The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Without Springs our secondary is in trouble (not that you guys don't know that), letting Walt Harris go was a mistake. I haven’t wanted to admit it but our staff has made some poor personnel decisions that is costing this team’s depth right now. We should have kept Antonio Pierce at middle linebacker and moved Lemar Marshall to the strong side and let LaVar walk. We’d be great with Pierce, Marshall and Washington. Also, they just gave up a 3rd round pick for Duckett who doesn’t even play and they overpay for Archuletta, Andre Carter and this Kenny Wright joke at cornerback. They let Smoot go and maybe the Vikings overpaid but dang it we need some cornerbacks. Why give up so much for Jason Campbell if he’s not gonna play for 3 years, I mean WTF is going on, Brunell has proved to be capable about 50% of the games since he came to Washington and this isn’t good enough. His good games are usually because Santana Moss turns a 5 yard pass into a big play and it pads Brunell’s stats. The past couple of years our D has been good enough to overshadow his inadequacies but not this year not being able to stretch the field is killing us. We let Ryan Clark go this off-season for Arch and Ryan Clark is better, IMO. They should have payed clark and used the difference in money spent on Arch for some decent depth. I still think it’s early and they aren’t out of it but the problem is depth and team speed and we don’t have much of either on the defensive side of the ball. Sorry if this is in the wrong spot, if it needs to be moved I apologize. Just venting!

Quiet, you!! Questioning the coaching staff isn't allowed around here!!

They need a real time pro quality General Manager. Not this Vinney character they have running the show around here. Gibbs is not GM material. We need someone who will actually scout the draft, keep the picks and realize what players are worth keeping and which arent.

This is what the team should have done (i know its too late now) but anyways...they should have paid Smoot to keep him here. He was one hell of a corner. He had speed, heart, coverage ability, tackling was fine and he could catch the ball. He almost never got beat and even when he did, he never put his head down and walk away as if he just got defeated. I notice this with Rogers all the time. A guy beats him deep, he either walks away with his head down or looks around to blame someone else. So far he has been a failure. We should have seen this when he got beat deep his first preason game last year. So instead of paying Smoot what he was worth after many years of loyal service we pay this schmuck who gets beat deep every single play that is thrown to him. I mean come on ask yourself this. Do you have ANY confidence when the opposing team throws it deep that he will be there to cover it....Nope not me.

Antonia Pierce was a stud at linebacker. Here is another guy who gave great years of service to the Skins. Sure he only did it one year but he was only given one year to excel and he did it. You could just tell it wasn't a fluke with him. This guy is what linebackers are made of. Smart, quick, tough and very intuitive. Pierce was a Redskins...a leader. This is the guy that is lacking in the locker room right now. A player who is star calibur, busts his hump and can get in the face of players who mis-behave. This is one we let go that will hurt us.

Ryan Clark. I was very sad to see him go. You could tell in his voice he wanted to stay here. I don't think AA isn't playing that bad but did we really NEED to pay him that much when we could have kept Ryan Clark here for cheap and use the money else where. Same goes for Walt Harris...why let him go. Yes he sucked to a degree but was MUCH better than Kenny Wright. I didn't want Walt Harris as the starter but a backup he would have been great and if asked to step in until Springs got back he would have done so much better than this retard Wright. I don't have anything negative to say about Rumph. Yes he sucks but we gave up a WR who wouldn't have played anyways for him...so no problems there.

Next dissapointment is Andre Carter. We payed this guy a lot of money. All the signs were there that he is not that good. The 49ers let him go. He had 1 good year and just looking at how he runs it clear that this guy is not AAA quality and not worth the money we gave him. What a waste. What we should have done was go after the Freak the year before even harder than we did instead of paying this chump pro-bowl caliber money. At this piont I would much rather have Renaldo Wynn starting over this fool.

Lastly...my gripe is letting Lavar go. Unless this guy committed a crime..he should not have been let go. He was the heart & soul of this team. I know he was only a shell of his former self but that shell plays much better than Warrick Holdman every does or will.

