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

This year was a complete waste.......im so tired of hearing progress this porgress that..this league is measured on wins and losses..PERIOD!.....Let me ask everyone a question..did Dallas's 10-6 record help them this year??...This was a year to capitalize!!!...8-8 will get you in the playoffs for first time in like 4-5 years!.....last year the two wild card teams were(10-6...11-5)....8-8!!...and were out of it by thanksgiving with the highest payroll ever!!!!....ITS UNACCEPTABLE!!...PERIOD!.......i remember when everyone said "all i want this year is to see a fundamentally sound football team , competive football , and 8-8"....That was our mantra....ON THE CONSERVATIVE SIDE!....did we see anything of the sort???....we know the answer.....so this year was a waste!....do we know who our qb will be next year?....no..(that even hasnt been answered).....and people better realize that our 5-20 in our last 25 will have a profound affect on this organizition for years to come......the last 25 times rod gardner, chris samuels, fred smoot, derrick dockery, l. coles, p ramsey, etc have taken the field as professional football players they have lost 20 of them!!!.....in a league that SCREAMS PARITY!....we are the bizzaro Patriots.... as much as they are winners ...we are losers...I pray for Gibbs ! ....We all should pray...for there are no easy answers.....we have CAP ISSUES.....our roster is full of talent and full of losers(evidently by our 5-20 in our last 25)....we saw one positive all year the defense...but to think we will be #2 next year is utter ignorance....we will be good ...but not this good.....we wasted amazing years from gregg williams all the way down to Ryan Clark...another reason why this season was a waste...........we will have more questions going into next year than we did this year.....#1..is gibbs washed?...#2 is brunell truly that putrid?...#3 is ramsey the future(its ridiculous that after 3 seasons we still dont know)?...#4 the offensive line??????(obviously its going to take more than bugel--we need some new players)....#4 the recievers?????is coles regressing or was he hurt--gardner we know regressed!...mccants ???... a complete wasted year of growth....#5 portis..will he be happy here???........#6..sean taylor? great player dumb person= stupid penalties and one run in with the dc troopers...lets pray its his youth......#7...fred smoot....PLEASE DONT GO.......#8....can this team ever play sound football....#9...when will the false start festival end........#10..will the offense ever be effective as constituted currently........ .....8-8 MY FRIENDS thats all it would have took to get invaluable playoff experience for this team....instead here we are graspinmg at straws....can you imagine if Eli Manning gets the Giants to 8-8??and he gets his playoff experience under his belt and after 3 seasons ramsey is still in nowhere land....This would be DISGRACEFUL......im sorry i sound so negative...im pretty beat up over this team

couldnt agree more.its disheartning to watch this team week after week do the same stupid things and make the same stupid penalties.i feel like im in the twilight zone watching his team.i have the same feelings you just posted.we have become the laughing stock of football.dont seem to sound so negative but something has got to be done.yuo look at our defense and im just so happy to see youth playing for our hurt starters than some high priced free agent that is not worth of damn.our defense will be fine for years to come.our offense is waht we need to take a hard look at.if we can get brees for next season by all means i welcome it.get rid of all our qbs,find some competant receivers and get a please get some off lineman so we can see what portis can really do.i feel cooley is our best receiver right now and will be very good.i have full faith in gibbs and know he will take us back to the playoffs.maybe this year was the year he finds who needs to stay and go because we have enough talent to have been a wild card team this year.it can only get better cant get no worse.

Would you rather have a 10-6 playoff drubbing and go into next season thinking you were better than you really are?? Nothing has gone right for Gibbs this season. Eventually it will. Relax, it will take time for Joe to fix the roster. Gibbs is adjusting to a league he has been absent from for 12 years. He has a new system the players must learn. He has also been decimated by injuries. For an offense to be effective it must work as one and that kind of cohesion takes time to develop. Just be patient.

