superpunk
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This is great....
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider/2006/11/monday_morning_hback_7.html#more
Monday Morning H-Back
Let's start with the good. I liked everything I saw from Jason Campbell. That went much better from his standpoint than I think anyone could have expected. He showed everything that I expected in the poise, confidence and intangible department, and also executed efficiently, spread the ball around, made some great throws and capitalized on his athleticism. That lack of support he received from the defense, running game and receivers (anyone still want to argue Lloyd has not been a total flop?) was appalling, yet the kid never let it get to him.
I will discuss JC at length later this week, but let's move on to some other topics.
1) I don't see any way Gregg Williams fails to take incredible amounts of heat for this defense. They are in shambles, and he picked the players for the most part. He deemed others sufficient to walk away - Antonio Pierce and Ryan Clark - and seems to have vastly overestimated the worth of his scheme's ability to turn average players into top notch contributors. He's not coaxing decent performances out of anyone this season. As we've documented on the blog and in the paper before, the overall talent level of the defense is not great - several players have commented on that privately as well - but again, these are Gregg's guys.
You can't tell me they have less skill than San Francisco's defense, for example, but look at the job Mike Nolan, another one of The Snyder's former whipping boys, is doing out there. We all know Archuleta and Carter are not stars, but come on, at which point is it incumbent on the coach to devise a way to elicit a few big plays from somebody. Anybody? I mean, who is actually impacts a game positively from a defensive standpoint on a consistent. Give me the name of one player or coach, please? Golston? Springs a bit now that he's getting healthy?
They are going to have start from scratch over there. Players readily admit they are messing up all the time tactically and in their tackling, but the technique they are being taught and the defense they are running is getting shredded over and over again on largely the same plays. They get killed over the middle in Cover-2, and they rarely get the QB when they run Cover-0. Williams' once impeccable feel for his players and ability to call the right blitz at the right is gone. He's lost his fastball, entirely.
The inability to make any sort of prescient adjustments in the third quarters of game is bordering on unforgivable. The Commanders have been in the last 6 games at the half - leading in many - and the defense has completely choked coming out of the locker room. No way to absolve the coaches of blame on that.
2) This Archuleta thing is not going to end pretty, I fear (has there ever been amicable splits since Snyder took over? LaVar, Champ, Pierce, Coles - notice a pattern?).. This one has LaVar written all over it, only this time I don't see the player playing nice and leaving money on the table to get out. Has Adam had a poor season? We all know the answer. Now, who in the secondary has not?
I'm sorry but this smells personal to me, when you give Vernon Fox all the snaps after Troy Vincent goes down. They are making an example out of Archuleta, but Sean Taylor and Carlos Rogers - the recent top 10 picks - never get yanked for even a single play when they get burned repeatedly.
They wanted Arch Deluxe so badly they went crazy with the money. No one made them do that. For Williams to try to tell me he's looking at Vernon Fox for the future on the same day they don't give a snap to Rocky McIntosh - again - doesn't fly. Archuleta is paying for the sins of the entire defense. He's the fall guy. But with all they have invested in him, I would have thought Sunday, with Vincent going down, would have been the perfect chance to try to rebuild his confidence a bit and throw him back in there. Maybe build some good will for the future.
Nah. He rotted on the bench. Archuleta came thisclose to saying how he really feels to me Sunday, then thought better of it. But there are some very real issues between him and the coaching staff - he is not alone - and after three years of the defensive coaching staff jumping on players and being brutally frank in their assessments, you wonder if that starts to get old. Particularly when the coaches, and their schemes, no longer appear infallible.
3) Which brings me to the lack of intensity. When multiple players of your defense concede after a huge loss that the opposing offense ran them over, played at a high tempo and wanted it more, you've got massive, gaping, crisis-level problems. Your D sets the tone, establishes your identity, and must bring a punishing attitude to work. This defense has nothing close to a swagger. I asked Williams about what I saw as a flat performance after the game, particularly the ridiculous 14, play 85 yard, 9 minute drive they gave up right after JC gave the Skins a 10-3 lead, and he said the team was fired up on the sidelines and was playing with emotion.
