[Kilmer72]

[Redskin in Canada]

RGIII is a BEACON OF LIGHT.

No argument there. He is the rock to develop a franchise, YES!

BUT ... 8 - 8 or a winning mumber of remaining games???

Sorry.

I am shell-shocked. I do not see the human resources to fill in the secondary, the RT and WRs.

But I do EXPECT some great games from RGIII yet.

[Deadskins]

[rskin72]

My Redskins continue to have serious issues in year 3 of the "rebuild". There are a precious few players on this team who seem to have the ability to step up and make plays. Sure injuries have hurt, but every team has to deal with injuries.

We have a stud rookie QB who went in for rib x-rays after the Panther game. That scares the hell out of me, as we have seen the results of a Grossman/Beck/Mcnabb offense.

We have a lot of issues....but one of those issues is NOT at the QB slot.

[SkinsJock]

all well and good to try and point to our issues all being resolved by better coaching - I don't buy it

I don't like the HC, the OC or the DC but I don't think that all our issues are due to their inadequacies

this franchise is still trying to get it together - some have too much ecpectations and because RG3 is looking great at QB they want everything else fixed immediately by adding better coaching and better players

QB is the ONLY position on the team (INCLUDING coaching) where supreme talent is vitally important - all the other players and coaches have talent, they just need to find a way to make each other better at what they do

coaches need to instruct and coach the players that they have - the key is to maximize the practice and game planning to suit the players they have

players need to work to fit in with the other players around them - it's about the other players around you - it's NOT about you

we have a QB that will be great for years to come - we still need to work on getting the other players and coaches we need to ensure success

this is all happening - it takes time - it definitely takes more than 2.5 years

[riggofan]

[DarthMonk]

[Kilmer72]

Beacon of light? It is amazing to me that our offensive line has been ok. I expected worse. I know Robert makes it better but: our run blocking has been exceptional considering... I have to find some silver lining.

[chiefhog44]

[SkinsJock]

[riggofan]

[langleyparkjoe]

Here's to "patience".

Even though I sometimes lose mine.

..but in the bigger picture, it really is all about giving the team some time to get it together. This is RG3's first year and we need time for the team to "catch up" so to speak.

Go Skins, beat the bye week!

[Bishop Hammer]

Ehhh the only reason I can find to root hard is to give STL the lowest possible pick they can get.

[RayNAustin]

The real story that underlies the surface is that whatever holes that exist on the Redskin roster is the sole responsibility of Shanahan, since he is the guy in charge of those decisions, and he's made a bunch of them over the past three seasons.

And the tales of RG3 and Alfred Morris paints a picture of reality that few seem to notice. Of course, RG3 has certainly lived up to, and exceeded the hype ... thank God, because a bust there would have spelled years of disaster given the steep price paid to get him. But then there is Alfred Morris who's performance has been spectacular, and would have justified him being picked anywhere in the draft, but for a 6th round pick, he was a grand slam homer.

It's not the RG3 picks that determine the success of the franchises in the NFL .. it's the Alfred Morris picks that do. In this day of free agency and salary caps, you have to have a significant flow of late round draft choices that outperform their expectations in order to build depth and remain competitive, because you cannot build a team comprised only of superstars. Those diamonds in the rough, and those surprise late round picks will determine your ultimate success over the long haul.

What people forget is that this building through the draft process is much different today than in was prior to 1993 ... and the time window for building is much shorter. You just cannot take 6 years to build a team these days ... it has to be significantly complete within 3 years, because of contracts and free agency, and the typical life span for players at many positions. If you are just completing your roster by year 5, you are already 2 years behind, because of turnover and mobility of proven contributors that will either receive their big payday or leave to greener pastures. And while you can expect to get 12 - 15 years out of a star QB, you're unlikely to get more than 4 or 5 out of a RB ... while many other positions are peaking in their production in years 3, 4 and 5, and then declining from there. So as this years picks begin to peak over the next 4 years, by the time you fill the other holes, more holes are constantly emerging through age, injury and free agency.