Players we picked up when we shouldn't have.
1. Adam Archuletta
2. Kenny Wright
3. Andre Carter
4. Warrick Holdman
5. Carlos Rogers

Players we lost when we should have kept them.
1. Antonio Pierce
2. Lavar Arrington
3. Fred Smoot
4. Ryan Clark
5. Walt Harris

Look at those names we let go and its clear to me why our defense is lacking big time.

I'd mix up your chart a bit (in order):
Should never have gotten:
1) Archuletta
2) TJ Duckett (why?)
3) Andre Carter

Kenny Wrigth sucks...but at least he was cheap. Holdman is in the same boat. Rogers will improve.

Players we should have never let go:
1) Pierce
2) Ryan Clark
3) Smoot

Harris I can't agree with...he was, basically, Kenny Wright last year. I don't miss Arrington.

Mursilis wrote:Quiet, you!! Questioning the coaching staff isn't allowed around here!!

Dude... that's not really a fair statement. Please don't even imply that you aren't 'allowed to'... are posts being deleted by the staff?

Just because not everyone agrees with everything you say, doesn't mean that you aren't ALLOWED to. You can say whatever you want if you follow a few simple rules... that doesn't mean people won't take you to task... but it doesn't mean that anyone is REFUSING YOU THE PERMISSION to say what you want in the first place.

Whether you intended to or not, you make it sound like we as a staff are censoring people who say something against the Redskins coaching staff... and if you are saying that... provide me with a SINGLE instance.

You're ALLOWED to say whatever you want here as long as you follow the rules... but just like you have the right to say what you want against the coaching staff, the others have the equal right to disagree with you. Not allowing you to swear is hardly taking away your voice, and even then, you can just take it to Smack. Nobody here will delete a post because of it's CONTENT... ever.. not intentionally... so people... know that you're ALLOWED to say whatever you like. just keep it clean and don't attack another poster and nobody will care that you had something 'negative' to say.

Well, let's start the Monday Morning QB'ing/Questioning.......


1. As time goes on we see more and more that this whole thing starts at the top with the personnel decisions that were made. We have let guys walk who wanted half the money that we paid to those that we bought in that are doing nothing. Then again, is it Snyder or is it the coaching that is pushing these players out. What was exactly wrong with Pierce, Smoot, and Clark???? They give a guy in Archuleta money and he didn't even want to be here. His agent told him to take the money. What would it have hurt to spend the money on Smoot???? We got a first round pick in his second year that can't even catch the ball in Rogers.

2. Who is calling the plays???? Gibbs or Saunders?? We go from what we saw last week to 3 points, no run game, and no shots down the field. Does Al Saunders have total autonomy over the offense like GW has over the defense??? It's obviousl by Al Saunders' comments about Brunell that he does not have the QB he wants in there.

3. Why did we draft Jason Campbell??? Why did we give up so much for him and not even letting him even sniff the field??? If we are going to lose like this, then let us lose with Campbell. At least he can move around in the pocket. Yes he will make mistakes but at least we can take chances with him downfield with his arm and he can elude the rush. I'd rather see us score only 3 points but take the chances. If he get's picked taking those chances, I think that I can live with that as opposed to being conservative and losing.

4. Are we too top heavy with Coaches and are they really effective??? We have alot of coaches on the sidelines but it appears that only a few of these players are responding to these coaches. Are all of these Coaches getting in each other's way and stumping this team????

5. Why are other teams with half the talent that this team has on it's roster still able to be productive on offense and defense. Look at the offense for example, it's a fantasy leaguer's dream at WR, TE and RB. But if we can't get them the ball or block for them, they are nothing. The defense still appears to have the problem of stopping the run up the middle and to the left. Barber ran up the middle and to the left all day long.

6. Does Joe Gibbs really have control of this team??? You hear guys like Charles Mann, B-Mitch, and Doc Walker always talking about how this team is putting up with stuff from it's players that they did not put up with when they played..... Makes you wonder?????

dnpmakkah wrote:Players we lost when we should have kept them.
2. Lavar Arrington

You can't be serious. What did he have like two tackles yesterday?

