I just shot out an email to a reader that ended up taking more space up than I have the time for right now given real life responsibilities. Since I went to all the trouble of sending the email, and because I think it addresses some issues of concern for Redskins fans generally, I'm going to post it here. Cheers to the reader who sent it to me as he was the one to originally raise the issues that got me thinking, typing, and ranting. I'm tied up until tomorrow more likely than not despite the fact that important things are happening. I apologize for that. (Though you could mitigate the lack of content substantially by, for instance, reading or posting diaries, such as this one by mmford.)
Feel free to treat this thread as a general discussion of all things Redskins related, as that is the direction that my email takes. Enjoy, or don't:
If JC can't learn this offensive system and succeed under it in his 4th season in the league, then he might not be the future of this particular franchise. Under current ownership the tendency has been for new leadership rather than continuity, especially on offense. Knowing that, this team requires either an adaptable or veteran quarterback to succeed. I say that because it is just too much to ask given what has happened in Washington under Snyder to say that we'll have 4-5 years of solid continuity on the offensive side of the ball. Saunders lasted two years, and he's about as storied and competent an offensive coordinator as exists in the NFL. If that's the limit to how much time he can get, that's pretty much the Washington standard.
Yea, we'll need a new veteran [quarterback to backup Campbell]. The problem is that we won't have much money to spend. I think JC should be fine and will adapt to the new season admirably enough to win, hopefully, a few games. It will be interesting to see which side of the ball regresses the most (and I'm admitting here that I think it's unlikely we improve defensively and offensively in '08, if only because that's a rare occurrence generally speaking) and to what extent heads will roll as a result.
Like you said, we're now in the same division as the World Champion Giants, a Cowboys team that only lost three games (though one to us, admittedly), and a well coached and managed Philly team that has proven incapable of failure for two successive years in recent memory. Someone has to finish 4th in the NFC East, that someone isn't going to make the playoffs more likely than not, and by all indications that someone might just be us. It's tough betting against either the Cowboys or the Giants this early based exclusively on what they did last year, and the Eagles are historically tough to push to the bottom of the East. That does not bode well for us.