Rich Tandler's Real Redskins

Shanahan: 'This is a different football team'

Redskins eager to face Bills

Redskins: Furloughs, pay cuts ' to be determied '

While many NFL teams such as the Jets have announced that they are putting non-football staff members on furloughs to reduce costs during the NFL lockout and others like the Lions have said that they will not be trimming personnel costs. So far, the Redskins have said neither. When asked at the NFL owners meetings in New Orleans  about the possibility of layoffs, furloughs, or having assistant coaches work for reduced pay, team spokesman Tony Wylie said, "That is all yet to be determined. We have not made any decision on any of that." So, right now the status quo prevails at Redskins Park. Clearly, however, the organization is leaving its options open and should the April 6 court hearing not result in an injunction that ends the lockout, cost-saving measures could be implemented. One would think that the Redskins will tread very lightly here. Dan Snyder has been the target of plenty of negative publicity after suing the City Paper over an article published about him and for a host of other perceived misdeeds over the years. The owner of one of the most profitable teams in all of sports does not need to add more fuel to the fire by saving a relatively small amount of money by throwing non-football staffers out in the street.

Von Miller a plaintiff in NFLPA lawsuit

Quarterbacks Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and Peyton Manning are the best-known names among the eight current NFL players named as plaintiffs on the NFLPA's antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League. Other players, including Vincent Jackson and Logan Mankins, are well known by most fans of the game. Some, such as Ben Leber, aren't even household names in their own households. There is a ninth plaintiff, a "prospective professional football player" according to the filing. That player is known to most fans who keep up on the top players available in the upcoming NFL draft. That prospective professional football player is Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller. Miller is expected to be picked very early in the draft, probably in the top 10 selections. He is an athletic linebacker who can bring a lot of heat on the opposing quarterbacks. In what has become a passing league, such players are highly valued. Miller is included in the lawsuit to challenge the validity of the 2011 NFL draft as well as any rookie salary cap that the league may try to impose on the players drafted absent a collective bargaining agreement. While it may be courageous of Miller to join in the legal action, one has to wonder if it is the smartest career move for him. Joining a class action suit against your future employer before you are even hired has to be considered a risky move. If even one team decides not to select Miller because they don't want to try to draft and negotiate with a plaintiff or aren't particularly interested in hiring a rookie who may well be distracted by by legal proceedings he will lose millions of dollars. A slide further back could cost him tens of millions. No question that Miller will earn the gratitude of his future teammates and respect from the players around the league. But you can't spend gratitude and respect. Miller has chosen to risk a lot for what may be very little gain. Of course, that has been the theme of the whole CBA negotiation to date. Both sides in the dispute are taking high risks with the possibility of seeing very little in the way of a reward. The difference is that the owners and players like Brady and Manning already have cashed in. Miller has yet to make a dime from the NFL. Is Miller being courageous or foolhardy? Time will tell.

An upset in the making?

Forget about the Jets over the Colts in Super Bowl III and the Giants spoiling the Patriots' perfect season in the Super Bowl a few years ago. We could be on the verge of seeing one of the biggest upsets in NFL history. It appears that the NFL owners and players just might be headed to an agreement that would end a possible lockout before it ever really gets started. According to Mike Silver of Yahoo! Sports and some other sources, a dramatic turnaround has taken place that may, just may, lead to a new collective bargaining agreement sooner than anyone thought. With both sides seemingly focused on winning rather than on coming to a reasonable compromise, thinks looked bleak going into yesterday's 11th-hour mediation session. The over/under line for getting a deal done is sometime in August or early September. Even the most optimistic observers thought that it would be great if something could get done before the the April 28 draft. And you didn't have to be too far on the doom and gloom side to see at least some of the season being lost to the labor strife. But things turned around yesterday. Until Thursday, the owners line has been that the players had to take the billion-dollar per year pay cut, play 18 regular-season games, and take their proposal for a rookie salary cap or go pound sand. But, for reasons unknown but that we will speculate on in a minute, the owners made some meaningful concessions. That sparked some hope, leading to the 24-hour extension. It seems that the owners were spooked by the prospect of bringing the case to the courts, especially the court of Judge David Doty, whose rulings generally have not gone in favor of the owners. With the union set to decertify, the owners faced the prospect of the whole process being thrown to the courts, where they would lose control of the process. And if there is one thing that a business person hates it is not being in control. So they will take a shot at actually negotiating instead of trying to pound the players into submission. We will know by the end of the day today whether or not there will be labor peace or if all hell will break loose. Silver said, "if such an announcement [of another extension of 1-2 weeks] is made, both sides would view that as an almost ironclad statement that a deal is forthcoming – and a work stoppage will have been averted." That would be good news for all involved.