I really like Lavar, too. But don't let it blind you to the fact that he is incredibly overrated.

BossHog wrote:

Mursilis wrote:Quiet, you!! Questioning the coaching staff isn't allowed around here!!

Dude... that's not really a fair statement. Please don't even imply that you aren't 'allowed to'... are posts being deleted by the staff?

Just because not everyone agrees with everything you say, doesn't mean that you aren't ALLOWED to. You can say whatever you want if you follow a few simple rules... that doesn't mean people won't take you to task... but it doesn't mean that anyone is REFUSING YOU THE PERMISSION to say what you want in the first place.

Whether you intended to or not, you make it sound like we as a staff are censoring people who say something against the Redskins coaching staff... and if you are saying that... provide me with a SINGLE instance.

You're ALLOWED to say whatever you want here as long as you follow the rules... but just like you have the right to say what you want against the coaching staff, the others have the equal right to disagree with you. Not allowing you to swear is hardly taking away your voice, and even then, you can just take it to Smack. Nobody here will delete a post because of it's CONTENT... ever.. not intentionally... so people... know that you're ALLOWED to say whatever you like. just keep it clean and don't attack another poster and nobody will care that you had something 'negative' to say.

I thought the was going to be enough to suggest I wasn't serious, but guess not - my apologies. Actually, I commend you and the staff for being extremely tolerant of lots of posters with dissenting opinions around here. The bans are few and far between (has anyone ever actually been banned? Can't remember . . .), if ever. I've got no complaints with how this board is run, and (100% serious right now), I think the staff does an excellent job, and I thank you all for it.

My actual gripe is that a few members will start with the 'bad fan/idiot/fairweather fan/etc.' tags as soon as someone suggests the coaching staff has made a error in judgment. That is all.

smoot wanted wayyyy too much money, it just wasn't financially viable. i am far more disturbed by the decision to get rid of half our pass defense from last year, when there was clearly NO one to replace them with. don't say that walt harris was last year's kenny wright- harris may have gotten burned but he also had some solid games. i seem to recall him playing a great game at dallas on MNF last year (might be wrong, but i recall him making some key plays).

we didn't even HAVE mike rumph until the preseason trade. which means when we released many of those pass defenders, we had NO plan on how to replace them. NO PLAN. this is insanity. who would be playing CB right now if we hadn't been able to make that trade, james thrash?

don't even get me started on archuleta. this idea of signing a SAFETY solely for his blitzing skills is utterly ludicrous. AN NFL SAFETY NEEDS TO BE ABLE TO COVER, PERIOD. you are literally worthless if you can't cover. the emphasis needs to be on getting pressure from the frickin' defensive line so we don't HAVE to blitz so much. or so when we do, even an average blitzer can get in there because the O-Line is so tied up by the D-Line itself.

Mursilis wrote: I thought the was going to be enough to suggest I wasn't serious, but guess not - my apologies. Actually, I commend you and the staff for being extremely tolerant of lots of posters with dissenting opinions around here. The bans are few and far between (has anyone ever actually been banned? Can't remember . . .), if ever. I've got no complaints with how this board is run, and (100% serious right now), I think the staff does an excellent job, and I thank you all for it.

No need to apologize, I didn't know if that's what you were saying or not, but I figured that if it was a little ambiguous to me, that it could be to someone else as well, especialy if they were new around here.

I appreciate the kind words as well.

Spammers get banned... people who refuse to follow rules despite REPEATED warnings may get banned but there's likely only a handful or two of them in the history of the site... and many people would actually probably say that I gave some of them too much rope before I kicked them.

It isn't perfect by any means, but there are no false pretenses here... it is what it is... like it or not. But it never hurts to hear from those that do enjoy it. Thanks.

