Brandon Lloyd was cut, released, let go, scape goated, discharged, etc. CptChaosSidekick said it and indeed, the national nightmare is finally over. Redskins.com:
Lloyd's two-year stint with the Redskins proved to be a disappointment. He was never able to establish himself in the Redskins' offense.
Redskins Insider:
As expected. The final stats: 25 receptions, zero touchdowns. For $10 million in guaranteed money.
Ryan Wilson at Fanhouse:
And so ends another chapter in the forgettable 2006 Redskins off-season. Safety Adam Archuleta barely made it through one season before getting shipped to Chicago (after collecting $10 million in guarantees, of course), and now Lloyd, the guy some Redskins coach/front-office type thought would complement Santana Moss nicely and give Jason Campbell another deep weapon, is free to work on his freestylin' skillz 24/7.
DC Sports Bog:
Lllllllllloyd... Ouch.
Redskins 360:
The moody receiver was arguably the biggest bust in Redskins history. He cost Washington a third-round draft pick and a fourth-rounder in a trade with San Francisco and was foolishly given a six-year, $30 million contract.
And I'm sure elsewhere. 110 effing posts have been made here about Brandon Lloyd, beginning with such high hopes as:
For the past 3 weeks, newly aquired Redskin WR Brandon Lloyd has contributed a training camp journal over at the official Redskins Website. Today was his 14th and final entry.
Well that fucking changed. This "project" turned into a family-splitting science experiment gone horribly, terribly wrong. When he wasn't getting paid abnormally high amounts of moneys to do abnormally little, he was throwing temper tantrums on the field for no good reason. In sum, this decision wasn't just monumentally bad for its effects, but was fundamentally flawed from the get-go. The Washington Post chronicled at length why this was such a bad decision and the worst bits are worth repeating:
I, for one, have been a huge fan of this project.
The 49ers had made it clear to all the NFL teams that Lloyd was available but some personnel people around the league wanted no part of him. "Lloyd is a 2, 2 1/2 ," said one general manager, meaning a second wide receiver at best. "Plus, he's a pain in the [rear]."...
So you introduce a problem child to an old school head coach like Joe Gibbs without even permitting your staff to consider the fact that he has an attitude problem? Was he coachable? Nope:
Redskins coaches said their rankings of Lloyd only took into account what they had seen on game film. They never received from Cerrato or the scouting department any information on Lloyd having a possible attitude problem. "I was asked to evaluate him only as a player, not as a person," one coach said.
"What I saw is that he's not coachable," the teammate said. "He would go off on [wide receivers coach] Stan Hixon all the time and say, 'Bro, that's not how it's done!' right to his face. And we would kind of laugh, like not because it was really funny, but it was funny in that uncomfortable sense of, 'I can't believe he just said that.'"
And for all that not playing on the actual field his season came to a close... during practice. What do we have to show for the "project" that was Brandon Lloyd? A dead cap hit and little else. For all the noise made about B. Lloyd, by people like me -- I said it, I owned those statements, I was wrong wrong wrong wrong -- claiming he was just a good receiver in bad situations (with Alex Smith, for instance) fact of the matter is he had stone hands. He caught 18% of the passes thrown his way last year, 41% in '06, 44% in '05, 48% in '04, and 47% in '03. He simply wasn't very good even in San Fransisco. Even if he sucked as a result of his team not being any good, it raises sincere questions about why that fact alone makes him worth a 30 million dollar contract. Sucking for a bad team is evidence that a player might not be bad. It is certainly not evidence that a player is good... for two draft picks? As Gary Fitzgerald points out:
At the time, it was thought Lloyd would provide great speed and big-play ability to the Redskins' offense.
And I'm not picking on anyone else but myself right now, because as a partisan I was claiming him viciously from day one, but why??? Why on earth did we think at that time, or any time, that a career high 733 yard receiver with a low catch % and forgettable stats elsewhere would blossom into a "speed" and "big-play ability" receiver? Was there any actual evidence that this was his skill set? Because of what he did at Illinois?
My head just exploded.