Free agency deadline still Thursday at midnight

The extra 24 hours that the NFL owners and players agreed give themselves to try to decide on an new collective bargaining agreement (or, more accurately, more time to negotiate another extension) will not change the free agency rules. According to Adam Schefter, the extension is just a negotiating extension. The deadline to sign free agents, waive players, and conduct any other player moves that were permitted prior to the start of the new league year remains at midnight on Thursday. After that, no player moves will be permitted until the labor issue has been resolved. The signing of O. J. Atogwe apparently will have to satisfy the free agency hunger of the Redskins fans for a while, perhaps for a long while.

Snyder on ' second line ' of owners in labor talks

According to a Pro Football Weekly article by Eric Edholm, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is not in the forefront of the NFL's labor negotiations but he is still an active part in the negotiations as a part of what Edholm called "the second wave. Here is how Snyder's role was described.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder — As one of the NFL's richer and more well-known owners, running the NFL's second-most profitable franchise, Snyder automatically qualifies as a prominent voice. He might have his share of detractors at times, but Snyder's unquestioned business sense and ice-cold, unemotional instincts have a place in the negotiation process, as far as the other owners are concerned. (Translation: He doesn't mind being the bad guy at times.)

The article also said that Snyder has a degree of respect among the owners because he's a self-made millionaire who knows how to cut a deal. It also is noted that general manager Bruce Allen has been playing an active role in the talks lately. The article is worth a look.

A ray of sunshine in NFL labor talks?

There is talk that there might be an extension of deadline for the NFL and the players' association to cut a deal. According to multiple sources on Twitter and Adam Schefter speaking on SportsCenter just a few minutes ago, the two sides are discussing pushing back the start of the league year in order to give some more time to work out a new collective bargaining agreement. Don Banks of Sports Illustrated quoted a source who said that the extension talks are "legit but fragile". The fact that an extension is being discussed implies that there is some progress being made in the talks. If there wasn't some give and take going on, which has been notably lacking to date, there would be no reason to to extend the agreement. An offer by the owners to show some financial information may have been the impetus to getting the two sides to talk about extending the deadline. Apparently, the owners have offered the extension and the players are considering it. Multiple extensions were agreed to in 2006, the last time the CBA was being negotiated. The eventually did get an agreement.

Real Email: The Campbell trade

I get a good amount of email and I do answer every one of them. However, sometimes I have an answer to a question that a lot of people might like to know. Or I have a take that some of you out there would appreciate. Or readers have interesting things to say. In response to this, I am going to do a regular mailbag article. Today is the first. I'd like to do it weekly but if the inbox isn't filling up I won't be able to. So please feel free to send me your questions and comments at RTandlerCSN@comcast.net. I'll still respond to the your email as soon as I can but I'll also take the best of them to post here. In response to my article about the 2006 draft, Mike asked:

I am not clear what did they actually trade to get Campbell - in one part of the article you say a 1st and 3rd - then later a 4th with teh 3rd going for Lloyd?  Not sure what the actual cost was for Campbell - of course one 2nd rounder would have been too much!

Just before the 2005 draft, the Redskins sent their third round pick in that draft and their first- and fourth-round picks in the 2006 draft to Denver. Washington got the Broncos' first round pick in 2005. That selection was the 25th overall and the Redskins took Jason Campbell. Also responding to that same article about the '06 draft, B said:

i dont think you need to wait four years to do 2008 - just give it the F now for going 1 for 10 (fred davis) in a draft that is so loaded with talent.  Remember, skins had the 21st pick and traded down - they passed up chris johnson and mendenhall there, not to mention desean jackson, ray rice, jamaal charles, mario manningham, mike jenkins, jermichael finley, peyton hillis, justin forsett...devastating

I crunched some numbers on the performance on the Redskins' special teams under Danny Smith. That prompted a passionate response from David, who said in part:

Finally someone has backed up what I have been saying (and feeling) for quite a while now.  DANNY SMITH MUST GO>>>  Al of his phony rah rah on the side line can only be taken for so long.  What is the fascination with this guy.  Every season you can find there are holes in the skins special teams that can be directly traced back to a hard headed coach.

