Rich Tandler's Real Redskins

Redskins ' coaches back owners in labor dispute

If you're paying attention to the NFL labor dispute, you may have heard that the NFL Coach's Association filed a brief with the 8th Circuit Court in support of the NFLPA's attempt to reinstate the injunction that would end the lockout. Today, the Redskins' coaches let it be known that they did not agree. According to the Twitter feed of Albert Breer of the NFL Network, the Redskins coaching staff released a statement on the matter. Per Breer, the letter was signed by 17 coaches and read in part:

We stand united with our ownership and the brief does not reflect our thoughts on the matter. We, like everybody else, are hopeful we can return to playing football.

Breer later tweeted why he thought the Redskins' staff did this:

I do think that a big part of the Redskins coaches' problem here is that they weren't consulted first ... Which is understandable.

Since he also holds the title "Executive Vice President" in addition to head coach, Mike Shanahan is considered to be part of management and did not sign the letter, according to Breer. Update: Here is the full text of the statement:

The Washington Redskins' coaching staff has not given its backing to the brief filed with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the National Football League Coaches Association. Our former representative, Kirk Olivadotti, is no longer with the organization and no member of our coaching staff was consulted prior to this action being taken. We stand united with our ownership and the brief does not reflect our thoughts on the matter. We, like everyone else, are hopeful that we can return to playing football. We look forward to a new CBA and welcoming back our players as soon as possible.

Update 2: See a PDF copy of the letter with signatures here. Interesting to see if any other coaching staffs follow suit.

Fact checking Clinton Portis

Clinton Portis spoke on SiriusXM NFL radio. I wrote a straight news story about on CSN Washington and provided a transcript of the interview here. Here is one more story, taking a look at what Portis said and comparing it to the facts. Quote: "When I wasn’t practicing I was coming out and producing 100 yards, week in and week out." Facts: It seems that the issues with Portis skipping practice on a regular basis started in 2006, when he spend much of the season injured. That year, he played in eight games had one 100-yard game. He played in 16 games each the next two years and he had four 100-yard games in 2007 and six in 2008. Playing in eight and five games in '09 and '10 respectively and his only 100-yard game came in 2009. So that's 12 100-yard games over 53 games played. About once every five games over five years does not quite fit most definitions of "week in and week out." Quote: "I don’t think Al Saunders’ system fit me." Facts: Portis was injured for most of 2006, Saunders' first year as offensive coordinator. He did average just 3.9 yards a carry in 2007, the second-lowest performance of his career in that category. He certainly couldn't complain about a lack of work in '07; he did carry the ball a league-leading 325 times and caught 47 passes fo 389 yards, both career highs. Quote: "I remember raving about it and telling them, ‘we need to get Brandon Lloyd in free agency’. He comes to D. C. and it didn’t pan out. Everybody felt like he couldn’t play and he was over and done with." Facts: As a starting wide receiver in 12 games in 2006, Lloyd had 23 receptions. That is one of the worst performances in NFL history for a starting wide receiver. He caught seven passes in eight games in 2007 before he was injured. He was released the following offseason. In short, there were very good reasons to think that Lloyd was washed up. After catching six passes in 13 games over two years with the Bears and Broncos, he had a Pro Bowl year last season in Denver. We will see if he can keep it up. There is no way of knowing if Portis actually lobbied for Lloyd to come to the Redskins, but the move turned out to be a $10 million mistake. Quote: "If you look back the past two years in D. C., even when I was healthy I was getting six or seven carries a game." Facts: In 2009, Portis played in seven games before getting knocked out for the season early in the eighth game with a concussion. In those seven games, he had 120 carries, or an average of over 17 carries per game. He never had fewer than 12 carries in a single game. Last year he had 54 carries in five games, almost 11 per game. He had 18, 13, 7, 11, and 5 carries in those games. In the last game, he was injured and out for the season in the first half. Quote: "Anything that happened, I think that the Washington media was being so critical of the team. It was hard to really have that team bond because the media would shoot at picking it apart and tearing it apart and so critical even when the good times come. I don’t think Donovan was ready for that, even coming from Philly. I don’t think he understood the position he was coming into." Facts: OK, I suppose that this is more an matter of opinion than it is one of fact. And the members of the D. C. media are not cheerleaders by any stretch of the imagination. But I would seriously doubt that McNabb would agree with Portis' assessment of the Philadelphia media vs. Washington's. And does he really think that the tabloids in New York would treat him with kid gloves?  

