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Dare we hope for a clean house?

By Skin Patrol

At the beginning of this month Master4Caster at Running Redskins caught PFT rumoring that the Redskins were due a major personnel shakeup. Perhaps even Vinny Cerrato could be shown the door, despite his close personal relationship with Dan Snyder. The word GM was mentioned somewhere in there.

I dared not jinx such a suggestion with a post here as I eagerly anticipated additional word, though unfortunately that was nearly three weeks ago and, as far as I can tell, we're operating with the same front office.

Jason La Canfora did some investigatin' on it in his Blog on said matter last night. Go read the entire piece, though a few relevant portions are below:

I have heard the morale of the Skins scouts is a low, some are fearing for the future and wonder if a major shake-up might be afoot after the draft...

I know of at least one individual who was asked - through an agent - if he might have interest in personnel position of some sort with the Redskins. I have also heard that there is a sense among Washington's pro and amateur scouts that heads might roll...

After running it by the organization I was told that the team has no such plans. But it wasn't exactly the most emphatic denial of all time, and I am not entirely sold that at least a position or two in the front office won't open up after the draft.

I consider this all great news as accountability is the kind of thing 5 win teams need in spades. I don't know if this fixes all our problems or even some of them, but at least future incoming Redskins employees will recognize that their job security is married to the fate of this football team. As it should be.

Ultimately though, a few scouts or even a Vinny Cerrato booted from town can't possibly fix this team, as Jason La Canfora notes:

I also think this is all farcical. The problems in this organization and its lack of a proven personnel leader have been pointed out at great length, and until they correct that flaw I don't expect to see a major turnaround.

Adding some scouts or getting rid of some guys who, at the end of the day, have no voice in actually pulling the trigger as Coach Joe/The Snyder/Uncle Junior call the shots, would be window dressing.

And I agree with that assessment. As I mentioned here, the bad-deciding-process in our franchise is so pervasive and backwards that replacing Vinny might not do the trick. It doesn't appear as if there is anyone in the decision making structure to counter Joe Gibbs. Vinny Cerrato makes poor decisions perhaps, but his worst quality as (whatever it is he does -- insert title. VP of Football Operations? Yaok) is an inability to veto truly awful decisions forced by the rest of the organization.

Additionally, there appears to be no meaningful reconciliation between personnel decisions and contractual maneuvers either, as far as many of us can tell. Decisions to acquire players are not measured against costs, although I will admit we did a much better job of this in '07 than we did in '06.

Anyways, I personally think this is all just noise as I'm long past the point of hoping for a fundamental shift in the management structure of Your Washington Redskins. I'll remain optimistic that Coach Gibbs and company can will themselves to a 10 win season with playoffs (as they did in '05) but reserve no hope for any kind of longterm sustained success for this franchise. Until _______. Fill in the blank in the comments section, if you please.

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