I don’t have a horse in today’s Redskins-Seahawks game unlike Chimp Rage and this dog from College Park who sings along with Hail to the Redskins.
That ain’t shit. You wanna impress me, dog? Sing the Eastern Motors jingle.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers shelled out $56 million for a 5 year contract with $26 million of it is guaranteed for wide-receiver Vincent Jackson. HUGE payday for the 29 year old wideout and thankfully for Washington Redskins fans, it was not their favorite team that shelled out that kind of money to just one player.
Most people thought it was surprising that the Washington Redskins didn’t make him their number one priority, as many were stating prior to 4pm on Tuesday, but once you realized what they were up to, their lack of interest in VJax made perfect sense.
If you might recall, starting just last season, the Redskins made a point of signing younger free agents when they have had to dip into the free agent pool. Productive players last season such as Stephen Bowen, Chris Chester, Barry Cofield and Adam Carriker were examples of this. This year, the Redskins’ free agent approach appears to be no different. So far the ‘Skins have signed wide receivers Pierre Garcon, Josh Morgan and have made a strong offer to Eddie Royal out of the free agent pool for a combined $66.5 million, with at least $29 million guaranteed. Just Garcon was signed to a deal that was longer than 2 years and none of the players are older than 27 years old.
If I was a wide receiver on the Redskins besides 2nd year player Leonard Hankerson, I might be worried about my job next season.
Despite the NFL taking away around half of the Redskins’ available cap space, they have gone out and put together a receiving corps that should be able to catch up to the deep balls that either Robert Griffin III or Andrew Luck will be launching. (Oh, right, if you live under a rock you should know that the Redskins moved up to the number 2 spot in the draft (giving up three 1st round picks and one 2nd round pick in the process) to draft Robert Griffin III.)
If the Redskins can continue to make moves like these, with any luck to their fans, the team will win the title of “Off-season Champs” this year for their shrewd picks instead of for the foolish money they throw at the big name players they acquire who never live up to their price tag.
Note: If you want to buy that logo on a T-shirt, hit up 289 Designs, its yours for $20
Contrary to what Sally Jenkins believes, no one is going to win if Peyton Manning joins the Washington Redskins. NO ONE. Not Peyton Manning, not the Redskins players, not the fans, not Dan Snyder…no one, and this is why:
Manning will lose in the biggest way if he ends his career with the Washington Redskins. It will be like those last two years of Hank Aaron clinging to baseball relevancy with with Milwaukee Brewers, in other words, sad. Why? Because Manning, at 37 and coming off three major neck surgeries, cannot do it alone. Firstly, he needs an offensive line that is not only strong and agile enough to protect him from further injury but also smart enough to adjust the line calls quickly and accurately as Peyton calls and changes the play right on the line. The Redskins currently do not have this type of offensive line. As an example, the Redskins’ best lineman might also be their dumbest as he is one joint away from missing an entire NFL season. It only gets worse from there as the rest of the line, save for Chris Chester, was essentially cobbled together from a scrap heap.
Peyton also needs several wide-receivers that can run precise routes, create separation, and catch the ball. The Redskins’ wide-receiver corps, as it stands right now, just does not play the position the way Manning needs it to be played. Santana Moss is a great route runner, but his age is catching up with him and he just isn’t a #1 wide-receiver anymore. Moss used to be able to compensate for his lack of size with his speed and precise route running. Going into his 30s, the breakaway speed he once had has left him and he is best used as a #3 or slot receiver. Jabar Gaffney is another “veteran” receiver (ie: oldish), but he is no where near the caliber of receiver which Manning is used to working with. Leonard Hankerson showed a flash of talent in one game last year but subsequently injured himself and never played again after it. This is not a group of wide-receivers that Manning will want to throw the ball to. Some will argue that Manning can make the receivers better but there is only so much lipstick you can use on these pigs.
Finally, Manning would ideally like to be in an offensive system that he knows so that there will be no learning curve or drop off in performance as he learns the nuances of the system. Sadly for Manning, he will not be in an offense that is familiar to him if he comes to Washington. Mike and Kyle Shanahan didn’t change their offense for Donovan McNabb, why would they change it for Peyton Manning? These guys believe in their system and they want their system run their way or not at all. Why on earth would Peyton go to an offense where he would have zero say in how it was run and which would be brand spanking new to him?
So lets sum this up here. 1) Dumb and talent-less offensive line; 2) Crap Wide-Receivers; 3) Brand new offense with zero input into play calling. TOTALLY MAKES SENSE THAT MANNING WOULD WANT TO COME HERE! If he does make here, there is no way Manning can succeed.
