Vision Quest: Off-Season Game Plan 2007 Overview

For a team that has had only 2 playoff appearances in 15 years, the off-season always seems to sneak up on Redskin fans. And this year that notion seems especially true. It seems almost a cruel joke that a team with coming off a post season run with a furious off-season and real Super Bowl aspirations to finish 5-11 and out of playoff contention for nearly 3 weeks. Remember 5 teams that finished the season at 8-8 or 7-9 were battling for the last playoff spot on the final weekend of the season. That is how far we fell.

Our once proud defense finished the season unable to defend against 2 of those teams, giving up 71 points in its final two contests. In fact all season the defense has been the Achilles heel of the Washington Redskins. They finished a year with the record for least amount of turnovers caused in a season. Not a redskin record mind you, but an all-time NFL record. They finished the season ranked #31 out of 32 teams in total defense, with only Tennessee, who suffered from an early season slump, beneath them.

If you are looking for a reason the Redskins did so bad in 2006, look no further then the Defense.

Sure the offense had its share of problems as well. Mark Brunell got old awful fast and a real case could be made that Gibbs stuck with him too long. After a pro-bowl worthy season in 2005 you can’t blame the coaching staff for sticking with him. However an argument can and should be made that they turned to him 3 weeks too late. A training camp injury slowed Clinton Portis along with Al Saunders play calling. And the Brandon Lloyd experiment seems, at this point, to be a mistake.

However by the end of the season the offense was humming and backup running back Ladell Betts was on his way to setting a Redskin record for straight 100 yard games. This is almost entirely due to the offensive line and the return of a downfield passing game with Jason Campbell. For the first time in 4 years offense won’t be the major concern in the off-season. We have a young QB, 2 good running backs, a game changing receiver in Santana Moss and an ideal compliment in Randle El, and assuming we resign Derrick Dockery a line that has played together for three years. The future is bright on the offensive side of the ball.

Not so much on defense. Just about every position needs an infusion of talent. The defensive line looked better at the end of the year as Andre Carter seemed to find his groove and surprise rookie Kedrick Golston turned in solid minutes. Cornelius Griffin is a stud but getting old and Phillip Daniels may not have much left in the tank. Linebacker is no better as Marcus Washington took a step back and Lemar Marshall looked slow and weak against the pass and run. The staff took too long in deciding to switch to McIntosh over the always ineffective Warrick Holdman. At corner Sean Springs turned in his second injury plagued season in a row and Carlos Rogers had a sophomore slump the size of the Grand Canyon, and Wright showed why he was let go by Jacksonville. At Safety the Adam Archueletta signing proved nearly fatal as he was replaced in the lineup by and old man and a guy without a team & Sean Taylor had a down year without the motivation of attempted murder charges hanging over his head.

Is the slump all the coaches fault? No, of course not. Players have to play when they are put on the field. However the Redskin defensive staff has been given every opportunity to succeed in their entire 3 year period. 11 major free agent signings were devoted to the defense (Barrow, Bowen, Washington, Griffin, Daniels, Springs, Harris, Holdman, Archueletta, Wright, & Carter) over the last 3 years. Each of the top picks the Redskins had in the draft the last three years (Taylor, Rogers, McIntosh) have also been defense. In that time period the coaching staff and front office have also decided to part with homegrown talent like Antonio Pierce, Fred Smoot, Lavar Arrington, and Ryan Clark.

Make no mistake about it, the defense on the filed this year is the defense that Gregg Williams and his staff built.

And it is a defense that has fallen each and every year. From #3 in 2004, to #9 in 2005, to #31 in 2006. If I were to run a presidential campaign against GW I would simply ask are you better off today then you were two years ago? The answer simply could not be yes.

But even the defense has its upsides. Rocky McIntosh should be able to hold down the weak-side linebacker spot and Pierson Prioleau’s return could shore up the safety position. Kedrick Golston is young and showing flashes of real talent, and Andre Carter came on at the end of the year. Sure Washington and Taylor had down years, but that could be in part because they were covering the deficiencies of others. A lot of talk around Redskin park is about talent being kept down in favor of other players; perhaps that talent will get a chance to shine through.

In the meantime the Redskin coaching staff will now sit down and chart an off-season game-plan to field a competent team in 2007. So I have a few suggestions that I hope the redskins are thinking about as they prepare to move forward.

1.) Focus on Defense. I know I made the assertion that they did this the last three years with relatively little success and nominal returns. However the only way this team will get better is by raising the talent level. In my perfect off season we would get a young defensive End to pair with Arch and push Daniels for his starting spot, a young Defensive tackle to work in a rotation with Griffin and Golston, a true middle linebacker to start over Lemar Marshall, a corner that will push Rogers for his starting spot or play nickel, and a safety to work on a rotation with Taylor.

2.) Resist the art of the Deal. I really don’t want to see us trading future draft picks for players or personnel this off-season. There is a part of me that believes this cycle needs to stop. Of course so does the cycle of free agent spending, however with only 4 draft picks this year and a lot of holes; we may have to do a little free agent shopping. Unless someone is offering a “ditka’ type deal, take the best defensive player on the board at #6 and fill holes with moderate free agents.

3.) Stop the Innovation. It seemed 2006 was the year of the gimmick that did not work. Whether it was the front office (“point Value” trade for TJ Duckett), personnel decisions (the alternate backup QB plan), or the play-calling (how many reverse’s per game can we run?) everyone was trying to be an innovator for innovations sake. I have no problem trying something new and failing, that is how Gibbs got to be great in the first place. However in the NFL innovation is most often greeted with abysmal failure. Here is a thought, if we are thinking about doing something different, so different that in the entire NFL no one is doing it, perhaps we should give it a second or third thought.

4.) Don’t over-fix the problems. Last year our offense was the issue. Many believed we needed another WR opposite Moss and a few tweaks to add a downfield passing game. Instead of doing that, Snyder and the front office went out, Signed one Wide Receiver and traded for another while hiring an offensive guru to revamp the entire system. That is what I call an over-fix. This year we need a few cogs to plug in on defense and a small alteration of our scheme. As much as it would cause great joy to see the Sword of Damocles rip through the defensive staff and GW’s office, most of them deserve one more year to get it right. Build on what we got instead of tearing it down.

5.) Get some Rest and then hit it hard. Ok I am about to delve into real amateur armchair psychology stuff so bear with me. The whole theme of player interviews on the way out of Redskin Park is a team just wanting to get away from football for awhile. While most of us, yours truly included, feel that these are the ramblings of spoiled millionaires, there are some danger inherent in their comments. Daniels and Portis both expressed reservations about the OTAs and the negative impacts of missing these over the summer. Now I am on record as saying I think OTAs should be mandatory and I hate the fact that the off season is so long because it can get young players like Taylor into enormous amounts of trouble. That being said the Redskins also risk losing the team entirely this off season. We are on the edge of a total locker room revolt. Half of coaching is football, the other half is psychology and getting a player to run through walls for you. I would urge the Redskins to ease their OTA program a bit this summer and allow for the players to WANT to come to Redskin Park again. Trade this for a longer tougher training camp and get ready for 2007.

Over the next few weeks as we watch the playoffs continue I will release a few more off-season game plan articles that will focus on the Coaches, Redskins we should cut, Redskins we should re-sign, Free Agents we should pursue, and Draft Choices we should target. All in all it is a longer then expected off season for us Redskin fans. Whether this is a bump in the road or a sign of things to come depends on the moves we will make in February, March, and April. Let’s hope they are good ones.

Hail to the Redskins!!!