Players we lost when we should have kept them.
1. Antonio Pierce
2. Lavar Arrington
3. Fred Smoot
4. Ryan Clark
5. Walt Harris

I agree that we should've kept all of those guys. Yes Lavar is overrated as an linebacker, but Holdman is garbage. The D got a lot better and stopped giving up huge chunks of rushing yards to Holdman's side of the field last year when Lavar took over. With that said, I think that Macinstosh should be starting. I do, however, also think that we should've kept Lavar, but ONLY if he accepted a position switch. Of all the defensive coordinators that we have had over the years, only Marvin Lewis knew how to properly use Lavar. He isn't meant to be a lb, he is much more suited to be a pass rusher like Suggs and Merriman. Lavar had double digit sacks under Lewis and had we kept him in that role all this time I think that we would have a lot less problems on the dline. Lavar as a linebacker, no thanks (but no Holdman either). Lavar as a pass rusher I would gladly take.

Seriously, we lost some very good and or quality players to pick up over priced and so far under performing players,

Lost Pierce, Ryan Clark and Walt for One sack Carter, Cant cover or hit hard AA and we are still waiting on llyod...

Even worse no Campbell, or Ducket, plus our bonehead move for Macintosh, or who-ever our 2nd rounder LB draft was !!!!!!!

Are we slowly losing our talent and draft picks.. Just like a conservative gambler slowly lossing all their chip one by one making poor decisions

DieselFan wrote:I'd mix up your chart a bit (in order):
Should never have gotten:
1) Archuletta
2) TJ Duckett (why?)
3) Andre Carter

Kenny Wrigth sucks...but at least he was cheap. Holdman is in the same boat. Rogers will improve.

Players we should have never let go:
1) Pierce
2) Ryan Clark
3) Smoot

Harris I can't agree with...he was, basically, Kenny Wright last year. I don't miss Arrington.

Oh...I never meant those number to be order of importance. I was just posting names thats all.

riggofan wrote:

dnpmakkah wrote:Players we lost when we should have kept them.
2. Lavar Arrington

You can't be serious. What did he have like two tackles yesterday?

I really like Lavar, too. But don't let it blind you to the fact that he is incredibly overrated.

Yes I am serious and yes he is overated. However, I still feel he was/is better than Holdman. One reason for Arrington not playing well the last couple of years could be because of the injury but it could also be do to the fact that they beat him down emotionally. If you were treated like that at your job you too wouldn't be able to think/perform to the best of your ability.

I know he isn't as good as advertised or even near what he was 3 years ago but regardless...he brought emotion to the field. I know Sean Taylor makes jarring hits and the crowd loves it but something about Arrington allowed him to change the tempo with a hit or chasing a player down and dragging him like a lion does its prey. These are intangibles that get lost when you have boring players like Holdman who also can't play.

Harris I can't agree with...he was, basically, Kenny Wright last year.

I don't think you can even really compare the two (Wiright & Harris). I am a Niners fan primarily, but the Skins are my second team. You have to admit that Walt Harris is doing a pretty good job for the Niners this season. Through five games, Harris has three interceptions, a sack, two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery and eight passes defended. Not bad for the old man.

Even though I am happy to see that the Niners picked him up, I am disappointed that the Skins did not keep him. He could have really made a difference this year.

Um just out of curiosity... when a player pays out his contract so that he has the right and ability to leave... how do you suggest they keep that player?

You guys talk like Lavar left via a free agent contract and that we didn't try to retain him... he didn't... he was under contract... he wanted out... and bought his way out.

Fred Smoot? Gimme a break. Other than the Love Boat Scandal... all he's done is eat up about 3 times the cap that he's playing to the calibre of... go ask a Viking fan how much they'd like to give him back.

Antonio Pierce left for MORE money... it isn't like the Redskins didn't offer him a good chunk of cash and try to keep him... he just left for more money... period. Sure Pierce shot his mouth off after and said that they COULD have kept him if they wanted... but that doesn't make it so. How do you chastise an organization for spending too much money and not enough at the same time? Fact is that when Pierce left, the Redskins had no choice but to practice some degree of fiscal restraint thanks to their cap situation and thought they'd be over-paying for Pierce if they offered any more.