Redskins ' 2010 season met expectations

The Washington Redskins' 2010 season turned out just as expected. No, I'm not talking in terms of what many thought that the arrivals of Mike Shanahan as head coach and Donovan McNabb at quarterback would do for the team's playoff prospects. Clearly, the team fell short there. I'm talking about looking at it in retrospect and seeing what their wins and losses should have been by examining how many points they gave up and how many their scored. Expected wins is one of the simpler wonky things that football stats guys use analyze the game. If you want details you can look here but a team's expected winning percentage can be calculated by plugging a team's points scored and points allowed into a formula getting a result that yields a number that is usually very close to the team's actual record in most cases. The actual formula is points scored to a coefficient of 2.37 divided by points scored plus points allowed, both to that same coefficient of 2.37 or PFˆ2.37/(PFˆ2.37 + PAˆ2.37). You don't have to get too deep into the weeds to see the basics of how this works. A team wins games by scoring more points than the other team. Over the course of a season, teams with better records will pile up a substantial point differential. Teams that are near .500 are going to score about as many points as the opposition over 16 games as they win a few then lose a few. Losing teams are going to get outscored and the worse your record the worse your point differential will be. The 2010 Washington Redskins scored 302 points and gave up 377. Plugging those numbers into the expected wins formula you come up with a record of 5.9 wins and 10.1 losses. The formula hit their record right on the money. There are those who point out that the Redskins could have had a better record, that a few points here and there against the Texans, Colts, Vikings, and Cowboys would have turned around that 6-10 record and would have had them in the playoffs. However, these people fail to look at the fact that a few points going the other way at certain points during the game might have turned wins against the Cowboys, Packers, Eagles, and Titans into losses. Any fair appraisal would have to conclude that the breaks evened out. The Redskins were outscored by 75 points. It's very rare to find teams with winning records who are outscored by even, say, 60 points. In fact, no 2010 team that finished with a winning record was outscored over the course of the season. The lowest point differential among teams with winning records was the plus-23 posted by the 10-6 Bucs. If you go by that, Mike Shanahan will have to conjure up a turnaround of about 100 points to get the Redskins into playoff contention. What's the history of the accuracy of expected wins vs. actual wins? Here are the Redskins' expected wins (rounded to the nearest whole number) and actual wins since 1999: 2009: Ex 6, Act 4 2008: Ex 7, Act 8 2007: Ex 9, Act 8 2006: Ex 6, Act 5 2005: Ex 10, Act 10 2004: Ex 7, Act 6 2003: Ex 6, Act 5 2002: Ex 6, Act 7 2001: Ex 6, Act 8 2000: Ex 8, Act 8 1999: Ex 10, Act 10 As you can see, the expected wins formula works pretty well for the Redskins. Only twice since 1999 has the expected wins been more than two off from the actual number of wins and those times it was off by just two. The formula worked fairly well around the rest of the NFC East as well. The Cowboys' points allowed and scored led to an expected seven wins; they won six games. The Giants' expectation was nine and they won 10 while the Eagles should have won nine per the formula and they won ten. All this means is that the Redskins can't rely on getting better bounces of the ball to improve their record. They were what their record said they were. If they are going to get better they will have to score more points and/or allow fewer. It's as simple as that.  