Every sunday it seems that #87(GARDNER) is always dropping balls. Talk about lack of motivation. I love coles, but even he has not proven himself. Before the excuse was that Brunnel could not pass for completion...Believe me he can't, but RAMSEY attempted to make passes to our WR's and they can't hold on to the ball!
It breaks my heart to see these guys not play like they are suppose to! I am a die hard COLES fan, but he needs to be honest to the team about his injuries, as he is no longer the COLES that i am used to. OUR O-line is no help for
PORTIS(sorry to say this ,but Samuels is OVERRATED)! OUR SPECIAL TEAMS=NOT GOOD! Honestly, i can't blame our coach for this misery. The offense's PROBLEM is the players who lack motivation, but such players will not be with us next season! I hope we can trade Gardner, pick up some draft picks for Samuels! WORK on the O-line, special teams
& incorporate #85! i know with the age of salary cap it will be difficult to address these issues. We don't have to get these big name players....let's just focus on our needs and try the best to rebuild! I am sorry guys, but i needed to VENT! I LOVE MY REDSKINS! SKINS FOR LIFE! TOGETHER WE WILL ACCOMPLISH OUR GOAL=SUPERBOWL BABY!!!

I agree 100%. Your post may read like a rant to some but you are right, particularly about wasting our defense and the lingering questions at qb. Gibbs has struggled beyond my wildest imagination, but I can't help but think of Vermeil's early struggles with the Rams. I am sure after the season Gibbs will evaluate his offensive scheme, throw out what failed, and build on what worked. I truly belive he will find a way, but yes, we wasted a golden opportunity.

Have faith...Gibbs is a winner...I like using periods...etc...

We'll remake the oline, get coles his surgury get rid of gardner and samuels, bring ramsey back for year 2 gibbs and we'll have a much improved offense. Was it a missed opportunity??? I think you thought we had a solid offense. I did too. Turns out they are bad. Not like they were close in dominating a game this year offensively. Hopefully next year will be a different story

for the love of everything good or evil... please, please, use your "ENTER" button when typing to seperate a thought....

Sometimes, I have this really bad habit of "blinking" when I read... and when the whole entire story is crammed into one paragraph... I blink, lose my place and have to start all over... It took me 35 minutes to read the above post...

Anywho... I feel your pain, but a couple of notes.. although I don't think that any team is going to make it to the playoffs this year with an 8-8 record... if that's the theory, then I believe, if I counted correctly... we still have a shot of an 8-8 record... an besides the Eagles, which we play at home... the Gnats,49ers,Cowboys, & Vikings are NO locks to beat us...

I wouldn't worry about Gibbs, Portis, or our Offensive line... Gibbs and Portis are still in there first year with the team adjuting to the NFL and offense... and same with the offensive line who has had to deal with some big injuries too...

Our D as long as Williams is back... Should be as good next year, as it is this year... hopefully with Lavar and Daniels healthy all year it will be even better..... and I think Mr. Snyder will take care of Smoot to keep him here... unless of course Smoot pulls a Bailey and decides he doesn't want to be here... which I don't think will be the case...

So really, We just have to worry about the QB situation... and hoping that 50/50 is not in burgundy & gold next year, because I think his spot is holding back some good talented guys that will hang onto the ball...

Keep your head up.... It can only get better....

i have a couple problems with some of the points in this thread:

*gibbs does not have any GM experience. that doesn't mean he won't/can't be good at it, just saying he's not proven at that (keep in mind brunell was his idea, and no one else in the league really wanted him- now we see why, and we're going to get killed by his salary cap numbers). thus, we can't know that he'll fix the roster

*the comparison to vermeil is off-base for a couple reasons-- vermeil had nothing to do with the offense that took the rams to the superbowl after two bad seasons- that was all mike martz, contrary to what you may have heard. martz joined the team as o-coordinator in 1999, which was the year they started being good. vermeil did not innovate the offense, martz did (in fact, he did so while QB coach of the redskins! he has stated that he loved all the stuff norv turner did for 3rd and long situations, and wondered "why don't we just use these plays all the time?", which is what he developed).
however, that doesn't mean that gibbs needs a new o-coordinator per se, since gibbs himself was an actual innovator and pioneer (largely responsible for the "Air Coryell" offense that revolutionized the passing game). what he needs to do is get back to his roots, start from scratch, study modern defenses with gregg williams, and come up with ways to exploit them.

also, he needs to trade gardner cuz he sucks.

the other question which hasn't been answered is, who is our short yardage back? We haven't had one for years, and you know it drives Gibbs crazy... he has no confidence in Portis on 3rd down, and after seeing Betts on the goal line, it's obvious he's not the guy for the job... also a kick return guy? even before Morton got hurt, nobody's running with any sense of urgency back there, I want a young guy with some explosiveness running for his life, Betts doesn't atempt to avoid anyone... either there's a hole there or there's not...

Welcome to the board SKIN1106. We normally welcome people like you with far more optimistic threads!

