The Future of the Skins Begins Today

Mike Shanahan? Bill Cowher? Mike Holmgren (please no!)? Jimmy Johnson?!?! Thankfully for all Redskins fans Vinny Cerrato resigned today as team president. Vinny, the de facto GM since Joe Gibbs re-retired, had to be held accountable for the teams failures this season and he resigned, I would guess, rather than being fired. So what does it mean for the Skins?

First, it is an early Christmas present. With the season winding down it means that Daniel Snyder can start shopping for a new GM and maybe coach before the season is over. With teams already talking to the big names out there, and there are plenty of big names out there, you know Dan has a jet gassed up and ready to fly around the country throwing tens of millions of dollars at some of these coaches.

(Wow that was fast, 5 minutes after I finished this post the Skins hired Bruce Allen, son of legendary Redskins coach George Allen as the new GM. Evidently Dan has been busy. So there, step one is complete. This also means we may need to add John Gruden to the list of coaching candidates because of his close ties to Allen. Not sure how Chucky would look in burgundy and gold)

What is also important about this is that maybe the Skins will get their first GM with serious credentials since Snyder took over. Bobby Beatherd and Charlie Casserly were instrumental in helping Gibbs build our three Super Bowl winners. We haven’t had a good GM since, including Gibbs. We need someone who will put a stamp on this organization and help Snyder resist, well being himself.

Here is the plan to fix the Skins. Decide whether you prefer Shanahan or Cowher and go and get them no matter the cost. (It is a done deal that Zorn is gone) My preference is for Cowher because of the tough as nails football he prefers which would be a great thing for this team. But if he likes living in NC and being on TV too much I know they can get Shanahan with enough dough. Second, keep Jason Campbell. He has proven that he can be a good QB and Shanahan can really help a QB like him. If you aren’t sold on Campbell, whose relationship with the team may be too broken at this stage to fix, then either draft the best QB available, (I am not really sold on McCoy or Clausen, but that isn’t my job to evaluate QBs) or get a solid replacement. The Skins just have to be realistic in the fact that no matter who they get they won’t be better than Campbell for several years at least.

Keep Blache and all the defensive coaches, these guys are really getting it figured out. The defense is pretty stacked except in the secondary where we have never been able to make up for tragically losing Sean Taylor. (I get this enormous pit in my stomach every time I think about what Sean would have done for our team the last two years. We make the playoffs last year and have a drastically different season this year with him back there I guarantee it. I only ever get this pit thinking about Sean or Len Bias.) We need safeties and corners who don’t get beat by double moves. Carlos Rodgers who has always been okay and never really good is probably gone so go and spend some money on a solid corner.

Next, go ahead and dump Portis, even before the concussion this year he was done. Next year will be uncapped anyways, just eat his money and send him packing. Simply draft some good young legs and put them back there. RB’s are best between 22-28 anyways, get a cheap one and save some money. It won’t matter anyways unless we spend some money to upgrade the O-Line. Samuels is probably done. Randy Taylor is done. Rabach, Williams, and Dockery have all jelled pretty well by this stage so go and get two new tackles, one through the draft and one in FA and see if you can’t get some consistency going.

If the Skins can execute some of these pieces next year is maybe an 8-8 year and then we will see. They are a mess, but there are good pieces in place here. The defensive line, linebacking corps, WR’s, TE’s, and part of the O-Line are solid. (I think the QB is solid too, but Dan does not.) So go get a new identity as an organization with a new big name at the top and build on Vinny’s positive work. So long Vinny we hardly knew you and yet we all have such strong emotions for you. Good luck in your next endeavors whatever they may be outside of football.