Bruce Allen on free agency, lockout

Bruce Allen spoke to reporters following the dedication of a refurbished athletic field in Petersburg, Virginia on Saturday. Here is a transcript of his Redskins-related remarks. You can read my CSN Washington article on the event here. When can we get football started again? The key is we have to get everyone back together. As soon as we get out of litigation and into negotiation we can reach a collective bargaining agreement. I wish the players and the owners could come to an event like this to see what football means and maybe they’ll see the urgency and the fans at every event we go to. As soon as they go back to the negotiating table, we’ll get a deal. Are you feeling the frustration of the fans? They want us to get better, I know that. When you’re 6-10 they want us to get on the practice field and make sure the players are prepared for the season. It is frustrating but at the same time we understand it. If you aren’t going to sit in a negotiating room it’s very unlikely you’ll get a deal done. When are you ready to get things started again? As soon as possible. I’ve heard the commissioner say he’s available every day. I don’t think you need a federal mediator to tell you that you have to negotiate. It’s unfortunate when they walked away from the table and I hope that everyone’s had their taste of litigation now and realizes that the only way you’re going to have a collective bargaining agreement is through negotiation. What about the undrafted college free agents? When we go through the draft process we identified several players that we want to sign as undrafted free agents. Last year five undrafted free agents made ou5 club and three of them played a great deal of time for us. We still have their names ready and I’m sure they’re itching to go. At least the draft choices know what color they’re going to be wearing. I know they’re itching to go and, again, we’ve got to get the two sides to the negotiating table. What did you mean yesterday when you said talked about the Redskins being “as aggressive as any team” in free agency? The question was, were we capable of it. And, yes, we are capable of it. We’ve identified what we want to do in free agency an as soon as they get a collective bargaining agreement we’ll proceed with our plan. Do you still plan on the team getting younger as you and Mike Shanahan have stated? I think the draft is our statement of our game plan. We added 12 players who are going to infuse youth into every position on our team. I know the coaches are really looking forward to getting those players on the field and getting them up to speed on what Redskins football is. We have some of our own players who are free agents who we are interested in and we want to make sure we have conversations with them also. Did you have conversations with your own free agents’ representatives prior to the lockout? We had an un-lockout, I guess. Our phone bill was really large that day. What about competition for roster spots? Right now we’re really at about 70 players on our roster so there’s not a lot of room on our team. We want to get them on the field and start evaluating what we have and get people up to speed as quickly as possible, especially those draft choices. Will a new CBA have a rookie salary cap? I think everybody on both sides has agreed that that has to be reigned in. My big thing when I was with the mediation back in early March was the alumni. We owe a great deal of gratitude to our alumni. I was proud of the way they proposed to raise their pension by 60 percent. There are so many elements of it that need to be worked out that we had made progress on before they decertified that I want to get back to that point as soon as possible. Some have said that there was considerable tension between the players and owners during the mediation sessions. Not when I was there. I think we were making a lot of progress. When you put people in a room and have them negotiate they tend to get things done. I think when they chose the litigation route it stopped it. What about Washington being in the midst of a quarterback controversy during a lockout? Isn’t it amazing? We have a great tradition in Washington. Billy Kilmer was at the Mark Rypien golf tournament yesterday in Queenstown and we were talking about the same thing. He said, ‘you’ve got a quarterback controversy while you’re in a lockout. That’s impressive.’ A few of our quarterbacks, they all said they want to start, which is what you want players to feel whether it’s that position or a linebacker position. It became a big story because, I think, there’s not much going on. When will training camp begin? We have a plan that has different triggers on it based on every day. We’re hopeful this weekend they’ll come to an agreement. Maybe everyone was waiting for the end of the world today, they didn’t want to waste any time, so maybe they’ll get together tomorrow because we didn’t have the end of the world, then we’d have a deal. What do you think of players-only camp like some Redskins players will be conducting next week? I get to read about that all across the country. One of the things that I talked about that you learn on the field is the camaraderie. You miss that camaraderie. We miss having the players in the building. The players’ sense of humor is completely different from the outside guys’ sense of humor and you miss it. We’re not prepared to go to the outside world right now (joking). And our coaches are tired of yelling at each other. Are coaches yelling at each other? Coach Shanahan has the offense analyzing the defense and the defense analyzing the offense. We’re playing chalkboard games right now. There’s some ‘oh, he would get there for the sack,’ and ‘no, he wouldn’t.’ Is there a risk of the coaches overanalyzing things looking at film during the lockout? The ratings we had on the free agents back in February, we’ve looked at them again to stay fresh. But we’re not going to change the grade, no one has played a game since the tap we already analyzed. We feel pretty good about where our game plan is. It really started with the draft. Everyone talks about following their draft board. This year, we really followed our draft board. Even though it ended up we got three running backs and two receivers, those were the graded players and we wanted to make sure we got them. Because we knew we needed this infusion of talent, and we got a dozen of them.