The Redskins will be losers in this because signing Peyton Manning would be a gigantic step backwards in the rebuilding process which started only 1 off-season ago. Shanahan wasted his first year in D.C. trying to do what many had done prior to his arrival, putting a band-aid on the team and “trying to make a run for it”. It didn’t work and Shanahan realized throughout the year that he had a team that had no depth and was one of the oldest teams in the league. The next season, Shanahan set out to rebuild the Redskins. He traded down in the draft several times and acquired several productive role players, adding much needed depth to the team. He also did not go for any splashy free agent signing, instead, he signed young players that fit the schemes that the Redskins run. The team, of course, was horrible, mostly done in by quarterback play, but on both sides of the ball, improvement was noted. The Redskins need another offseason like the one they had in year two of the Shanahan era. Going out and signing Manning is a repeat of McNabb all over again. For Manning to be successful they will need to sign expensive, and old, wide receivers and linemen, just to give him a slight chance to succeed. That is not how one goes about building a team, its another band-aid which only goes to placate the owner and the fans who need to WIN NOW at all costs.
Mike Shanahan will lose because all faith in his “coaching genius” will be lost and it will be apparent that John Elway won those super bowls, not Shanahan. Dan Snyder will lose because this will be yet another Titanic that he is at the helm of. The current roster of players will lose because they cannot get back the wasted years of their careers that they will spend playing with the living legend that is Peyton Manning.
Signing Manning is short sighted and will set the Redskins back, yet again, and prevent them from being a consistent winner like teams in Pittsburgh, New York and New England. Imitation is the purest form of flattery, it is also smart when something works. If it worked in those cities, it can work here, to quote Axl Rose “All you need is just a little patience.”
The Redskins fans lose because once again the majority of them will be duped by the Dan Snyder hype machine, believing that the Redskins “were only a player away last year!” and that signing Manning magically fixes all the teams’ problems. This will certainly be The Redskins year to win the Super Bowl in most fans minds. It won’t happen. If it does happen, I will not eat meat for a month. Hold me to that. The fans will lose because the Redskins were so close to getting it…then they went and screwed it up by spending money on a 37 year old quarterback coming off of 3 neck surgeries and sitting out for a year of football as his nerves regenerated.
Its just a horrible idea…no one wins with this. God I hope it doesn’t happen.
If you’re a Redskins fan, like myself, you cannot be happy with six losses in a row. If you’re not, WELL PISS OFF! Your team likely hasn’t lost 6 GAMES IN A ROW this season (apologies to Colts, Dolphins & Rams fans, you know the pain)! Ahem, excuse me, where was I? Ah yes, well at least you can remember the good ole days when your team beat the team featured below in the Ballad of the Touchdown Banditos. This pure video gold is from the 87-88 Denver Broncos and features their “Three Amigos” (Vance Johnson, Mark Jackson and Ricky Nattiel) takin’ out all sorts of bad guys and varmits and doing all sorts of other cowboy like things.
I find it disturbing that this trend of making horrible music videos died at some point in the late 90s and 2000s. I feel like a piece of me died with that trend. Watch and enjoy ya hear?
(Updated at 11:30am)
The Redskins have a plan and they are sticking to it…what that plan is, who knows. Lets get right into the good, bad and uuuuuugly after two days of NFL free agency:
Sure the Redskins traded away a 2nd and 4th round draft pick to acquire Donovan McNabb but getting possibly two 6th round picks for a guy that whose trade value they utterly decimated over the course of last season is a rather good move.
Ok, seriously, getting ANYTHING of possible value for him would have good. They could have traded the Redskins a box of Brett Favre bobbleheads and anyone in their right mind would have been thrilled.
Ok, honestly, who are we kidding, just getting McNabb off the team is good, getting something for him is merely a bonus.
Well look at this! The Redskins accepted a 5th round pick from the Patriots in exchange for Albert Haynesworth. Pats get another troubled athlete that Belichick should be able to get the most out of for a year or two and the Redskins actually get something of value for their troubled and highly over-paid star defensive lineman.
That this happened is rather shocking. That they got a draft pick at all for him after the season and off-season that Haynesworth had is mind blowing. What is going on at Redskins Park? How are these smart trades happening?
Could this be a year without drama for once? HAHAHA, yeah right! Still, good move Redskins!
Signing CB Josh Wilson isn’t the flashiest signing the Redskins could’ve made for their defensive backfield, but it is one of the smarter moves they could’ve made. For just $4.5 million a year for 3 years, they get a guy who has improved every year in the league and was good enough to start on the Ravens’ top 10 ranked defense last season. Topping it all off he’s also a local guy, having played at Maryland.
While he’s not a superstar talent at the position, he is talented and he should at least be able to do what Carlos Rogers did (or didn’t do) last season. Even if he doesn’t work out, this type of player investment, at his age and price, is exactly what the Redskins need to do to fill out their roster.
They also resigned Santana Moss to a 3 year $15million dollar contract, which, in light of what Santonio Holmes and Sidney Rice got from the Jets and Seahawks respectively, looks like a perfectly sane contract for a player of Moss’ stature.
