Dan Snyder is Insane

I am afraid that my Redskins are in disarray. This head coach decision is a debacle. It appears that Snyder and Co. are back to their old attempts at quick fixes. We’ll soon find out if they go back to signing old, expensive free agents whose best days are in the past. And, I thought that Snyder had learned something from Gibbs. I have always been a strong defender of Snyder, and anyone who follows the Redskins knows that he has received a lot of criticism. If Snyder does not hire Gregg Williams, he will have lost me, too. (ed note; that should have read: If Snyder hires Fassel over Gregg Williams, he will have lost me, too. Maybe Snyder will pull a rabbit out of a hat.)

Joe Gibbs put in place a foundation and process for long-term success. Gibbs retired early and now Snyder is about to blow the whole thing up. Why? The rumor was that he was about to snub Gregg Williams, who was Joe Gibbs’s choice as his successor, and hire Jim Fassel. I’m sorry, but since when has Fassel ever been confused with being a football genius?

Fassel had a less-than-average record as an NFL head coach, a piss-poor record as a college head coach, and as offensive coordinator in Baltimore he presided over one of the NFL's worst offenses. In the 2001, Marty Schottenheimer had a better record than Fassel in Marty's only year as Skins HC. In 2003, Spurrier--for Chrissakes--had a better record than Fassel and Spurrier was pushed out head first. Fassel may have been my locker neighbor at our Country Club, but he was a no show at the Club as much as his teams were no shows in the playoffs. Almost all of the success of his Giants teams—what little there was—could be attributed to Fox.

When the rumors starting flying that the Redskins were about to announce that they hired Fassel, Redskins Nation went nuts. Nearly every fan site ran a poll: From Extremeskins.com to the Washington Post’s web site, Gregg Williams was the landslide choice of the fans. Fans were calling in to talk radio and posting that they would stop buying Redskins souvenirs and apparel and season ticket holders were pondering what they would do with their next invoice. It was enough of an uproar that two reporters from WaPo speculated that it forced Snyder to reverse the Fassel decision. If that is true, good for the fans. Fassel is now saying that he feels betrayed, so the initial reports were probably true.

Why wouldn’t Williams be the choice for head coach? He had the Redskins defense in the top ten in three of the past four years. He has had tremendous success as a defensive coordinator wherever he has been. The players are solidly behind him. No one wants to start over and fix something that’s not broken. He’s Joe Gibbs’s choice for goodness sakes. And he certainly would have continued down the same path as the past three years. He would not make radical changes to a team that needs tweaks. The blue prints for success are in place and he is one of the chief architects. The Redskins were in the playoffs in two of the past three years despite numerous obstacles. In the prior twelve years since Gibbs left the first time, they had made the playoffs just once.

But, as I write this, ESPN is reporting that the Redskins have given Jim Zorn a three-year contract to be their offensive coordinator. Unless Williams gave his nod to Zorn behind the scenes, this is not good news. Any head coach worth his salt is going to want to hire his own assistants. That either means that the coach that Snyder plans to hire has already agreed to the job and has signed off on Zorn, or it means that the new head coach is going to be Snyder’s lap dog, or it means Snyder is going to pay Zorn for three years to do nothing. And consider this: Saunders is now out as OC, so the Redskins are going to lose their second string QB, Collins--the one who led them to the playoffs this year with a four game winning streak. Collins success is almost completely due to his knowledge of Saunders system and Collins is a free agent. He'll probably wind up wherever Saunders does. What a debacle.

Tom Boswell of the WaPo (and not one of the speculators on the result of the fan uproar)had this to say today:

Who brought in both Williams and Saunders with their proven systems? Who drafted Jason Campbell to be the quarterback of the future? Who identified Clinton Portis and Santana Moss to be featured offensive stars? (Ed. Note: And Chris Cooley, the tight end who has the most NFC TDs since 2004; and Antwaan Randle El; and London Fletcher, a perennial top-ten tackler; and Marcus Washington; and Sean Taylor; and on and on…) Who constantly selected players for personal or character traits that might make them "True Redskins?"

The answer, of course, is Gibbs. No one in town did much more than ask, "What do you want, Joe?" then go out and get it for him. And who was Gibbs's clear choice, as recently as the day he left, to be the next coach? Williams.

If any other Hall of Fame coach with three Super Bowl rings, some Walsh or Noll, had been courted out of retirement when his old team called -- desperate, dysfunctional and in disarray -- to help the franchise regain its dignity, wouldn't his wishes have carried weight on the day he left? Is everything Gibbs put in place really so easy to blow up? Is keeping staff members hanging in the dark about their future for 16 days really the way to go?

The Redskins have plenty of excuse for being disoriented, and perhaps even a little wounded, by Gibbs's sudden departure. But the organization should reconsider its first and most obvious choice for head coach (Gregg Williams). That is, if it isn't already too late.

After watching the Wilpons destroy my favorite MLB team, to the point where I cancelled my season tickets which I owned for five years, I now am watching the Redskins go down the drain. They were “this” close to the Super Bowl this year, and are obviously a better team than the Giants, Cowboys and Packers, and now it seems that they are starting over. I don’t have much time for sports fandom any more. I never thought that giving up my Skins season tickets would ever enter my mind, but now it has. Maybe I’ll just sell them on StubHub like all of the fans who own seats around me do, sell to the opposing team fans, until new ownership takes over or Snyder comes to his senses.