I could very well be proven wrong, but I believe Locker in 2011….Barkley or Luck in 2012 are better moves than Clausen in this years draft.

the idea that we should have delhomme or anderson is ridiculous. Campbell is far better than those scrubs. As for when Donovan retires, we just pick up another QB in free agency, maybe the next veteran some team tosses aside to make room for a rookie. In the past 5 years teams have been able to add Drew Brees, Brett Favre, and Donovan McNabb, all b/c their teams wanted to clear room for rookies.

As for RB, rookie RBs can usually be immediately productive. All we have to do is draft a RB in a high round next year and couple that with some additions to our linebacker corps and interior OL and we are fine.

Not seeing how we are somehow hopelessly screwed b/c of the average age of our players.

Yes, they are right in that we are not completely set up for the long term, but we do have a 1st and 2nd round pick next year and young starters like Orakpo, McIntosh, Rogers, Landry, Davis, Williams, etc.

Where they are wrong is their criticism of roster management- Shanahan/Allen tore up our roster and trimmed the fat:

I will take Jammal Brown, Donovan McNabb, Trent Williams, Adam Carriker, Maake Kemeate, and Vonnie Holliday all day over the likes of Randle El, Smoot, Betts, Cartwright, Todd Collins.

but I don’t see where bringing in a ton of young players all at once is such a great “rebuilding” idea either. Can anyone give an example where a horrible team “rebuilt” by avoiding veterans, drafting a ton of players, and were successful within 3 or 4 years?

I think that this FO guy can’t see the forest through the trees. It seems that we’re bringing in moderately priced veterans to fill in while we add what youth we can through the draft until Shanallen can clean up the mess Vinny left them. They’re pretty much starting with Room 103 at the Marina View Hotel (for the Dexter fans out there. I hope I didn’t just completely undermine my point by making a reference to a TV show.)

I didn’t understand that statement at all. Besides being harsh as others have stated, I’d like to know which if any NFL franchises have shared their player and team development plans with this guy. A stupid statement IMO. Perhaps someone in the FO pissed him off by not leaking any info for a change.

Everyone knows that Shanny and Allen are keeping their plans close to the vest.

Though I do think the way the CBA affected things it was gonna skew all FA acquisitions to be heavy on old journeymen. If he approaches next year like this I would be sad. We need to use a First rounder on a QB in the next draft or 2, we lack depth all along the roster. Though I do like the Brown trade. Still judging from our moves so far I understand FO’s viewpoint though think the Urban Meyer thing was some journalistic hyoperbole.

It’s not so much our average age but how it skews out. The Saints had a similar average age but it was composed differently. They were ravaged at CB but their depth guy was Jenkins, a first rounder. We are 1 injury away from starting Tryon or Buchanon. When they had their LT go down they could bring in a 4th rounder with 2 years of grooming, we had Heyer. That is a direct result of years or giving away picks. You end up with journeymen and scrubs as your backups instead of developing players. We easily could be in a world of hurt next year and have done little to address depth. Bringing in lots of guys years removed from relevance, journeymen, guys coming off injury or out of the league, and scrubs and calling it depth is very much what Cerrato did. Let’s hope it’s a function of the CBA issues and not Shanny’s long term plan.

 That being said, the biggest flaw to their position is in their assumption that ShanAllenhan will be doing the same thing they did this year in future years; namely bringing in veteran players rather than younger ones.

Let’s put this in perspective. Raise your hand if you think confidence would be high at Redskin’s Park if ShanAllenhan went 4-12 this year? I don’t think they’ll be many takers on that one. . . Our fan base is one of the most fanatical in the league, when it comes to winning. This has been evidenced, in the past, by our proclivity to shout out for the canning of a QB when things aren’t going well (anyone out there remember the Sonny/Kilmer/Theismann years?).

Shanny knows he has to win more than five games THIS year, in order to put a longer-term plan in placement. If he doesn’t, the grumblings will arise.

He’s done what he could with what he inherited, by bringing in veterans that he doesn’t have to baby-sit NOW—veterans who can start immediately, and who can hopefully just get us to mediocrity (7 or 8 wins) this season. If this happens, he has something of a base team installed, from which he can then move in an intelligent way into future drafts.

