Is Spurrier done for, or can he still redeem himself?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Ten quarters of football may not seem like a lot, but the last ten quarters of football have seemed very, very long to Redskins fans. After a good start - 3-2, with the losses being pretty close - and looking reasonably good at halftime against the Bucs, it looked as if the Redskins could start putting it together, if they could only stop drawing all those false-start and illegal-motion calls.

Then the roof caved in.

They were trounced in the second half by the Bucs, then for an entire game by the Bills, then finally embarrassed by the Cowboys (once they realized that no matter how many mistakes they made, the Redskins weren’t going to capitalize, so they could relax and get on with things). Each week, a new team takes apart Spurrier’s Fun N’ Gun, and stomps on the pieces.

(In particular, they stomp on Patrick Ramsey. Right now, I’m rooting for him to have a season-ending injury that isn’t career-threatening; I’d like to see him survive this debacle and have a shot at a successful NFL career, but I can’t imagine that that will happen if he takes a full season of this abuse. And Spurrier doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to provide him more protection. But I digress.)

So, can Spurrier still turn this around, or is he toast? I’m thinking the latter. Last year, a certain amount of fumbling around was inevitable; besides not knowing the NFL game and personnel, he was taking over a Marty Schottenheimer team with no real starting QB and a weak receiving corps. I thought his coaching the Redskins to a 7-9 record wasn’t bad, under the circumstances.

This year, though…he’s got his people, he’s got his system, things aren’t working, but he seems to have decided he doesn’t have to adapt. I also believe that tolerance for mistakes is something that flows from the top down; the scads of penalties with which the Redskins have sabotaged themselves all season long inevitably reflect a coaching failure.

Sure, he’s had injuries, but every NFL team has injuries. I think the O-line, including the TE position, is playing only one backup; the rest were preseason starters. And yet they haven’t been able to protect Ramsey worth a damn.

I think the possibility still exists that Spurrier can still save himself as an NFL coach, but it’s gotta be fast if it’s gonna happen at all. He’s got to be willing to be ruthlessly honest about what his own system can and can’t do in the NFL. He’s got to protect his QB, if he wants to have someone to run his system. He’s got to be willing to be a bit ruthless about getting rid of players who make too many mistakes and don’t take their jobs seriously. And finally, he’s got to realize that even audibling into the perfect play won’t save the team if the line play sucks.

I’m not sure he can do all that. I’m thinking that, by season’s end, this team still won’t look like it’s finding itself, and he’ll be out Snyder’s revolving door. And I think that would be right: if the seeds of future improvement aren’t visible in this team’s last four or five games this year, then there will be no point in giving him a whole 'nother season.

2

I’d say stick a fork in him…he’s done.

The question I have is: Will Snyder whack him before the end of the season or wait until it’s over?

3

Well, whose idea was it to let Stephen Davis go? And it’s also sad when Danny Freaking Wuerffel would rather not play at all than sign with your team.

A friend of mine is a big Skins fan and he’s convinced that at the end of the year, Spurrier is gone. He was really fuming during the game against the Cowboys.

Myself, I think he’ll be back for a third year - but if the Skins don’t make the playoffs then Spurrier is gone.

4

Well, I thought it was right to let Stephen Davis go. He was about to get WAY expensive with no guarantee of long term results from the team.

I say he goes another year after this one. He said he wanted 3 years.

And don’t forget if Snyder cans him he’s on the hook for the remaining 15 million dollars on his contract. That’s ugly.

5

He can still redeem himself, but he won’t. He seems to refuse to acknowledge that an NFL defense will kill you if you don’t run the ball. It seemed like he started out this year with a clue, and then went back to his old ways. If he wanted to, he could adjust and hang around, but I think he’d be happier somewhere where he could throw 55 passes in peace.

6

I think he’s toast. Other teams have figured out how to beat the skins.

Penalties were probably the biggest culprit earlier in the season. And I thought penalty problems were correctable.

But now, it is extremely serious. Re. the O line, the scheme doesn’t seem to work. Putting TE one-on-one repeatedly against Rice during the Bucs game, for instance. There doesn’t seem any hot-read play either. Plus the stupid audibles. A more disturbing fact was during the Cowboys game, apparently on all 4 sacks that Ramsey suffered, all the blockers were in place but they missed their assignments. They can’t even do the fundamentals right.

