Kevin and I did not really get too much into the "end of the year/end of the decade" madness that ensued a month or so ago. We had a few attempts to pull together some "lists", but the whole exercise of listing the "Greatest" this and "Most Awesome" that did not really do it for me. I have been mulling over this All-Decade team idea for at least a month and I just didn't want to do a Greatest Hits list of players at each position. Mostly because that has been kind of how they have tried to build our teams here through the years in real life. Also, because if you look pretty hard at our last decade's worth of rosters, you find yourself staring at a sad situation at some positions.
So in building the All-Decade Team of the 2000's for the Redskins, I want to do it in a more realistic team-building fashion. Here is what I am thinking (after the jump):
1) Identify an offensive and defensive style to build this team around before making some of the more integral roster decisions.
2) We are going to care about character, locker room leadership and work ethic (as they were perceived to be by all of us over the last 10 years.)
3) We will build a 53-man roster one position at a time, leaving two or three spots open at the end for us all to debate the inclusion of an extra running back , or an extra wide receiver, or an extra lineman, etc.
4) Every guy who played for the Redskins from 2000-2009 is eligible and will be considered as equally as possible. I think we will find ourselves forced to consider guys who either called it quits soon into the decade, or came here very recently.
Today's discussion is the kind of discussion we wish our front office would have had 10 years ago: What kind of team is this going to be?
What I want to know is what kind of offense are we going to run? What kind of defense will be our base defense? Are we going to run or pass more? Are we going to blitz a lot, a little, or rarely? Once we come to a quasi-consensus on these things, we can start picking guys who we think will fit in and maximize our strategies and philosophies. Chime in and feel free to talk specific players but keep in mind we will not be debating who is in or who is out until we actually get to that roster position.
In this way, I am hoping we will carve out an All-Decade Team that we will feel good about and one that we can say is an actual "team"--something at least a few of the teams in the 2000's failed to become.
One player who already has a spot:
