Browsing all articles from November, 2011
Nov
8
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What the Redskins Should do at QB This Year

Author Mark Kalriess    Category Articles, Football, Redskins     Tags , , , , , , , ,

After three increasingly depressing starts by John Beck, it’s time for the Redskins to admit he’s not a NFL-caliber quarterback. The offense has been woeful the past few games and while that’s not all on him, he’s making a bad offense looks offensively bad. Head coach Mike Shanahan can claim that Beck is improving and “getting there” all he wants but the truth is obvious. The reason John Beck has never had a real chance to start in the NFL is he doesn’t deserve one. He doesn’t go through his receiver progressions, instead he locks onto one target and either throws it to them, tucks and run, or takes a sack. He’s afraid to go downfield, largely because he lacks the arm strength and accuracy to hit his receivers deep. Against the Bills he held the ball too long and was sacked ten times. On Sunday against the 49ers he let go of the ball to quickly, throwing meaningless dump-off pass near the line of scrimmage while he had targets getting open downfield. In Beck’s time under center this year he’s given no indication he’s the Redskins future at QB, or even their future second-stringer.

The Redskins can’t continue to start John Beck; they have to do something else at QB. Not only does he hurt their chance to win, he hurts their chance to rebuild. How do you evaluate receivers if your QB won’t throw to them? How to do you evaluate a running back’s effectiveness if the QB can’t sustain drives? How do you judge an offensive line if the passer is holding the ball too long or getting rid of it to quickly? If Beck continues to play he’ll begin to hamper other players’ development.

What should the Redskins do then? It is too late to trade for a QB and there are no meaningful free agents on the market. So, the Redskins have three bad options – give the job back to former starter Rex Grossman, give practice squad QB Jonathan Crompton a chance, or sign another team’s practice squad QB. Let’s break the down the different scenarios.

1. Give Grossman back the starting job

Reasons Why Not

Rex Grossman was benched for reason and that was his terrible turnovers. For every TD he’s thrown this year, he’s thrown 1.5 picks. Add in his two fumbles and he has 1.8 turnovers for every TD thrown. It’s hard for a team to win when its quarterback is giving the ball away so much. Grossman also appears to have peaked. He’s never going to be any better than what he is, and is clearly not the long term solution at QB.

Reason Why

Despite all of his turnovers, Grossman can move the ball up the field. In Sexy Rexy’s four starts kicker Graham Gano was averaging 2.5 field goal attempts a game. In Beck’s three starts he’s averaging only 1.3. In fact, in Grossman’s starts the team averaged 20.75 points per game. The defense is allowing 19.8 points per game all season. Starting Grossman would give the Redskins a decent shot at squeaking out a few wins.

2. Give Jonathan Crompton a chance

Reasons Why Not

Crompton was not a hot prospect coming out of college. The Redskins are his fourth team in his two years in the NFL so he’s not impressing anyone. He is also at the disadvantage of being signed after the pre-season, so he has no live game experience in this offense.

Reasons Why

It’s hard to come up with a reason why Crompton should start, but hopefully the Shanahans envisioned him as the future third-stringer for the team. Surely he wasn’t signed just to be a warm body on the practice squad. Right?

3. Sign a QB from another teams practice squad

Reasons Why Not

There is only one notable QB prospect on any practice squad in the NFL. Former Delaware QB is signed to the Miami Dolphins. When Devlin declared for the 2011 draft he was considered a top QB prospect but he didn’t end up being drafted. He hurt his draft stock with poor performances in the combine and pre-draft workouts. He also showed up late to his own pro days, which many NFL teams saw as a sign of immaturity. The consensus on him is that he’s not ready for the NFL yet. If he can’t even get on the active roster of the atrocious Dolphins he may not be.

Reasons Why

There’s no good reason why the Redskins should do this. Though, most of the other coaches in the league seem to be better judges of QB talent than Mike Shanahan right now.

What’s the Answer?

The Redskins should start Grossman, cut Beck, and promote Crompton to backup. Look, it’s not a good solution, but it’s the best available. Grossman will lose some games for the Redskins but at least the offense will have a spark. Beck doesn’t have a future with this franchise or in the NFL. Unless, he transforms into a vastly better QB this weekend, continuing to start him is futile. No one seems to think that Crompton has much of a future, but the Redskins should see if he’s good enough to be the third-stringer next year.

The Redskins need to figure out what they have on offense and what pieces need to be added next year. It’s going to be a long, painful season but there’s no need to make it worse. The Beck experiment failed. It’s time to move on.

Nov
3
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Episode 62 – Defending The Burgundy and Gold

Author Bryan Patton    Category Podcast Episode     Tags , , , , ,

Bryan, Matt, and Mark talk about what’s gone wrong with the Redskins and why fans shouldn’t give up on the team.

