Redskins Wonder: 'When Will This Nightmare End?'
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Thursday, October 29, 2009
By JOSEPH WHITE
AP Sports Writer
ASHBURN, Va. (AP) -- Having failed to assemble a winning football team, the Washington Redskins now have a split in viewpoint between the front office and the locker room.
While executives accent the positive, many players won't play along. They know what a 2-5 record means.
They also remember last year: Add this season's start to last year's finish, and the Redskins are a 4-11 team since last Halloween.
"We definitely look at that," said team captain and middle linebacker London Fletcher. "Because it's the first seven games of this season, but then when you add in the last eight games of last year, it's basically been a year of struggles around here. We've struggled to score points, struggled to win football games. And it's very frustrating, week in and week out. It's like, 'Man, when will this nightmare end, in a sense, for us?'"
Fletcher and his drained teammates needed a vacation like nobody's business, and this week's bye has been as much a welcome mental respite as a physical one. But when they return to work on Monday, the very real practical problems that doomed the first half of the season will still be there. No amount of pixie dust -- or sage advice from unretired bingo caller/consultant Sherm Lewis -- can suddenly transform an offense that can't score, especially now that the line is in disarray because of injuries.
"We felt pretty good about our roster coming in," Fletcher said. "Obviously depth at some areas was an issue before the season, and it's come up on us to where we're faced with the reality that our expectations have changed."
Running back Clinton Portis was more direct, implicating the front office's failure to adequately upgrade the line as a top reason for the offense's struggles.
"We went into the season, and we didn't address that issue," Portis said. "And it came back to haunt us."
Not long after Portis uttered those words, a public relations official tried to cut short Portis' chat with reporters. Portis laughed out loud and smiled a smile of incredulity at the move, a standard practice in the Redskins locker room.
Even coach Jim Zorn gets the quick hook, to the point that he now has less general media availability time during a regular week than any Redskins coach in decades.
One Redskins official who spoke at length this week was David Donovan, the team's chief operating officer. He spent a spirited 25 minutes on 106.7 The Fan criticizing The Washington Post for what he found to be negative coverage of the team. Donovan also stated there was "hardly an Eagles fan to be found" at the Monday night home game against Philadelphia, although a pregame stroll through the parking lot and a quick glance into the stands indicated otherwise.
Donovan also revealed that fans are now prohibited from carrying any kind of sign into the stadium. He said the ban was put into effect for fan security and comfort, although it has coincided with a stark increase of banners and signs critical of owner Dan Snyder and executive vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato.
Still, getting rid of negative signs won't cause fan anger to disappear. The players certainly know that.
"We go out there and play hard and nothing really happens. We don't get a spark. The fans are losing interest," defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth said. "The more games we play, the fewer the fans come. It's getting bad."
Attendance was indeed notably sparse in quite a few sections in a recent game against Kansas City. The stadium was close to full during the loss to the Eagles, but Monday night games against division rivals are always good draws.
Also speaking this week, holding his first in-person session with reporters since the regular season began, was Cerrato. The front office chief defended the roster he assembled and said it was one that could get to the team to the playoffs, even with the dicey depth along the offensive line.
To his credit, Cerrato didn't try to paint a rosy picture, calling the 2-5 record "frustrating and disappointing" and adding: "We need to regroup during this bye and come out those last nine games and improve."
Improvement might not translate into wins. After starting the season with one of the easiest schedules, the Redskins now must face Atlanta (4-2), Denver (6-0), Dallas (4-2), Philadelphia (4-2) and New Orleans (6-0) in a row. At this point, the Dec. 13 visit to Oakland might be the only game in which Washington will be favored for the rest of the season.
"You look your schedule and you feel pretty good about your matchups -- if somebody told me maybe you'd be 5-2 right now, I probably would have expected it. Maybe 6-1," Fletcher said. "We're 2-5, and not playing well at all."