In short the team exhibits glaring discipline and play-calling problems. And these can be attributed to the coaching staff.

The season isn’t lost yet but it’s hard to turn things around when you haven’t showed up for 10 qtrs. in a row.

The only thing I hope for is for Danny Boy not to do anything before the season ends. And honestly I think they do have good players and should he fire the coach, he should keep the core players intact (like re-signing Bailey, for instance).

7

The NFL is over Spurrier’s head. He’s gotta go back to college, then it’ll be like old times again. Look at Pete Carroll, f’rinstance - he totally bombed out his NFL head jobs (Jets, Patriots) to the point where he became a national laughingstock for his ineptitude. Now that he’s in an environment where the football is not as demanding, and his players are immature enough to respond to his rah-rah act, he has USC back at the top levels of the college ranks. Even if he doesn’t go back to Florida, Spurrier’s a similar type, isn’t he?

8

Stephen Davis may have been getting expensive, but I disagree that there was no evidence of long term results. He’d been a reliable work-horse and had a string of 1000+ yard rushing years.

Look what he’s doing in Carolina. Besides which, bringing in Canidate to replace him was a huge mistake. There were better ways to ease the salary cap if that was their concern.

Most coaches preach that their systems take 3 years to take effect. I don’t think Spurrier changed enough personnel to implement the system he wants, and from what has been implemented it seems obvious that it’s not working.

Based on Snyder’s past history, I think Spurrier is gone after this season and Snyder will eat the loss like he’s done before unless they somehow manage to turn this season around. 3-5, and 0-3 and last place in the division, they’re already pretty much out of even the wildcard race.

9

If Snyder cans him before the end of the season, he may as well sell the team since no self-respecting person will EVER coach for him again.

10

Anyone else wish that they’d just trade Ramsey? It’s painful watching a defense (from any team, take your pick) beat the ever-loving crap out of him every single week. I think he has the potential to be a great QB, but it seems more and more likely that he’ll end up with a career ending injury instead. I’d rather see him go play for a team that can keep him upright.

11

Stephen Davis: I’m a big Stephen Davis fan; IMHO, he was a superb RB for NFC East smashmouth football. (Still is; he’s just not in the NFC East any more.)

But Davis and Spurrier were fundamentally an either-or; Davis was not a RB who fit the Fun N’ Gun. Realistically, a decision to keep Davis would be to undermine the commitment to Spurrier’s approach, and that would have been wrong: if you’re going to try something like the Fun N’ Gun, you can’t do it half-ass.

Firing Spurrier: Please, dear Lord, make Snyder wait until the season is over.

I think that Snyder should make his decision based on how the Redskins play after Thanksgiving, when they play the Saints, the Bears, and the NFC East teams again. If the Redskins can regroup then in a way that suggests they’re starting to figure it out - protecting Ramsey if he’s still alive then, cutting out the dumb penalties, and either winning or being competitive in every game in this stretch - then he should give Spurrier the chance to see if the third year is the charm. But if the Redskins are still in free fall through this stretch, not just losing but being embarrassed and dismembered, then the problems will be deeper than one more offseason can fix, and Spurrier should go.

I personally have a problem with this notion that it generally takes three seasons to see if a coach can do the job. I think expecting a 10-win season (which is usually what will get you into the playoffs) before the third year is asking a bit much, but I don’t think it usually takes that long to tell whether you’re moving in the right direction.

Wuerffel: I think he looked at what was happening to Ramsey, asked himself whether it was worth $300K to have a big helping of that, and decided his health was more important to him.

12

I’m thinking he is not long for the NFL. He said himself that he would leave if he couldn’t produce a winning season (in 2 years or was it 3?)

13

Start the caliopie, the circus is in town! Peter Angelos…er Danny Snyder has started the continuity carousel in DC and it’s time to send in the clowns. Get ready for season after season of losing football, 'skins fans, because Danny Boy’s going to have so many coaches rotating in and out of Dred-Ex field that they may never reach the playoffs again.

And here in B’more we’ll just sit and laugh, and laugh, and laugh…

14

Spurrier? I thought he’d left his position as coach of University of Florida to participate in some godforsaken sport called “professional” football or something.