Rogers is burning some bridges

The members of the media covering the Redskins have grown to appreciate Carlos Rogers' candor. Ten minutes or fifteen minutes at his locker every Wednesday or Thursday almost always yielded more than the canned responses that typically came from the other players. Reporters would walk away from sessions with Rogers with a voice recorder full of useful and insightful quotes. Sometimes, however, it is best to leave some things unsaid. In an interview with David Elfin, writer for 106.7 The Fan's website, Rogers perhaps got a bit too candid and finished off burning what was left of the bridge he had to most Redskins fans. Talking about his status as an unrestricted free agent when the lockout ends, Rogers said that he wouldn't mind joining up with one of the Redskins' division rivals. "You hear that the Cowboys and Eagles are looking for a corner," said Rogers. It would be fun to play against the Redskins twice a year.” The mere mention of wanting to play for the Eagles and, especially, the Cowboys, has raised the hackles of many who already were up over Rogers' notorious problems with holding on to opponents passes. This was not Rogers' first statement that did not do much to endear him to Redskins fans. "Sometimes when you're at home you feel you're away. You get so bashed at home for any little mistake," he said last December. "We come to the bench, it's cussing, it's this, it's that and we're just in the first quarter. Sometimes when we're away we don't even hear that. I think we play better away so the fans are quieter." In talking to Elfin, Rogers also engaged in a little bit of whining by saying, “I don’t think I’ve been as appreciated as I should be in that organization, not by everybody. I’ve always been the No. 2 corner, but I’m the one they put on a guy they want to shut down. I just don’t have the interceptions like (current fellow starting corner DeAngelo Hall) has and Shawn (Springs, Hall’s predecessor) used to have." He reiterated those comments a bit later, taking more direct aim at Hall in the process. In a text message to Chris Russell that ESPN 980's Redskins reporter relayed via Twitter, Rogers said, "I wasn't the corner that gave up the most TD's or yards or first downs, but I'm the corner . . .  that is looked at (as) the 2nd corner, (that) I need to be replaced." It doesn't seem so much that the Redskins can't wait to replace Rogers. Unless Byron Westbrook or Kevin Barnes takes a quantum leap from last year to this year, there isn't a ready replacement on the roster. Phillip Buchanon, the nickel back who started last year when Rogers was out injured, also is a free agent. There are few appealing free agent prospects. Nnamdi Asomugha probably will prove to be too expensive. Perhaps they can get a few quality years out of someone like Ike Taylor or Ellis Hobbs but we're talking about a  replacement-level stopgap at best. The issue that the Redskins have to be considering is Rogers' age combined with the amount of guaranteed money he is looking for. Given the paucity of starting-caliber corners on the market, Rogers could command in excess of $20 million in guaranteed money. If his performance starts to fade as he gets into his 30's, the Redskins could be stuck with another big contract that will eat up cap space and be hard to get rid of. Some teams might be in a position where they can afford to do that. The Redskins are trying to get away from such practices. Rogers is not going to offer a hometown discount, which certainly is his right. This will be his one shot at getting a big deal and you can't blame him for going for every dollar he can. Going for every dollar he can get is a good business decision for Rogers. But he seems to have some difficulty in seeing that the Redskins will be making a business decision about signing him. Update: On a radio appearance on 106.7 on Thursday morning, Rogers said that he and Hall were good friends. Update 2: Hall just tweeted the following, apparently in response to what Rogers said:

I was never focused on who was the #1 corner on our team. Just focused on tryna WIn Games! Hope all of my teammates feel the same way!