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Skins 2009 seaosn 3-13
the last 9 weeks for the skins will probably be so agonizing and painful to watch, you would wanna puke your organs out. They'll win against the Raiders, They just flat out stink. But the rest of the games, The redskins will be embarrassed sooooooooo bad. I say 1-8 for the last 9 games and 3-13 for the season
Posted by williec at 11:18 am Nov 02, 2009 |
REAL FOOTBALL GAMES
it was sooo nice to watch football games this Sunday, ahem.... WHERE TEAMS ACTUALLY SCORE POINTS, and makes it fun to watch players fighting every yard. good thing the Redskins are at a bye so we can avoid the pain and (yawn!) their offense. SKINS 3-13
Posted by skins21 at 8:32 pm Nov 01, 2009 |
no signs at fed ex
since dan synder and vinny cerrato do not want signs at fed ex the two most no knowledge football minds in the nfl i am urging all redskin faithful to go to a ravens game when it would be televised nationally where your skins jersey and display your signs so the whole nfl could see what a crappy owner and gm we have and show our displeasure.
Posted by tom t diehard redskin fan at 5:41 pm Nov 01, 2009 |
dan synder another al davies
this nightmare will end when danny boy and i do mean boy fires his butt buddy vinny and hires someone that knows football as gm and stop meddling with the team and coaches because the both of them suck as owner and gm we need to boycott his radio station and not go to any more redskins game until he solves this problem this is not jim zorns fault and since he wont allow signs in the stadium and write about him and his idiot right hand man because the truth hurts lets boycott every home game.
Posted by tom t die hard redskins fan at 12:14 pm Nov 01, 2009 |
When Will This Nightmare End?
How's this? Vinny Cerrato - Vice President in charge of Fools-ball Operations!
Posted by Captain Kirk at 10:14 pm Oct 31, 2009 |
When Will This Nightmare End?
This sounds more like the current White House Administration every minute.
Posted by Captain Kirk at 4:54 pm Oct 31, 2009 |
turn around
This is the week! The Redzones will turn it around this week and go on a run to the playoffs. They can still finish 11-5! haha, siiiiiike!
Posted by JonJon at 6:49 pm Oct 30, 2009 |
Sad Times in DC
DS needs to take a lesson from NASCAR. Don't with the fans! As a life long Skins fan it is getting harder and harder to take. I waited 7 years to get season tickets and after just 2 years I can't give them away. I don't know if I can continue to invest money that I can't write off my taxes like DS can. NASCAR stands are not full and neither is FEDEX. Marketing is about making something better and getting the reward not making it worse and charging the fans more. Consessions are out of this world expensive, $5.00 bottle of water, $10.00 Johnny Rocket Burger, etc. Let us have fun again. Give us back our signs, lower cosession prices, and "Hail to the Redskins" not "To Hell with the Redskins"!
Posted by BobbyLee at 2:39 pm Oct 30, 2009 |
Living in OZ, Shopping at SAKS, and the Measure of Success
Dan Snyder is never going to fire Vinny so just get over it. He won't because this is OZ, not DC, and in OZ Danny has always been the man behind the curtain making all the crazy decisions we attribute to Vinny. Firing Vinny would be like firing himslef. Besides, Danny is a marketer and he has a completely different measure of success than we as fans think he should. To him its ok to pay rediculous money shopping at SAKS for players (Sanders, Stubbefeild, and Bruce Smith to name a few) he could get for a fraction of the cost at Overstock.com if he just waited a few months. By the same logic he sees nothing wrong with shopping at K-Mart for Offensive line. This is becuase Bruce Smith and Dieon Sanders sell T-shirts and seats behind poles. A big beast or two in the middle of the o-line, no matter how helpful to winning, is not going to boost consession sales, which by Dannyboy's measure of success makes since. And don't forget, the revolving door was installed on the coaches office for a reason...to give Synderotto somebody to blame their failures on.
Posted by JK at 1:30 pm Oct 30, 2009 |
when will this nightmare end
this nightmare will end when synder fires vinny cerrato hires a gm that has great football knowledge. this nightmare will end when dan synder stops changing coaches every 2 or 3 years but as long as dan synder ownes the redskins they will never get to the super bowl. this nightmare will end when they know how to draft. this nightmare will end when they stop paying high price players that dont want to practice. this nightmare will end when they get quality football personnel in there that want to go to the playoffs and superbowl.
Posted by tom t die hard skin fan at 1:09 pm Oct 30, 2009 |
Wish
Times like this, I wish we had a T.O. personality. Somebody that would come out and spit it all the way straight ya dig? Tell it like it is, hold back no punches, spare no feelings. Cause we have a SERIOUS problem.
Posted by Akknelle at 4:05 am Oct 30, 2009 |