15

Hey, we laugh right back. Because we figure having an Angelos-owned team in town is worse than no MLB team at all.

At least Snyder, for all his faults (and he’s got many), is trying to win. One of these days, he may start figuring it out. That’s way more than you can say for Angelos.

Snyder has learned a few things, btw. Three years ago, he spent a lot of money on over-the-hill stars like Deion in an attempt to get to the Hyperbole. He learned from that; this year, he spent money on genuinely good players in their prime, addressing specific needs. Now, Snyder clearly had a hard-on for Spurrier back when he was still stuck with Norv. The question is, what will he learn from Spurrier’s failure? That’s really what will determine how fast the Redskins rejoin the land of the living.

16

Then you must be happy indeed, because that’s exactly what you’ve got!

17

I think the Ol’ Ball Coach has at least one more season of grace by Danny in him. Mainly for the reasons Lord Ashtar gave: No one is joining this circus if Danny cans SS after this season, let alone if fires him before X-mas. Unless SS offs himself: which he has been making noises that he might do. In the end, I’d be surprised but not floored if that happened.***

I expect wholesale post-season changes from the, say 5-10 skins – Defensive coaches fired, offensive line guys gone etc. We have seen it before with Norv, Danny forcing assitants to be promoted and fired.

IF they can figure out how to protect the QB and IF they can import some d-linemen and bring in some running in the offseason —big ifs— I would think there will be no similar thread running on the SDMB 11/04/04… Because SS will have a team w. shot at the playoffs late into (next) Dec.

***BTW All this paragraph goes out the window if it is not as reported Snyder simply called Jimmy Johnson to ask how he made the transition from college to the pros, but was more: A. “How did you make that transition? & What would it take to bring you here?” & JJ’s answer wasn’t *"Screw the !!^^^@off" - which I am 99% it would be if the question was asked.

18

The Redskins really aren’t a bad team. Big-play recieving corps (although a top tight end would help), a tough (judging by the world-class ass-kicking he’s been taking), smart, and accurate quarterback, and a running back tandem that has the potential to produce a top-ten running game. If they only had an offensive line that could block an old lady with a walker, they’d be fine.

The key to the Fun n’ Gun working in the pros is going to be the same thing that made it work in college- having the best offensive line.

After three games, Dan Fiore went down (by far the team’s best lineman) and coincidentally, the season fell apart.

Say what you want about Spurrier’s Florida teams, but their offensive lines were ALWAYS key. He had good quarterbacks, but never the best; he had decent receivers to play with, but given the resounding lack of success ex-Florida recievers are having in the pros, they weren’t that good. Spurrier’s offensive lines, though, gave them hours to get open.

The 'Skins are over the cap, but not by much, and even money says they’ll find a way to sign another big-name lineman (Orlando Pace is on a one-year deal with the Rams, and could probably block a pass rush better by himself than the current starting line).

19

Defenses in college are a joke compared to the NFL. Spurrier didn’t understand this when he took the job. He thought his gameplan was strategically sound, but it (apparently) requires a lack of quality opposition to work properly.

I’m a Giants fan, and love watching the Skins go down in flames. But even my heart goes out to Ramsey. I’m rooting for the kid…it pains me to watch Spurrier hang him out to dry.

20

Here’s a quote from this story in today’s Washington Post:

Yipes.

Linemen get injured sometimes, dutchboy; an O-line shouldn’t fall apart just due to one injured lineman. Backups have to be coached to step in. Besides, Ramsey was getting sacked aplenty before Fiore got KO’d for the season. I’d also question whether he’s “the best lineman by far” on the team; he may be best, but Jon Jansen and Chris Samuels are hardly chopped liver.

jimmmy:

There’s that salary-cap problem here, though. Last offseason, they let their best D-lineman go in order to open up room for people like Coles and Fiore. In order to get more D-line and RB talent, where are they going to give up talent?

With the salary cap, you can’t buy topnotch talent at every position. The Redskins have plenty of talent, even if it’s not in the ideal configuration. But at some point, you’ve got to win with what you’ve got. And right now, not only are the Redskins not winning; they’re not even playing competitively.