The Redskins have been trapped in this vicious cycle for better than a decade now, which is why just a handful of bad decisions cannot be overcome by a few good ones. And aside from Morris, whom I consider to be more an issue of good fortune than genius of our talent evaluation men, we really haven't been successful overall in identifying those diamonds, and have come up with a lot more coal than success is willing to tolerate.

This situation is compounded by flat our errors and miscalculations in personnel decisions in radical roster turnover exercises like the ones Shanahan has overseen these past three years. Where are our sleepers emerging into solid producers, let alone game changers?

Shanahan remarked at the beginning of the year the great strides achieved in depth on the roster, yet that depth seems to have been another miscalculation like NcNabb, Grossman, Beck ... virtually the entire secondary (which as undergone the most radical change in player makeup), our kicker issue this year and the inexplicable choice of Cundiff .... and then our front 7 on defense, which seems lost without Rak and Carriker. This was supposed to be the area of team strength, yet no one has been able to step up and fill those two holes .. and the defense which was expected to remain our strength, has literally fallen apart at the seams.

The glaring error made last year with the Grossman/Beck debacle is an easy one to see ... the others not so evident, but no less damaging. We have too many starters on both sides of the ball that are performing like backups, and our backups have failed miserably in many areas. This tells me that the coaching staff, while perhaps competent in overall philosophy of scheme, are either totally incompetent in their assessment of talent quality, or they are poorly developing the talent that is there. You just cannot have as many "misses" as we seem to have, and reach some other conclusion. Rabbit Feet have no role to play in building a competitive NFL team ... you certainly need a bit of good fortune for sure, but you'd better rely on something other than good luck to be consistent.

Now this is particularly critical to the near term future success of the Redskins, which had to give up two additional #1 picks to get RG3. For the Redskins to be successful over the next couple of years, we'd better find several more Alfred Morris types, else we're in for more disappointments.

I for one do not have a particularly optimistic view of Shanahan's ability to deliver in this area ... because he directly "staked" his reputation on guys like John Beck .... no one else did that ... Shanahan did it to himself. And though Beck is such a painfully obvious example, he is by far not the only one. There are many such errors ... too many in such a short timeframe.

Let's take Garcon as an example .... sidelined because of a freak injury .. OK fine... we over paid for him even if he had remained healthy ... but why are we in the situation to begin with? Why is our offensive livelihoods so impacted by a player that the Colts allowed to leave, and yet they seen to be doing just fine without him?

Ask yourselves how the Green Bay Packers can lose half their starting line up and still win a Super Bowl? How do they manage to score 40 points in a game with unknown back up receivers while we fall flat on our face if one or two guys go down?

I tell you all this ... RG3 has managed to mask the deficiencies in our offensive system through pure talent and ability ... he is not the product of the coaching or system which failed with three other QBs. Without RG3's contributions, and Morris, BOTH ROOKIES, the Redskins would be 0-9 right now, GUARANTEED ... and the calls for patience and one more year for Shanahan would sound as preposterous to others as it does to me.

We did the same thing with Jason Campbell .. as the team slowly aged while waiting for that "breakout year" than never happened. Did anyone see the tail end of the Bear's game last night? Pure vintage Jason Campbell ... wild throws ... check downs when he had plenty of time and receivers open down field ... pure futility for a guy we wasted 5 years and two draft picks on.

I don't want to see the reverse happen here ... and waste years of RG3's talent waiting for incompetent coaches to figure it it all out through trial and error, which has already been marked by way too many errors.

The title of this thread should be "Beacon of light and Reason for Change". RG3 should be surrounded by the best staff we can get for him ... and should not be used as a crutch for incompetent coaches to mask their failures with. RG3 is the primary reason to get rid of the ShanaClan, not the reason to keep them. We have the foundation now, and all that is missing are competent architects to build around him.

[riggofan]

I pretty much disagree with 90% of what you wrote. I suspect I have much lower blood pressure than you too, Ray.