To me... you can't say that you don't use enough 'low-paid' talent AND ALSO bitch and complain about every free agent that we didn't keep because they went elsewhere for more money.

Sure the Redskins hve made some personnel errors... everyone does... but you guys are providing some pretty poor examples in my opinion.

One BAD game and you guys are ready to throw the towel? Some of the same people that were jumping with joy and celebrating the whole organization after our victory against the Jags? Pathetic.

This is Monday and I do understand and share your frustration. But it is ONE bad game. We will recover and improve. But you know what? Do not believe me. Suffer by yourselves or use this thread to collectively whine to one another.

This is exactly why I try not to use my keyboard too much straight after a loss. I think emotion speaks louder than logic at these times. I'm not saying everybody will have changed their minds by the end of the week, but I for one really can't think straight so soon after a performance like yesterday's. So, I prefer to be quiet for a while.

Well, sort of quiet.

BossHog wrote:Um just out of curiosity... when a player pays out his contract so that he has the right and ability to leave... how do you suggest they keep that player?

You guys talk like Lavar left via a free agent contract and that we didn't try to retain him... he didn't... he was under contract... he wanted out... and bought his way out.

Fred Smoot? Gimme a break. Other than the Love Boat Scandal... all he's done is eat up about 3 times the cap that he's playing to the calibre of... go ask a Viking fan how much they'd like to give him back.

Antonio Pierce left for MORE money... it isn't like the Redskins didn't offer him a good chunk of cash and try to keep him... he just left for more money... period. Sure Pierce shot his mouth off after and said that they COULD have kept him if they wanted... but that doesn't make it so. How do you chastise an organization for spending too much money and not enough at the same time? Fact is that when Pierce left, the Redskins had no choice but to practice some degree of fiscal restraint thanks to their cap situation and thought they'd be over-paying for Pierce if they offered any more.

To me... you can't say that you don't use enough 'low-paid' talent AND ALSO bitch and complain about every free agent that we didn't keep because they went elsewhere for more money.

Sure the Redskins hve made some personnel errors... everyone does... but you guys are providing some pretty poor examples in my opinion.

I agree with Bossy.

One BAD game and you guys are ready to throw the towel? Some of the same people that were jumping with joy and celebrating the whole organization after our victory against the Jags? Pathetic.

One? What would you call the Dallas and Minnesota games?

BossHog wrote:Um just out of curiosity... when a player pays out his contract so that he has the right and ability to leave... how do you suggest they keep that player?

You guys talk like Lavar left via a free agent contract and that we didn't try to retain him... he didn't... he was under contract... he wanted out... and bought his way out.

Fred Smoot? Gimme a break. Other than the Love Boat Scandal... all he's done is eat up about 3 times the cap that he's playing to the calibre of... go ask a Viking fan how much they'd like to give him back.

Antonio Pierce left for MORE money... it isn't like the Redskins didn't offer him a good chunk of cash and try to keep him... he just left for more money... period. Sure Pierce shot his mouth off after and said that they COULD have kept him if they wanted... but that doesn't make it so. How do you chastise an organization for spending too much money and not enough at the same time? Fact is that when Pierce left, the Redskins had no choice but to practice some degree of fiscal restraint thanks to their cap situation and thought they'd be over-paying for Pierce if they offered any more.

To me... you can't say that you don't use enough 'low-paid' talent AND ALSO bitch and complain about every free agent that we didn't keep because they went elsewhere for more money.

Sure the Redskins hve made some personnel errors... everyone does... but you guys are providing some pretty poor examples in my opinion.

Well...Lavar wanted out because of how he was treated I thought that was pretty obvious. I would hardly call that "him wanting to leave". He was treated like a dog and I see no problem with him wanting to leave. My concern is they shouldn't have treated him like that. It was very cowardly of this organization to do so.

Fred Smoot is 100 times better than Rogers. IMO thats end of story. Smoot at his worst was/is better than Rogers at his best.

Yes Pierce left for more money. Money that we didn't want to give him but we made AA the highest paid saftey in the league. Again IMO that is so dumb I can't even explain it any better than that.

