Drafting the Future

It seems like a very very long time since I wrote about the Redskins and with good reason. After a shakey start to the previous season I had hope (which was as always... falsely placed) that the team was finally starting to mesh together despite years of player and coaching changes. It seemed that perhaps the addition of Jim Zorn and the retention of Jason Campbell at the quarterback's position the team was finally going to pull together and have a season worth being proud of. After the first six games where the Redskins had record better than some of the teams that would eventually make the playoffs, the team ended the season the way they usually do which is breaking even and barely making a passing mention on the road to the playoffs.

Usually when that happens, the leadership of the team (and by that I mean the owner Dan Snyder and vice president of football operations Vinny Cerrato) tends to get a little antsy in the off-season and decides to shake things up in the hope that change will mean good things. Now granted that Snyder has owned the team for a decade and has not seen them progress the mid-playoffs at anytime in those years. Indeed I can't really say that even when they did make the playoffs that they were playing strong enough to warrant even speculation that they could go all the way. After years of so many 'close-but-no-cigar' moments it seems as though the team is sinking into a depressing pattern of do sort of good and then change things up.

Take for example the entire episode leading up to this past weekend's NFL Draft. Usually the draft is meant for teams to pick prime candidates from college football that could make a major difference to their team after a bit of seasoning. Rare are the occasions where someone is drafted and is immediately capable of leading their team to the playoffs and eventually the Super Bowl. Still, many in the NFL believe that every player coming out at the top of the draft is going to be the next phenom. That being the case, for every Eli Manning you get a Heath Shuler. Sure Heath Shuler may have been the top quarterback in his draft year but he's frankly had more success in Congress than he ever did in the NFL.

What the team seems to think (and again I mean the leadership... not necessarily the coaches and players) is that by drafting someone who is great in college will mean that they will be great in the NFL. Quite honestly, just as with any other profession, there is a vast difference between the college environment versus the working environment (or NFL in this case). And if there's one thing that Washington is very good at besides overhyping itself at times is in creating a quarterback controversy. These are instances where the media or coaches or owners indicate that they are looking to create competition, end complacency or encourage excellence by threatening someone's job (either directly or indirectly).

Take the example of current quarterback Jason Campbell. Sure he may not be Troy Aikman but he's shown leadership and poise in many tough situations and has come a long way in a short time considering he's never used a single offensive scheme for more than a few months. To look at it another way, you may have a computer programming genius in your company but if you expect them to learn a brand new programming language within a few weeks and then perform at the expected levels you're bound to have problems. Not everyone is ready to perform that well that quickly. I feel bad for Jason Campbell who has dealt with the situation in far better a way than many less capable players who have faced similar situations. What the owners of the 'Skins need to understand is that football is a team sport. It's not like basketball where a Michael Jordan could likely win a game on his own with a group of supporting players. A quarterback needs a good set of receivers. Maybe if they understand that part of the equation they can fix things so that the Redskins actually get past the playoffs and into the Super Bowl. One can dream.