, this season, these 16 games. Next year Joe will be playing with a different team. Does anyone think if the team can't win with four years of the same players that they will be able to win next year with different and cheaper players?



Uncredited image from here.