Its pretty obvious from that list I made that we have lost better players than those we have gained and to top it off we paid a hell of a LOT of money for guys the rest of the league wouldn't have paid so much for then axe our own players due to "they wanted too much money."

I know there might be only a few that feel this way but its just my

Fred Smoot? Gimme a break.

How can you say that? That kind of bothers me because this guy is way better than Kenny Wright, Carlos Rogers, or Mike Rumph. What about Walt Harris?..they should have never released him.

Fact is that when Pierce left, the Redskins had no choice but to practice some degree of fiscal restraint thanks to their cap situation and thought they'd be over-paying for Pierce if they offered any more.

Well that kind of contradicts the situation with AA IMO. How do you explain that without giving the organization another mulligan for bad decisions?

Redskin in Canada wrote:One BAD game and you guys are ready to throw the towel? Some of the same people that were jumping with joy and celebrating the whole organization after our victory against the Jags? Pathetic.

This is Monday and I do understand and share your frustration. But it is ONE bad game. We will recover and improve. But you know what? Do not believe me. Suffer by yourselves or use this thread to collectively whine to one another.

ONE bad game is fine - I'll never, never complain about a 15-1 team. But so far we've had 3 bad games, and we've only played 5! I suppose we could say "Hey, we already won 2 games, and the season isn't even half over!", but we're not Cleveland fans - we actually expect to win more than 4-5 times a year.

It has nothing to do with the guys you all think we should have kept or shouldn't have signed...it's about our offense...they're not consistent.

I'm sure you all have heard what I have about Al's offense -- it takes awhile to learn it and maybe that's what we're seeing.

IMO we win 2 of the 3 losses if our offensive line and QB play better. NO one is mentioning how horrible the OLine has played in those 2 losses.

We gave up 19 to the Vikes & Giants and lost both game -- we should at least score 21 pts a game, anyway. The Vikes held us to 16 lousy points and the Gints held us to 3? The Giants have lousy DBs and we didn't do squat against them. The Vikes defense ain't that scary.

Most of the complaints I see on this thread are about Defensive players. That isn't our problem right now. I believe our problem is offense and here are the problems I see:

1) The offense is tying to learn Al's offense..we're 5 games in;
2) Portis was hurt to start the year... we must have him;
3) We added a #2 and #3 WR to the mix, they're getting comfortable with Brunell;
4) The OLine has played great one week, horrible the next (this is a MAJOR issue);
5) Brunell can NOT carry us when the Oline isn't playing well;
5) Brunell never looks beyond the 1st or 2nd guy (I don't think he likes to get hit);
6) Becuase Brunell doesn't have a scary arm, defenses are cheating up to the LOS..this hurts our ability to get 4-5 yards from Clinton on 1st down.

I hate to make it sound like I'm blaming Brunell but football, at every level, is about the QB. I don't believe our Oline can play like they did against the Jags every week and Brunell will NOT pull out those tight games, where he's under pressure...Eli might, McNabb might, Peyton will, Brady has, Ben can, etc. We don't have an elite QB.

I sure hope Campbell is a quality QB -- or we're in trouble down the road.

fredp45 wrote:It has nothing to do with the guys you all think we
1) The offense is tying to learn Al's offense..we're 5 games in;
2) Portis was hurt to start the year... we must have him;
3) We added a #2 and #3 WR to the mix, they're getting comfortable with Brunell;
4) The OLine has played great one week, horrible the next (this is a MAJOR issue);
5) Brunell can NOT carry us when the Oline isn't playing well;
5) Brunell never looks beyond the 1st or 2nd guy (I don't think he likes to get hit);
6) Becuase Brunell doesn't have a scary arm, defenses are cheating up to the LOS..this hurts our ability to get 4-5 yards from Clinton on 1st down.

Sure, except why are we learning a new offense with new players in a year in which a trip to the deep playoffs is expected. See, I don't understand how Gibbs plans to get the team to the promised land during his contract if he changes everything each year EXCEPT the lousy QB.