You can reach me by email at rtandler@comcast.net
After years of swinging for the fences and missing, it seems
like the Redskins are now connecting on a regular basis. Consider:
Trading Laveranues Coles for Santana Moss: Joe Gibbs
announced to the team that anyone who didn’t want to be a part of the team
should tell him and Coles took him up on it. Rather than let Coles watch the
Redskins this year on a flat-screen TV provided by Daniel Snyder, the Skins
took a $9 million cap hit and shipped Coles back to the Jets for Santana Moss. The
move drew fire for several reasons including the cap hit and the risk of taking
on Moss, who hadn’t quite lived up to his potential. Coles has 26 catches for
289 yards (11.1) with a long gain of 31. Not horrible, but certainly not worth
the more than $15 million in guaranteed money that he’s collected from the
Skins and Jets in the last three years. Moss is averaging an eye-popping 19.1
yards a catch (33 receptions, 631 yards) and has scored four touchdowns, two
from long distance. Moss catches have directly scored the winning points in one
win (Dallas) and set up the game-winner in another (Seattle).
Letting Antonio Pierce and Fred Smoot leave via Free
Agency: The defense was supposed to fall apart after the team failed to
match free agent offers for these two “Redskins for life”. I don’t suppose that
the gloom-and-doom crowd’s definition of “falling apart” meant going from third
to fifth in the league in defense, but that’s exactly what has happened. It’s
worked out just fine because of the following two moves.
Drafting Carlos Rogers over Mike Williams: Both
Rogers and WR Williams were on the board with the Redskins drafting ninth in
April, they resisted the temptation to take the big receiver, who most expected
to be gone by then, and stuck with their plan to draft Rogers to replace Smoot.
Williams is off to a slow start and Rogers has played well, even admirably
against Denver when both starting CB’s were out and Rogers found himself as the
top corner.
Moving Lemar Marshall to MLB to replace Pierce: When
Pierce moved to the Giants, the Redskins didn’t make a counter-move in free
agency. Instead, they moved Marshall about 10 feet to his left from outside
linebacker to the Mike position. Of course, that 10 feet was much longer
figuratively since the middle linebacker is the quarterback in Gregg Williams’
defense. It was the same move the Pierce had made in 2004. This year, the stats
for the two are virtually identical in tackles (Marshall 31, Pierce 37), sacks
(1 for Marshall, .5 for Pierce) and interceptions with one apiece.
Waiting it out with Rod Gardner: The former
first-round pick, drafted ahead of Santana Moss at Marty Schottenheimer’s
insistence, stepped forward with Coles when asked to express dissatisfaction
with Gibbs and the team. (These guys obviously weren’t missing Mensa meetings
to go to practice. Hadn’t they ever heard of Monk, Clark, and Sanders?) Gibbs announced early on in the offseason
that he intended to trade the receiver, but he had trouble finding takers.
Gardner was banned from OTA’s and minicamp and was informed that he would not
be welcome at training camp. They carried his $2 million salary on their cap
throughout free agency when there was extreme temptation to cut him loose and
free up the cap space. Just before the start of camp, he was dealt to the
Panthers for a sixth-round pick. It was reminiscent of Buddy Ryan saying of a
player, “Just get rid of him, trade him for a six pack. It doesn’t even have to
be cold.” Gibbs, being a teetotaler, settled for the sixth-rounder.
Inserting Mark Brunell at quarterback: Of all of the
moves in 2005, this one drew the most fire in the media, on the message boards,
on talk radio, in the bars, and around the water cooler. There’s not much
debate now, four and three-quarters games later. Sure, you can argue over
whether or not it was done the right way, with Patrick Ramsey being told all
along, in public at least, that he was the starter and then the switch to
Brunell being made 20 minutes into the season. But Brunell’s results speak for
themselves—nine touchdowns to two interceptions, excellent game management, a
good touch on the long ball, firing the ball in with accuracy that allows the
receiver to get YAC. For those Redskins fans unfamiliar with the concept,
that’s yards after the catch, something that Washington receivers have been
able to accumulate very little of in recent seasons. It hasn’t been all the
fault of the receivers.
Their other major move off the offseason, trading three high
picks for the right to draft quarterback Jason Campbell, still has too many
things pending to make even a preliminary call on. And while don’t know about
how the other in-season move, the benching of LaVar Arrington, will play out,
it appears that some of the ice is thawing and we may, just may, see some
movement this weekend.
To be sure, some of these moves may look different in a few
years, maybe even in a few months. Still, for the time being, it appears that
the Redskins have a competent, professional football operation as opposed to
being the bumbling, fumbling stuck on stupid group they’ve been for most of the
past decade. That may not get them another Lombardi this year, but these seem
to be some moves in the right direction.
