Put me in the camp that thinks we'll have less wins this year than last year.
Snyder, despite being an impish Napoleonic *******, has some upside. He'll spend money. His downfall is his meddling. Maybe he'll step back even more in the future (you're forgetting that he is actually currently less involved than he used to be).
Our coach, might be an NFL coach. But we'll never know as long as RG3 is our QB because they're a complete mismatch.
RG3 is not, nor never will be, a pocket QB. We need a pocket QB for Gruden.
We're picking early in 2016 imo. Top 5.
What I still can't understand is why Gruden came here knowing RG3 wasn't a fit for his offense. He had to have known in the interview that the team would push hard for Griffin getting the starting job and trying to develop him. And yes, I know there's only 32 jobs in the NFL. But if you knew it wasn't going to be a good fit from the beginning, why do it?
money and to put Head Coach on his resume and to get head coaching experience basically.
They seriously overpaid and gave him a 5-year guaranteed contract. Even in a situation where you're destined to fail, you take that job.
Absolutely true. Also, via his brother, Jay has access to plenty of NFL people that another young up-and-coming coaching candidate might not (what I mean by that is that because he's Jon's brother, NFL folks might speak more candidly to him about the ramifications of taking the Snyder offer - as in: 'Take the money - even if things go to ####, that's the M.O. of that franchise. No one is going to blame you for either taking the money, or failing, because by now, when it comes to Snyder, it's expected.You'll get another chance with nothing held against you'.
Matt, I know it's frustrating. A couple of things I want to mention, though I know it's not going to help the situation: First, the way I understand it, the 'usual, customary and reasonable' way that a properly functioning NFL Franchise hires a HC is based off a series of interviews where the candidate sells himself based on his X's and O's knowledge, his organizational system, and his ability to lead and motivate men. It's a very big deal to hire a new coach, because, theoretically the on-field product undergoes a complete overhaul as a natural process of the new HC installing 'his stuff'. Almost never is the candidate asked or expected to mold his system around the existing players on the Roster - the expectation is for him, in collaboration with the GM, to evaluate what he has, keep what fits his system, and jettison what doesn't. That's a GM's primary responsibility: get the Coach the players he feels he needs to run his system, then judge the coach based on the results...
...there was a time, not long ago, that I had a window into the goings-on at Redskins park, and I tried to share that with everyone. What was staring back at me was something so shockingly dysfunctional...and there were plenty here who didn't want to believe what I was reporting, but pretty much all of it has been proven out over time. Although I don't have nearly that access now, based on past experience, I can comfortably speculate that when Snyder/Allen interviewed Gruden, they were (correctly, IMO) wowed by his qualifications, which show a candidate worthy to at least receive a shot...but I'd bet dollars to donuts that they didn't ask him directly if he could 'win with Griffin' - either because they don't get the basic idea that coaches win with systems more often than they win with players, and Snyder is so invested/enamored with Griffin he couldn't conceive that Griffin was the problem, so the possibility didn't occur to him that a quality HC coudn't just 'coach Griffin up' - or, because on some level they learned via getting burned in the past, that if they asked that question, he might turn down the job, because in the majority of HC hirings, that's just not how it's done. Also, there wasn't a real GM in place to evaluate whether Gruden's system was one in which Griffin had a chance to succeed. I'd bet the same dollars to donuts that Gruden came in here expecting to be able to evaluate the roster, Griffin included, and go through the usual process of keeping and culling, and ultimately putting the players on the field that he felt could execute his system the best...and at some point word came down from above that Griffin being the starting QB, was non-negotiable. If you go back and look, there's definitely a point at which Gruden is full of vim and vigor, bouyancy and optimism, and a point where frustration begins to set in. I think that's the unfortunate, grim reality of our team under Snyder. Hopefully, with the hiring of McCloughan, we're moving away from that, and into an era of relative normalcy. We can only hope..
I think what we're seeing now is a direct result of McCloughan having some influence on this whole process, and while it's painful in the short-term, it may...may, yield some long-term benefits. I think McCloughan is shooting straight with Snyder that A: Griffin was never a great QB, but rather a great athlete playing the QB position, B: post-knee, Griffin is no longer a great athlete, C: he doesn't have the football IQ to become a great QB minus the athleticism that made him special, and D: he's not a good fit for Gruden's system. The best way for McCloughan (working with Gruden, who he probably believes deserves a fair shot before they pull the plug), is by trotting Griffin out onto the field and asking him to do the kind of things a 'Gruden-system' QB needs to be able to do for the system to have a chance to succeed. Now that the draft picks we sacrificed are in the rear-view mirror, and because he's being told these things by a proven, real-life, honest-to-goodness football man, this may be the time that Snyder is finally willing to listen. We'll find out soon enough!
sadly this is exactly how it will happen.