Nov
1
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Why Shanahan Should get Another Year

Author Mark Kalriess    Category Articles, Redskins     Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

After the 23-0 loss to the Bills on Sunday, many Skins fans are calling for head coach Mike Shanahan’s head. That is understandable emotion from a fan base sick of years of losing and embarrassing performances. I’ve certainly overreacted to a loss before and pondered firing Shanahan.  But I hope owner Dan Snyder doesn’t get impatient and pull the plug too early, something he’s arguably done before. Norv Turner was fired during a winning season, a year after going to the playoffs. Marty Schottenheimer was never given a chance and was pulled after one year in DC. Joe Gibbs retired from his second stint as Redskins head coach after a year he led the team to the playoffs. What would have happened if any of these coaches had another year or two in DC? What if one had become the guy long term? Would the Redskins still be in this constant state of rebuilding that has lasted over a decade?

So far Mike Shanahan has led the Redskins to a 9-14 record and his offense looks terrible. Still, Snyder and the Redskins fans need to be patient. Firing Shanahan would create more problems than it would solve. Even if the team finishes out the season 3-13, Shanahan should get the 2012 offseason and at least six games next year. Why? To finish out what he started.

Brian J. McDermott flickr

Shanahan is currently in year two of a rebuilding process. Fire him and the last two years of losing will have been for nothing. If Snyder brings in a new coach what is the likelihood that the new coach will want to run a 3-4 defense, West Coast offense, and a zone-blocking scheme for the offensive line? Why would Snyder want to bring in a Shanny-clone if he thinks Shanahan failed? Any new coach Snyder brings in will want to blow apart the roster and start again.

A case for Shanahan’s firing can be made easily enough. He misjudged the roster coming in, believing he could win with the team last year. He has put too much faith in his system and his defense. He’s cut players that didn’t fit and brought in some questionable talent that did. Instead of working with players that have obvious football skills but weren’t system matches he let them flounder. Offensive guard Derrick Dockery and defensive end/outside linebacker Andre Carter failed so miserably under Shanahan that they weren’t even tradable.

His QB evaluation has been terrible in his coaching stint so far. First he let go of Jason Campbell last year and brought in Donovan McNabb.  Campbell was having a career year and putting up wins in Oakland this year before his season-ending injury. Meanwhile, Donovan McNabb flamed out in D.C. last year, was shipped to Minnesota where he flamed out even more quickly this season. Shanahan went into this season with John Beck and Rex Grossman, two career journeyman as his top two QBs. He believed he could win games with either. It turns out he CAN’T win games with either.

So, why should he get another season after those mistakes? Because some progress has been made and firing him would destroy all that progress. In the first four games the Redskins 3-4 defense was looking stout.  The team is still 7th in points allowed at the end of Week 8. They have given up a lot of points and yards since the Week 5 bye, but they have also been dealing with injuries and an offense that hasn’t held the ball for more than 25 minutes the past three games.

That offense has looked horrendous the past few games but it’s had one of the worst rashes of injuries in the NFL. In two of the first four games the Redskins rushed for over 170 yards. Then starting left guard Kory Lichtensteiger went down for the season and starting left tackle Trent Williams injured his ankle. Without those two starters the o-line has looked overmatched. The losses on the offensive line, combined with losing starting RB Tim Hightower for the season, starting TE Chris Cooley for the season, and number one wide-out Santana Moss has turned an average offense to an abysmal one.

But the point is that GM Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan were able to create a good starting core for their West Coast offense and 3-4 defense in the two seasons they’ve been here together. Give them another off-season and they should be able to finish filling in the holes and put some reliable backups in place. Next year an injury to a starter hopefully won’t have such a drastic effect on the team’s chance to win.

Lastly, Shanahan’s hasn’t yet chosen his QB of the future. I admit this is a bit of cop-out here as Rex Grossman, John Beck, and Donovan McNabb have all been floated to the media as “Shanahan’s guy”. Shanahan has had two drafts and not only didn’t spend a high draft pick on a QB he didn’t spend any picks on one. This is almost unconscionable in what is becoming an increasingly quarterback-driven league. The last five Super Bowl winning coaches had their Super Bowl winning QB starting or on the roster during their first year behind the reins. But the fact is Shanahan has bought himself extra time by avoiding this necessary step (perhaps purposefully). There are many QB options in the draft and through trades in the 2012 off-season. Shanahan should be easily able to get a guy that is both high-talent and fits his system. He may even be able to trade for his “now” QB and draft his future QB.

So, let’s stay patient DC. If after six games into the 2012 regular season the Redskins don’t look like they’re on their way to a winning record then Shanahan should get the ax. He’s clearly not going to win here.  But I think if you give him another off-season he’ll put in place the next franchise QB, a quality starting offensive line, and roster depth on both sides of the ball. At that point the Redskins should be setup to win for the next few years. But if Snyder gets impatient and fires him this season or during the off-season, he’ll just be restarting the three year rebuilding cycle with a different coach.

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