Cue Senor Spurrier...
That clip would have only been better had I been able to find the "5-11...not very gOOOOoood" clip to follow it up.
Nevertheless, Spurrier's famous lip tirade kind of sums up this season in a nutshell. Nobody expected much out of this team from the start, just like Spurrier's second year in 2003. Like that year we started 3-1 only to see the team fall flat on its face in the last 12 games. Like that year, the team gave the fans a false sense of hope only to see those hopes dashed so dramatically. Yes, there were injuries. Yes, there were low expectations, but it always is sad to see a professional football team play so badly in the middle of the season that it relegates the month of December to meaningless. When the team started 3-1, Rex Grossman's preseason prediction that the Redskins would win the NFC East looked surprisingly accurate. Considering that the eventual division winner (the Giants) only had a 9-7 record, this could very well have been THE year we could have pulled it off. Besides, 2 of those 7 losses for the Giants came from the Redskins! Unfortunately, by the time week 7 rolled around, we were once again "that team" on the schedule that everyone looked at as the easy one, or a chance for a bad team to score a win (see Carolina). How did this happen?
It started in Week 6 with the first Philadelphia game. We came into the game 3-1 fresh off a bye while Philly was 1-4 and the Dream Team was searching for answers. Nevertheless, the Eagles were touchdown favorites going into the game at FedEx Field, mostly because "experts" did not feel like the Redskins fast start was sustainable, and that the Eagles were much better than their record indicated. Turns out at least for that week, they were right. The Eagles raced out to a 20-3 halftime lead at Lincoln Financial South...I mean FedEx...and never looked back. Not many looked at that loss as a bad thing, however, considering we had the equally hapless Carolina Panthers next up in week 7. However, the Panthers were once again the favorites over the Redskins because people felt like Carolina Cam Newton would rise to the occastion against a wounded opponent and get another win. After all, against far superior teams like Green Bay, Newton played lights out football, only to see his team just come up short. Here is his chance to get one, and he delivered. From that point on, the Redskins looked like those preseason predictions of doom and gloom would rear their ugly heads again...not division titles.
It was at this point the Redskins decided to bench Rex in favor of John Beck, who had a preseason prediction of his own that he would be the starter on opening day. This is the same John Beck who started a grand total of 4 games in his career, lost them all, and spent all of last season 3rd on the depth chart behind Rex and McNabb. Beck even went so far as to claim the Redskins as "his team." Yeah right...Beck lost all of his starts in DC too. Grossman got the reigns back just in time to "upset" the Seahawks, only to lose more and more after that. When the dust settled...5-11, but a season sweep of the Giants will go down as a bright spot in an otherwise dismal season.
The biggest need for this team hands down is the quarterback position. When the Redskins neglected to draft a quarterback in 2011, when guys like Christian Ponder were still available, everybody raised eyebrows. The eyebrows lifted even further when the Shanahans declared the QB position an open competition between Grossman and Beck. It was at this point people started to believe the Redskins would simply go belly-up in 2011 so that we could secure the #1 pick and get Andrew Luck. Unfortunately for those ideas, we won 3 games out of the gate, putting to rest any talk of getting the #1 pick. Also, nobody saw how badly Indianapolis would play without Manning. Now, it looks like our best option is to try and make a play for Robert Griffin III. I don't think people realize how much of a good fit Griffin would be in a Mike Shanahan system. Think about it, who supplied the most success in Shanahan's coaching career? That would be John Elway. OK, before you explode in the whole YOU CAN'T COMPARE TO ELWAY garbage, look at these comparisons. Griffin already has his bachelors degree and is 6 credits short of a masters in commuications. What does that mean? The kid has a brain, unlike some of these guys coming out of the University of Florida (what?). Elway went to Stanford. Griffin went to Baylor, both of which are more academic oriented schools not really well-known for their national football prowess. You can draw your own conclusions.
Now, normally I don't advocate for this, but considering how good of a job we have done in the last couple years stockpiling picks and building the team from the ground up, I feel like we need to go back to our old habits. We need a quarterback, and considering the talent pool is much thinner now that Barkley and Jones are staying in school, the asking price will be high. However, what team is better suited to paying premiums for players than the Redskins? We've made our living overpaying for talent. Granted, most of that talent is in the form of free agents and $100 million contracts. However, we have been known to throw away draft picks in trades every now and then. Considering how big of a need quarterback is, and considering how much of an impact RGIII will have on this team, I feel like it is not an option, we HAVE to pay the price to get him. Right now, the St. Louis Rams hold the second pick, and considering how much they have already invested in Sam Bradford, they are not in the market for a quarterback. They know they are in a very commanding position, as are the Minnesota Vikings at #3 with Christian Ponder already in the fold. The only team that is as QB needy as us right now are the Browns at #4, but I have a feeling we would be able to outbid the Brownies. The Bucs at #5 seem set at the position with Josh Freeman, but it would not surprise me if they went quarterback if for no other reason than to have 2 quality players at the position since Freeman has not exactly taken them to the promised land (although they did go 10-6 in 2010).
Do we have other needs? Absolutely, we do. I'd like to have some more depth on the O-line, and we still need a true #1 receiver. Santana Moss is getting old, Jabar Gaffney has no size, and everybody else is a speedster who is too afraid to go across the middle and get hit. However, if we overpay for the quarterback now, we can spend the rest of this offseason and next building the pieces around him, instead of builing the pieces and waiting for the quarterback, which seemed to be the approach we took for the last two offseasons. I love our running back depth. Nevermind Hightower, I love Roy Helu and Evan Royster. Now we just have to keep them healthy. Hightower is valuable as a 3rd down back just like he was in Arizona, so I'm not saying to cast him away, nor am I saying to purge any of the other players on offense. They all have a role, but that's just it. They are role players. We need a focus. We need a guy that an entire defense needs to gear itself around. If we get that guy at the quarterback position (and to a lesser extent the wide receiver position), and if the defense continues to play at the high level we know they can play, maybe, just maybe 2013 (not 2012) will be the Redskins' year.
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