Dan Snyder was not on SiriusXM radio

There is a report in Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback article about a draft day trade between the Redskins and the Steelers that fell though because the player the Steelers wanted wasn't there. The source for this was an interview that Dan Snyder supposedly conducted on Sirius XM Radio. However, there is a problem with this. According to both media relations at Sirus XM and the Redskins PR department, Snyder has not been on Sirius XM radio since the draft. A tweet by Steelers reporter Jim Wexell of Scout.com's SteelCityInsider.com appeared to be the origin of King's report. Update: Per a tweet by official Redskins blogger Matt Terl, the report that the Redskins had agreed to the trade discussed by King, which would have had the Steelers moving up from the 31st pick to the 16th, was "inaccurate." Update: Wexell tweeted a retraction:

The Redskins have denied alleged plans for a draft-day trade with the Steelers. My apologies.

Update 2: King has since corrected the MMQB column:

A tale of two McNabb tales

There have been two stories involving Donovan McNabb that have come out in the past two days. In one of them, what happened is clear. Boxer Bernard Hopkins told reporters that McNabb was "tan," not black because of the quarterback's middle-class upbringing. There is no dispute that Hopkins, an Eagles fan, said this since his remarks took place at a press conference with cameras present. We have the recording. Hopkins' comments drew near-universal condemnation and a denial from McNabb's agent. Generally, the reporting and blogging on all of this was pretty straight forward, although one site went over the line a big with this headline: Boxer Bernard Hopkins: Donovan McNabb Is A House-Negro Hopkins never said that and the headline was clearly made to be provocative. The other incident, of course, is the report that McNabb refused Mike Shanahan's request to wear a wristband in order to help him call the plays in the huddle. If you're not familiar with the story and the followup denials, this my third straight post on the subject so you can look here and here. The story was originally reported by the Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan in Washington. They cited anonymous sources who they believed to be very credible for the story. Subsequent reports from Chis Russell of ESPN 980 and Kelli Johnson of Comcast SportsNet (disclosure: CSN Washington owns this site and employs me) said that their sources said that the story was untrue. Brian Mitchell, who also is a host on 106.7, tweeted that he had talked to McNabb and that he had denied that this ever took place. The dueling reports (including me saying in a post in a comments of the first post on the subject that I was 99% sure that the story was true) became good lockout-time fodder first for Dan Steinberg on the DC Sports Bog and then for Mike Florio in Pro Football Talk (more disclosure: PFT is owned by NBC Sports, which is affiliated with CSN Washington). Meanwhile, Redskins fans don't know what's up. I suppose it's nice to have dueling sources from which to choose so that you can choose whichever story fits your point of view. But it doesn't do much to advance knowledge about the team. Perhaps all of this would not have come up if the NFl was not in lockout mode, making for an extremely slow news period. It's hard to say for sure but it seems to me that this would be a pretty interesting little nugget no matter what else was going on. There have been complaints from fans that this all was ginned up to generate ratings and page views and the like. I can only speak for myself, but that point of view is putting the cart before the horse. I wrote about it because I thought that people were interested in it. Yes, that interest generates clicks and as this blog is now part of a business that keeps a very close eye on such metrics so those clicks are important. But if people aren't interested in reading about the subject you can hope for page views but they just won't happen.