I am not going to share the pessimism expressed above. It seems to me that every time we win a game or two some posters are unrealitically optimistic. Remember there were 6-0 record predictions after the Tampa game.

Now, we lost on the road to the two teams that are most likely to be counted among the Conference Finals and some are predicting this couple in the SB. For the most part, our games were even and tough.

To make the point clear enough: The Redskins played Philly and Pittsburgh much better than anybody else recently. The Skins had a much better game against the Steelers than Philly did.

I understand that losses, no matter how hard fought, are still loses. And when they pile up as they have over the season, it looks as if it is the end of civilization as we know it.

The difference between a winner and a loser in this new NFL is -very- small. Cowher was about to be kicked out as a coach almost every season over the last few years. Ah! but this season he is a genius, of course.

I know there is very little I can say when the prevailing sentiment is one of frustration and disappointment. But I do not feel that we are as far away as you guys think.

Dropped passes and stupid penalties have killed us almost every game. Add to it some VERY bad calls against us, and we all of the sudden could have a more even record than we do have.

The Redskins are a better team than their record shows. Lack of consistency has been a problem. Our punt coverage has been good a few times but it has been killed in others. Thrash is a hero there but the whole unit is not consistent.

For all the negative thoughts about what players have been proven or not and the lack of playoff experience, I would respond with a few words:

Few if any teams have tested as many -GOOD- new talentd players due to injuries as we have this season. Hey, who can argue with me that Barrow would have done a better job than Antonio Pierce this season? W. Washington is a -core- Skin without a doubt! This new kid Wilson played his first game against the Steelers! He played better than some "proven" and "expensive" veterans! Ryan Clark is good! I love Portis in my team!

I support Sean Taylor. I love his intensity and courage. He is so intimidating that the refs are calling penalties for things they overlook in others.

Look at the bright spots! Look at the players -ANY- team in this league would give of their some of our own!

There is ONE lesson to learn for sure though, wins and loses are being fought in the trenches in today's NFL. If you have good pass protection, you can score passing and running. If our team does not have a -DOMINANT- OL, it will struggle. Ours, predictably, does not have a -DOMINANT- OL this season. Everybody knows where the holes are.

I also disagree with te suggestion that we do not know whether Patrick is our feature QB or not. He is. If you see the mediastatements every time an OL player speaks, they start apologising for not giving Patrick adequate protection. Remember the -infamous- series against the Eagles with ten and goasl? two penalties, two dropped passes and one failed FG to top it up?

I am ready to tough it up. I am ready to stand behind Joe HIS staff, HIS players, and HIS fans.

We shall overcome.

the comparison to Vermeil is not off base, they are two guys that returned after a long absence from the league, and both struggled during their reacclimation to the NFL.

The season is not a waste. This is a building season...not rebuilding, not throw out everything, but a season in which Gibbs began -- began -- to train the team to play the right way, and to win.

This year is tougher than '81 because Gibbs started with less; not because he is old, or because the NFL has changed too much.

(a) No one has shown where the league has changed in any way that undermines Gibbs's methods, and by "methods" I mean not just his offense, but his entire way of coaching a team.

(b) Gibbs took over a team that had learned never to tolerate losing. George Allen (and Lombardi, for as long as we had him) did a lot to build a team that always expected to win the tough games. Beathard and Pardee replaced many of those foundation players from the Allen teams, but Gibbs started with Theismann, Riggins, Butz, the great unknown LB group, Monk, Don Warren, rookies named May, Jacoby, (Bostic?), Grimm, and other's I don't remember.

This team has a remarkably good defense, playing without its star LB. They will get better.

The offense has a young QB who is showing that he can learn how to play. The OL starts too many reserves, but that will be fixed. The receivers are a question, but maybe they will improve as Ramsey improves. RB? Portis can do things that no other Gibbs RB could do -- a fast guy with moves and stamina and hands, maybe a faster, more durable, Kelvin Bryant. He will be fun to watch.

OK, one final comment. Every game that Gibbs coaches a Redskin team is a plus. I don't watch the games just to see a super bowl. The season runs for 16 games. I watch the games to see the Skins play and win.

gregory smith wrote:the comparison to Vermeil is not off base, they are two guys that returned after a long absence from the league, and both struggled during their reacclimation to the NFL.

i understand, and it's not 100% off base, but my point was that the success vermeil enjoyed after struggling really had nothing to do with vermeil. the only reason the cheif's offense is good is because he absconded with mike martz's system.