Sorry, that doesn't pass my eye test. And when guys like Griffin throw around phrases like "We laid down," you just might be cooked.
In 2004 I saw a defense that would run through walls for this coaching staff. They certainly have not played that way in a long, long time.
4) No one this defensive coaching staff ever talks about former cornerbacks coach DeWayne Walker, who left to become D coordinator at UCLA in the offseason, and is doing a heck of a job. You can't convince me that his departure has been a good thing for this organization, and I also don't blame him a bit for leaving. It's an unavoidable thing in this business. I'm not saying anyone is to blame on either and Walker's replacement, Jerry Gray is as respected as they come. But this secondary has been a mess all season, and you have to think Walker's absence has been felt.
5) Picked up some other details on the other big loss from the secondary, Ryan Clark. Been digging around a little bit, and while the Commanders gave Arch Deluxe $10 million guaranteed, they low-balled Ryan. According to people very much in the know, the Commanders initial signing bonus offer to Clark was $500,000, and they went as "high" as $750,000. Excuse me while I cough.
Clark told the team repeatedly that he would immediately sign, at any point, for $1.5 mil bonus on a four year deal worth a maximum, yes, that's maximum, of $5.8 million, according to sources. Snyder told him he would never see that kind of money. It was brought up to Snyder that in fact, all Ryan was asking for was in essence the contract that injured safety Matt Bowen had signed with the Commanders a few years prior, and, given the passage of time, and Clark's production, that was a plenty fair salary request for a starting safety on a top-10 defense.
Snyder told Clark that the team was through overspending on players like it did for Bowen, and he had learned from his mistakes. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. He actually said that prior to last March's ridiculous free agent splurge.
Clark received $7 million over four years, with $1.65 million guaranteed, from the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and has been making plays for them all season. The Commanders could be facing another LaVargate with Archuleta. Some things never change.
To his credit, Snyder ducked out of a meeting to calll and congratulate Clark on his contract from Pittsburgh in March , to thank him for his service to the team and to tell him he would always have a home at Commanders Park. Classy move, but, like with Antonio Pierce, it came way too late.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider/2006/11/monday_morning_hback_7.html#more
Monday Morning H-Back
Let's start with the good. I liked everything I saw from Jason Campbell. That went much better from his standpoint than I think anyone could have expected. He showed everything that I expected in the poise, confidence and intangible department, and also executed efficiently, spread the ball around, made some great throws and capitalized on his athleticism. That lack of support he received from the defense, running game and receivers (anyone still want to argue Lloyd has not been a total flop?) was appalling, yet the kid never let it get to him.
I will discuss JC at length later this week, but let's move on to some other topics.
1) I don't see any way Gregg Williams fails to take incredible amounts of heat for this defense. They are in shambles, and he picked the players for the most part. He deemed others sufficient to walk away - Antonio Pierce and Ryan Clark - and seems to have vastly overestimated the worth of his scheme's ability to turn average players into top notch contributors. He's not coaxing decent performances out of anyone this season. As we've documented on the blog and in the paper before, the overall talent level of the defense is not great - several players have commented on that privately as well - but again, these are Gregg's guys.
You can't tell me they have less skill than San Francisco's defense, for example, but look at the job Mike Nolan, another one of The Snyder's former whipping boys, is doing out there. We all know Archuleta and Carter are not stars, but come on, at which point is it incumbent on the coach to devise a way to elicit a few big plays from somebody. Anybody? I mean, who is actually impacts a game positively from a defensive standpoint on a consistent. Give me the name of one player or coach, please? Golston? Springs a bit now that he's getting healthy?
They are going to have start from scratch over there. Players readily admit they are messing up all the time tactically and in their tackling, but the technique they are being taught and the defense they are running is getting shredded over and over again on largely the same plays. They get killed over the middle in Cover-2, and they rarely get the QB when they run Cover-0. Williams' once impeccable feel for his players and ability to call the right blitz at the right is gone. He's lost his fastball, entirely.
The inability to make any sort of prescient adjustments in the third quarters of game is bordering on unforgivable. The Commanders have been in the last 6 games at the half - leading in many - and the defense has completely choked coming out of the locker room. No way to absolve the coaches of blame on that.
