Bruce Allen has been at the helm of the Washington Redskins for one full year, as of today, but what has he accomplished in the last 365 days. With the team's one point lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week the team will post another non-winning season although they have recorded one more victory (5) with three games to go than they did after all of last season (4). Other statistical changes include a offense that is producing around 338 yards per game, and averaging 18.3 points per game compared to 312 yards per game, and averaging 16.6 points per game in 2009. The defense took a step back in some areas and improved in others with the switch in schemes, While the team as produced 24 takeaways this year compared to only 17 in 2009, the unit is giving up on average 75 more yards per game than it did last year and 23.8 point per game compared to 21 in 2009.
In 2009 the Redskins were reportedly the oldest team in the NFL when the season started, today there are five teams that have rosters that will be older than the Redskins roster when games are played this weekend. The Redskins currently have 25 players that were not on the 53-man roster last year, and 20 of them are under the average age of last year's roster. In the ten years before Allen took over the Redskins drafted a total of eight offensive linemen, Allen selected three in his first draft.
Getting younger as been a goal of the new regime from the start, prior to the start of free agency the Redskins trimmed their roster by releasing ten players, seven of the 10 were 30 years of age or older. Today London Fletcher, Mike Sellers, Donovan McNabb, Casey Rabach, Maake Kemoeatu, and Santana Moss are the only Redskins starters over the age of 30 and fifteen other teams have more than 6 starters over 30. Washington and five other teams have a total of fourteen players 30 years of age or older on the current roster, four teams have more than that, the league average is eleven.
Prior to the 2010 season the Redskins would enter the off-season over the salary cap for the next season or bumping up against it every year. For the last decade they have dealt with this by taking current player's base salaries (2 or 3 year's worth) and converting it into a “signing bonuses” for “extending” their contracts, which lowered the salary cap number for the current year. The “new money” was then used for a yearly spending spree also known as Free Agency. Under Bruce Allen the practice of big name free agent signings ended. With 2010 being a un-capped year Allen reworked a couple of current contracts, but they were bad contracts.
The Redskins renegotiated the contracts of defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth and cornerback DeAngelo Hall moving this year's cap total from $141.6 million to just about $170 million. Another way to look at it is, they used the lack of a CBA to trim almost $30 million off of future caps. With no CBA in place for 2011 there is no idea what the salary cap will be set at next year, but there is not doubt it won't drop below the $128.4 million limit of 2009. In 2009 the Redskins cap total going into the off-season was $119 million ($9.4 million in cap space), today Bruce Allen only has $96.9 million on the salary cap for 2011 ($31.5 million in cap space).
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