Admittedly, he didn’t have much to choose from, as most veterans out there are on the market for a reason: they’re either hurt, mediocre, or they want a bigger contract. We’ve taken a few of the first, many of the second, and only Jamaal for the third (and he’s well worth the 3+mil per year considering our woeful protection last year).

ShanAllenhan has given up two draft picks next year, but he did this for an obvious reason. I love JC as a person, but he hasn’t demonstrated (often) the ability to be a true leader of the team, or to be able to come back in the 4th, with 2 minutes left. Both of these elements are crucial to turning the team around, and D-Mac has demonstrated these elements.

FO can smack all they want to about what they perceive to be ShanAllenHan’s plan, but the proof will be in the pudding. If he can take what he was handed, turn it into something better THIS year, then hopes will be high at the Park coming into next year’s draft.

And never underestimate the power of belief, and of support. If this second coming of the Over-the-hill-gang can come together, through the disciplinarian approach of an established mentor, we WILL see improvement this year, both in the confidence demonstrated on the field and in the win column.

Sam Huff always extemporizes about the FEELING that a team has when it comes out onto the field, about whether they EXPECT to win or if they are just showing up. I think we’ve all seen enough of the latter in the past few years, mainly because of a lack of confidence and leadership in the program itself. At least ShanAllenhan have done something about that—by bringing in veterans from winning programs, instituting a ‘door-closed policy’ to the owner, and also in making it plain that no one is going to be above competition from their peers.

Tell me that bringing in 15 rookies can do that for a program, and I have some lovely beach front acreage in Nebraska that I’d like to sell to you.

And to FO: well, they can FOff.

I rec’d it.

I heard the interview yesterday on ESPN980 with Colt Brennan, and it told a very interesting tale about last year’s Zorn/WCO, and the difference between that, and this year’s offensive scheme, from a QB’s perspective. I will try to relate the salient points, as I remember them.

Colt was very excited about this year’s scheme. When asked what was different from last year’s, he said these things.

“We are allowed a ‘hot’ read this year, and we were not allowed that in last year’s version of the WCO.” Asked by Larry to elaborate, Colt said this.

In last year’s WCO, the QB came to the line with a play called. If he perceived that there would be more D-line rushers than the play was called to defend against, he had to audible to a different version of the play—one that essentially picked up the extra man coming.

This was extremely stressful to the QB, because he not only had to read the defense to see if the play called matched up man for man with the rushers, but he had to know where the extra man was coming from (ie. LB, Corner, Safety, etc.). Then, he had to call the correct audible to pick up the supposed ‘extra D-man’.

No wonder we always seemed to go on long counts on almost every snap. . . (I remember how Gibbs One was so successful on 4th and goal, or 4th and short, for oftentimes they would go on ‘first sound’, which gave the defence little time to prepare. I always wondered why we NEVER did this in the last two years)

In any event, Colt said that the QBs were now allowed a ‘hot’ read, which he explained further. In the new scheme, when the QB sees a blitz coming, he automatically checks down to the TE or the RB on a quick hitter or quick out. I can’t remember if Colt said there was an audible to do that, only that he said that they were not allowed to do this last year.

In other words, in last year’s version of the WCO, the QB had to stick to the original number one receiver that the play was designed to go to, and the QB also had to audible to pick up any extra D-man coming.

In light of this information, it becomes quite clear why JC often struggled. I think very few QB’s would have flourished with this type of scheme, much less become proficient in it quickly.

In summary, last year’s scheme both extended the QB’s time (concentration) before the snap, and also added to his unease after the snap, as he was shackled into staying with a particular receiver—one that might never come open if he (the QB) had not precisely detected the actual blitzing man’s position, and called the proper protection package.

With the ‘hot’ read, the QB is able to go anywhere with the ball, at his judgement, and in the time-frame allowed by how many blitzing D-men come.

I think D-Mac will do fine with this new scheme. The old scheme, as described by Colt, was a real mess from the QB’s POV.