2) This Archuleta thing is not going to end pretty, I fear (has there ever been amicable splits since Snyder took over? LaVar, Champ, Pierce, Coles - notice a pattern?).. This one has LaVar written all over it, only this time I don't see the player playing nice and leaving money on the table to get out. Has Adam had a poor season? We all know the answer. Now, who in the secondary has not?
I'm sorry but this smells personal to me, when you give Vernon Fox all the snaps after Troy Vincent goes down. They are making an example out of Archuleta, but Sean Taylor and Carlos Rogers - the recent top 10 picks - never get yanked for even a single play when they get burned repeatedly.
They wanted Arch Deluxe so badly they went crazy with the money. No one made them do that. For Williams to try to tell me he's looking at Vernon Fox for the future on the same day they don't give a snap to Rocky McIntosh - again - doesn't fly. Archuleta is paying for the sins of the entire defense. He's the fall guy. But with all they have invested in him, I would have thought Sunday, with Vincent going down, would have been the perfect chance to try to rebuild his confidence a bit and throw him back in there. Maybe build some good will for the future.
Nah. He rotted on the bench. Archuleta came thisclose to saying how he really feels to me Sunday, then thought better of it. But there are some very real issues between him and the coaching staff - he is not alone - and after three years of the defensive coaching staff jumping on players and being brutally frank in their assessments, you wonder if that starts to get old. Particularly when the coaches, and their schemes, no longer appear infallible.
3) Which brings me to the lack of intensity. When multiple players of your defense concede after a huge loss that the opposing offense ran them over, played at a high tempo and wanted it more, you've got massive, gaping, crisis-level problems. Your D sets the tone, establishes your identity, and must bring a punishing attitude to work. This defense has nothing close to a swagger. I asked Williams about what I saw as a flat performance after the game, particularly the ridiculous 14, play 85 yard, 9 minute drive they gave up right after JC gave the Skins a 10-3 lead, and he said the team was fired up on the sidelines and was playing with emotion.
Sorry, that doesn't pass my eye test. And when guys like Griffin throw around phrases like "We laid down," you just might be cooked.
In 2004 I saw a defense that would run through walls for this coaching staff. They certainly have not played that way in a long, long time.
4) No one this defensive coaching staff ever talks about former cornerbacks coach DeWayne Walker, who left to become D coordinator at UCLA in the offseason, and is doing a heck of a job. You can't convince me that his departure has been a good thing for this organization, and I also don't blame him a bit for leaving. It's an unavoidable thing in this business. I'm not saying anyone is to blame on either and Walker's replacement, Jerry Gray is as respected as they come. But this secondary has been a mess all season, and you have to think Walker's absence has been felt.
5) Picked up some other details on the other big loss from the secondary, Ryan Clark. Been digging around a little bit, and while the Commanders gave Arch Deluxe $10 million guaranteed, they low-balled Ryan. According to people very much in the know, the Commanders initial signing bonus offer to Clark was $500,000, and they went as "high" as $750,000. Excuse me while I cough.
Clark told the team repeatedly that he would immediately sign, at any point, for $1.5 mil bonus on a four year deal worth a maximum, yes, that's maximum, of $5.8 million, according to sources. Snyder told him he would never see that kind of money. It was brought up to Snyder that in fact, all Ryan was asking for was in essence the contract that injured safety Matt Bowen had signed with the Commanders a few years prior, and, given the passage of time, and Clark's production, that was a plenty fair salary request for a starting safety on a top-10 defense.
Snyder told Clark that the team was through overspending on players like it did for Bowen, and he had learned from his mistakes. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. He actually said that prior to last March's ridiculous free agent splurge.
Clark received $7 million over four years, with $1.65 million guaranteed, from the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, and has been making plays for them all season. The Commanders could be facing another LaVargate with Archuleta. Some things never change.
To his credit, Snyder ducked out of a meeting to calll and congratulate Clark on his contract from Pittsburgh in March , to thank him for his service to the team and to tell him he would always have a home at Commanders Park. Classy move, but, like with Antonio Pierce, it came way too late.