Tyler is big supporter of Ryan Torain and he put his artistic talents to work: Ryan Torain will have a full offseason to work out and review game tape to see what he needs to improve on at game time. Should he stay healthy throughout training camp, there’s really no reason he won’t be our starting RB this year. If he can stay healthy/be healthier than 2010, as a starter (knocking on a bowling pin, the only wood here in my office), I believe he won’t have a problem rushing for over 1000 yards (400 receiving) AND reach the Pro-Bowl (it’s a stretch but I like what I see). With that said… (and should the season start out well) Torain needs a nickname. I submit… Finally, Eric sent in an excellent essay about Mike Shanahan. It's too long to post in its entirety, but here is a link: In Defense of Shanahan

Even the best card player can’t win every hand. Shanny picked up a hand that was growing progressively worse for years before he got here. There was and is a ton of impatience, frustration, judging, and condemnation going around Redskins’ nation. A winning team will change that. But which comes first, the winning attitude or the winning? And who has to pick up the winning attitude first? The fans? The local sports writers? The players? The coaches? Who knows? But once they start, they self perpetuate each other. The fans would do themselves a great favor, and the media would do everyone a great favor, by treating this coach supportively, and with dignity and respect. What are we trying to prove? That we can destroy any coach’s resume? If Gibbs can’t succeed again then Shanahan can’t either? We told you so!? Exactly what does that kind of thinking serve? I’ll tell you. It creates a negative air around the Redskins, and it is hard to create a winning environment in psychically tainted air.

Redskins 2010 offense lacked drive time

You know that football is a team game but most think of that concept in terms of the players on offense meshing together to execute a play or each defensive player taking care of his assignment, flowing to the ball, and making the stop. But the performance of each unit cannot be viewed in isolation. Issues on one side of the ball can manifest themselves on the other side. A look at some of the numbers from the performance last year’s Washington Redskins reveals this concept. The Redskins’ defense in 2010 was one of the worst in team history in terms of yardage given up. In fact, the 6,228 yards they gave up is the highest single-season total in team history. The defense had its issues, from issues adjusting to the 3-4 defense to injuries to some players who just weren’t good enough. But to be that spectacularly bad you have to have some “help”. And there is some evidence that the Redskins’ offense helped drag down the team’s defense by making them work too much. A quick glance at the statistics would make you believe that the Washington offense was garden variety mediocre. They were 18^th in yards gained with 5,392. But the Redskins should have done better offensively given the number of chances they had. Over the course of the year, they had 200 offensive possessions (Note: Kneel downs at the end of the half and game do not count as possessions or drives). That’s second-most in the NFL, just behind the Giants who had 201. But the Redskins did not do much when they had the ball. They ran 1,002 plays, an average of five plays per drive. Only two teams—the Cardinals and the Panthers at 4.9 plays per possession—did worse. Washington also was among the league’s worst in burning off the clock in each possession. The Redskins averaged 2.3 minutes of possession per drive, again the second-worst number in the league just ahead of Carolina and Arizona who averaged 2.2 minutes per drive. The average NFL drive consumed 2.7 minutes. If the offense has a lot of possessions then it follows that team’s defense has to defend a lot of the other team’s possessions (since nearly every time an offensive possession ends the defense goes onto the field). The Redskins defended 198 possessions, second in the league only to the Raiders at 202. Once the Redskins defense was on the field, they did a pretty good job of getting back on the sideline. Opponents averaged 5.3 plays per drive against them, tied for fifth fewest in the league. The other team burned off 2.7 minutes per drive, tied for 15^th in the NFL. The bottom line is that the Redskins’ defense did OK each time it took the field. But they had to take the field so often that the average performance per drive added up to a ton of yardage being given up. Now, to be sure, the Redskins defense did not perform great in terms of yardage given up, even on a per drive basis. They gave up an average of 31.5 yards each time they took the field, 24^th in the league. This defense would not be the 1985 Bears unit if not for an inefficient offense. But football is the ultimate team game and any weakness will manifest itself in a number of ways. When looking at offensive and defensive statistics it is important to remember that each set of numbers does not result from performances in totally separate universes. You can reach Rich Tandler by email at RTandlerCSN@comcast.net and follow him on Twitter @RealRedskins. Join Rich for a chat during both of the conference championship games this Sunday, Jan. 23. We can talk about the games, try to figure out how the Redskins beat both of the NFC finalists, discuss the Redskins’ prospects in free agency and in the draft, and anything else you want to chat about. Things will get underway at www.RealRedskins.com when the NFC game kicks off at 3:00 and go all the way through Jets-Steelers whenever that may end. See you there!