BEAURACRATIC BREAKDOWN

Now what?

The Boy Dollar wasn’t expecting this when he hired Steve Spurrier to coach the Washington Redskins. And what a sloppy two years it was. At least it ended quickly, not to mention comically and ultimately, appropriately. This is a man who was out to lunch, rather on the golf course, when word of his resignation surfaced only to be denied by Spurrier simply because he wasn’t aware the team has already issued a statement to that affect. That about sums up his administration, and I use that word loosely, in Washington.

Steve Spurrier ran the most systematically discombobulated NFL football team, possibly ever. Lou Holtz’s wretched one-year stint as coach of the NY Jets is still the low water mark for NFL coaching ineptitude, but only because he wrote a fight song and insisted the team learn and sing it. Spurrier can’t be blamed for the dysfunctional 3-headed decision making monster that plagued the organization, with the owner breaking ties between the coach and Personnel Director and Bug Eyed Yes Man, Vinny Cerrato that resulted in a completely wasted pick of WR Taylor Jacobs when the team’s most glaring and obvious need was for a pass rusher.

But he is at the forefront of the blame for the most penalties in team history committed under his watch, the rampant repeating of mistakes in almost instant replay fashion, the egregious number of personal fouls throughout the season and a team that capitulated 4th quarter leads like an Italian army in retreat.

Some players barely had their pads off before they were talking about the team’s poor practice habits leading to their dismal play on Sundays. Certainly that is the worst possible indictment of the coaching staff, but this is from the same team that apparently had no respect whatsoever for authority and had players constantly late for meetings, cell phones-a-blazin’ and players suspended before the final game because they were late to practice?

Isn’t that what player only meetings are for? “We need to wake up! We’re practicing like a bunch of punks. If we don’t get ourselves together we could end up 5-11!” Or how about this approach to self governing, “The next cell phone that goes off in a meeting will be set to vibrate and then shoved up the owner’s ass—only to be called repeatedly until the message is received. Can you hear me now, jerkoff?”

Instead, it’s the first thing they mention as the curtain falls.

The current locker room is a joke. I’m not opposed to a flushing of 2/3 of the roster by whoever is the next coach. The players bemoan after every loss about “how much talent this team has” and how “it always seems like it comes down to one play at the end…”

They couldn’t be more wrong. All of the games they were in contention to win, but lost in the closing minutes were games that could have turned on several plays and the Redskins made none of them. And where is all this talent they keep pointing to?

LaVar Arrington is the face of the Redskins, media darling, seemingly good teammate and damn fine football player. What he is not, is Ray Lewis. Not even close. I only bring it up because is so frequently compared to Lewis during game telecasts and it just doesn’t add up. Lewis finished the season with 163 tackles and 42 assists for 205 total tackles. He managed 6 interceptions from the middle linebacker position, but ended up with a shockingly low 1.5 sacks. Arrington posted only 71 tackles with 45 assists. In other words, that’s 89 less tackles he was involved in than the perennial All-World Ray Lewis. So let’s just end that talk right there. Come back LaVar when you’re in the 180 range in tackles, with a few more game altering plays, not just bone jarring hits. The play (and now the pay) must justify the yak.

While we’re examining the talent pool, I would surmise that the best 10 Redskin players are Champ Bailey, Laverneous Coles, LaVar Arrington, Fred Smoot, Randy Thomas, John Jansen, Chris Samules, Patrick Ramsey, Chad Morton and John Hall. That’s pretty sad when 3 of the 10 are offensive lineman from a unit that underperformed and your kicker and kick returner round out the list.

Jesse Armstead has been a good a pick up and probably is the best-of-the-rest, but his direct impact is limited and it seems like you can go a quarter and a half without hearing his name called. Matt Bowen turned out to be a solid, perfunctory acquisition to beef up the safety position, although he was caught out of position numerous times in coverage and he was just as likely to clobber a receiver as he was to get steamrolled by a running back. Rod Gardner unleashed the added dimension of a receiver who could toss a touchdown and comes up with some nice catches, but he is notorious for an astonishing variety of penalties. Gardner is good for false starts, blocks in the back, holding, pass interference—you name it, he does them all, more than once each. If that’s not irritating enough, he’s got a suspect work ethic and is one of those players who does the demonstrative 1st down gesture after making a catch, only to follow that with a drop of a would be long gain on the very next play. He is a good candidate for a trade.

From there is just gets worse, fast.

Jeremiah is a bullfrog. The Eagles knew what they were doing when they cut Pro Bowler, Jeremiah Trotter loose after the 2001 season, and the Boy Dollar was there to scoop him up and hand him a seven year contract! Well, the results are in and they’re not pretty. Trotter is always accountable in post game interviews, but he is a liability on the field. In Marvin Lewis’ gap-control style of dense he always seemed to be one gap removed from the action and this year he has been manhandled at the point of attack, exposed in coverage and guilty of reckless tackling pursuit.

It’s easy to say the Redskins invisible pass rush suffered from the presence of aging Bruce Smith, except that Renaldo Wynn is equally ineffective. A complete non presence. Regan Upshaw was the only offseason move to address the defensive line and he came with a bum knee, zero pass rush and the self-described penchant for personal fouls. Nice work, management.

Enough with the talk of the glut of talent on this team, it’s just not there.

They couldn’t stop anyone on 3rd down and couldn’t covert their own opportunities to extend drives, they weren’t able to turn opportunistic turnovers into touchdowns on a weekly basis, and blew defensive assignments at a rate that might indicate they were actually trying to throw the game.

Where exactly does this leave this team? Almost assuredly in a better place than if Spurrier returned for another dead-on-arrival year as head coach. He was a beaten man after the Buffalo loss in week 7. His tone and demeanor could not have been worse for a man in his position in the subsequent weeks.

I have no clear feelings on who the next coach should be, other than they must come in with everything Spurrier and Norv Turner did not bring to the table. This team doesn’t need professors of offensive academia, it needs a true leader of men. Someone with a commanding stature would be nice for a change. A coach with a methodology for success that can lead to a culture of winning while simultaneously obliterating the loser mentality that permeates Redskins Park should be the foremost deciding factor when evaluating prospective coaches.

Another requisite of the next coaching staff should be to do whatever it takes to bring back Russ Grimm as offensive line coach. It would be a small step, but one that would add a crucial link to the past franchise glory and a way to provide context to how you build a contending NFL team.

Scott Frank 01:31 PM

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