Report: McNabb refused to wear wrist band

This morning on 106.7 FM The Fan, Sports Junkies said that according to several anonymous but reliable sources, Mike Shanahan asked Donovan McNabb to wear a wristband on the field to help with calling plays and that McNabb refused to do so. They didn't know exactly when this took place and some other details were unclear. Although at times the Junkies will pass along things that callers said and other rumors, this appeared to be pretty solid although not fully substantiated. McNabb reportedly refused to wear the wrist band because he thought it would make him look stupid. Problems with McNabb grasping the offense were among many reasons cited for Shanahan's unhappiness with the quarterback he gave up second- and fourth-round picks to acquire from the Eagles last year. It's not hard to figure that Shanahan would be further annoyed if McNabb did indeed refuse to participate in a potential solution to that problem. If the story is true, it certainly explains the benching of McNabb in the last two minutes of the loss to Detroit and his removal from the lineup for the last three games. It also should disabuse anyone of the notion that, barring unforeseen circumstances, the relationship between McNabb and the Redskins/Shanahan, is in any way repairable.

Orakpo, Fisher endorse Young

Brian Orakpo and Vince Young were teammates at Texas and there are rumors that they might be teammates again in Washington. Orakpo was asked about Young before the charity golf tournament that the Redskins linebacker hosted on Monday. At first his response was rather tepid:

As far as football and what he’s gonna do in the future, haven’t really gotten that aspect of it, but I wish him the best and we’ll see. I mean, it’s all speculation. We really can’t tell what’s gonna go on.

A little later on, though, his praise for Young, who led the Longhorns to the BCS title following the 2005 season, warmed up a bit.

He was a great player, great leader for our team for the time when I was there in Texas. He’s so athletic and he’s a great, great competitor, man, a great playmaker. Obviously things haven’t been going well for him in his NFL career, but he’s still a young kid, a young guy, and he still has a future ahead of him. Any team that picks him up, man, I know what type of player [he is]. Once you get the best out of the man, and forget all the hoopla surrounding him, he’s gonna be a hell of a player.

Although one would expect Orakpo to offer an endorsement of a fellow Texas alumnus, this seemed sincere rather than perfunctory. Players, of course, don't make these decisions but if Mike Shanahan does decide to take a chance on Young, someone like Orakpo could be critical to helping to sell the move to the rest of the players in the locker room. Former Titans coach Jeff Fisher, who had numerous clashes with Young during their five years together in Tennessee, was positive about his former QB's future in the NFL as well. Here is what he told NFL.com:

Vince has won a lot of games; he’s led teams to the playoffs before. I believe he can (win in the NFL). It’s just a matter of him finding a place that suits him and be in the right place and work hard. But he certainly has that ability.

It would be a mistake to read too much into this as it is likely that Fisher was just taking the high road. Rest assured that Fisher and Shanahan will have an extended conversation about VY prior to the Redskins making any decision about offering him a contract.  

Teams contacting undrafted free agents

Pro Football Weekly is reporting that some NFL teams have contacted undrafted players and their agents about contracts, something that the NFL has confirmed would, if true, be a violation of the NFL's lockout rules. Some of the terms of the NFL lockout are just plain dumb. The fact that none of the Redskins' PR staff could help the media in getting access to some players at a charity golf event on Monday was silly. The rule regarding undrafted free agents, however, should be strictly enforced. If you have a few rogue teams recruiting prospects while it is prohibited, the teams that are playing by the rules will be at a distinct disadvantage when they are legitimately allowed to begin negotiating with the players. The PFW story did not name teams involved. An article in the Columbia (Mo.) Tribune did. The paper said that the Ravens, Dolphins, and Bengals all contacted Missouri center Tim Barnes. Spokesmen for all three teams said that they were not aware of any contact with undrafted players on the part of their teams. This is not surprising as PR staff members generally are not informed of such happenings. According to the PFW account, contact was generally made via private cell phones, making it difficult to trace the number back to the club. Teams found guilty of contacting undrafted players could be fined or be stripped of draft picks. It is important that there is a level playing field when the legitimate market for those players opens up so we hope that any teams who are proven to have violated the rules are dealt with harshly.