Rich Tandler's Real Redskins

The Trade: After further review

This isn't about to become all Jason Taylor all the time, but with things settling back to normal at Redskins Park as the grind of training camp sets in, it's a good time to take one last look back at the trade that brought him to Washington.

The more I think about it, the more I like it.

I'm not yet drinking the Kool-Aid, but it's better than I thought it was at first blush. What I like is that it makes the Redskins better right now. And, if you look at what they gave up the way that the NFL's movers and shakers do on draft day, it's not as steep as it seems.

When trades involving draft picks are made, selections in future years are devalued by a round. For example, when the Redskins traded for the pick to draft Chris Cooley, they gave up a 2005 second-rounder to get the 2004 third. That's standard practice since the receiving team gets the use of the player for a year before having to pay for him.

So, since there is a football season in between now and the time that the Redskins will pay for the pickup of Taylor, you could say that the Redskins gave up the equivalent of a third-round pick (the '10 sixth gets devalued down to an undrafted free agent) for Jason Taylor.

That's a homeristic slant, no doubt, but there is some legitimacy to it.

The Redskins are now in a box

The major negative in the deal is that it's the only one the Redskins can make this year. They are out of cap room. Their stock of '09 draft picks is drying up. Should they find themselves in need at another position, such as cornerback, they're stuck either making do with what they have or they will have to put street free agents into uniform and give them meaningful playing time.

Then again, maybe it's a good idea for this bunch to have its hands tied, what with Brett Favre actively being shopped by the Packers. Plus you never know when the Bengals will tire of Chad Johnson's antics. The Taylor trade wasn't disastrous and now Vinny Cerrato and company don't have any more matches with which to play.

Time will tell

Of course, we won't definitively know if this was a good deal or a colossal blunder until sometime in the future. If Taylor plays for three years and he gets double-digit sacks each year the feeling will be that the Redskins got a reasonable return on their investment of picks and money. If they get less than that out of Taylor, the view will be that they, once again, paid a high price to bring on an aging star just as he started to hit the downside of his career.

Taylor trade gets thumbs up in media

The trade of Jason Taylor to the Washington Redskins is being hailed as a master stroke by many in the national and local media.

Peter King on SI.com wrote, "I have to hand it to Snyder and Cerrato. This was a very good trade for them."

King, a noted Skins basher, raved on:

The reason the Washington trade makes so much sense is that even if Taylor gives the 'Skins just two years, dealing the 51st pick (that was their second-rounder this year) for two seasons of a top-five pass-rusher would be worth it to any thinking football person.

The King article also goes into the timeline of the trade. From initial phone call to final paperwork, the process took a little over three hours.

On ESPN.com, John Clayton said:

For the Redskins, the price -- second- and sixth-round draft picks -- was worth it. Defensive end was their thinnest position. The first-day practice losses of Phillip Daniels and Alex Buzbee on Sunday left them with only nine healthy defensive linemen. Erasmus James is the 10th defensive lineman left on the roster, but he's on the physically unable to perform list recovering from years of knee problems.

I'm not sure from where Clayton got the number of nine for the healthy defensive linemen. After Sunday's injuries and before the Taylor trade there were 12 of them on the roster. Subtract James and that makes 11. Perhaps he's not counting Lorenzo Alexander, who worked mostly on offense last year but has been assigned to be a defensive tackle for the time being.

Locally, Mike Wise had this take:

This was big and bold -- back to the proactive days when rebuilding through the draft could not hold a candle to rebuilding on the fly, when Daniel Snyder saw a player he liked and promptly bought him.

And before anyone compares acquiring Taylor to throwing money away on Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith or Brandon Lloyd, let's be clear: After watching Daniels go down and out for the season -- and maybe his career -- and after watching a backup like Buzbee crumple to the ground in agony, this was a move the Redskins needed to make.

It was a move the Redskins needed to make, said Wise, because of the way they have handled the acquisition of talent on the D-line in the past:

If Taylor fizzles, the Redskins have to bite the bullet and realize they put themselves in this position long before Daniels went down.

By their own doing, they neglected real upgrades to the defensive line. Andre Carter was the only bona fide change the past five years. Demetric Evans and Anthony Montgomery have yet to realize their potential.

I disagree about Montgomery—I think that he took great leaps and bounds forward last year—but his overall point is valid.

To be clear, I don't necessarily think that they should have taken Calais Campbell or Quentin Groves in the second round of the draft. I stand by my point that the biggest problem this team has had this decade is scoring points, not preventing the other team from scoring.

Still, if one injury to a starter at one position forces you to make a trade that burns a second and a sixth and over $8 million in cap space you haven't done a very good job in building depth at that position. You can nitpick over what player should have been taken over which other player with a given draft pick, but having depth means that you have someone who can step in as a starter in the event of an injury. The Redskins, by their own admission, didn't have that depth.

Even David Elfin at the Times, who never has been accused of being a homer, liked the deal:

Q: Did the Redskins mortgage the future to make this move?

A: Not unless you consider a second-round draft choice in 2009 and a sixth-rounder in 2010 plus a lot of salary cap room consumed this year and next mortgaging the future. If Taylor makes a smooth switch from the right side to the left, it seems like a no-brainer.

I don't know about the characterization as a no-brainer, but Vinny Cerrato and company certainly acted as though it was one. No doubt, however, it was a bold move and like most bold moves it's likely that it will prove to be either a master stroke or a colossal blunder.

Time will tell.

An improved atmosphere in Ashburn?

Rarely has one paragraph contained so much fodder for a blog post. First, here's the whole thing from the Pro Football Weekly website and then I'll parse it line by line:

Our sources tell us that there has been far less friction in Redskins Park so far this offseason since Jim Zorn has taken over. The root of the earlier stress, we are told, was Gregg Williams, who at times seemed to undermine the authority of Joe Gibbs, creating an awkward work environment at times. Zorn, we are told, has earned the respect of the veterans and is being treated as a nice guy who is not a pushover and is both competitive and intense.

First and foremost here, be wary of the "sources". They didn't say anything about "sources at Redskins Park" or "team sources" or anything like that. This probably means that this information is secondhand at best.

That doesn't mean that what's said in the blurb isn't true; in fact, it's going to be granted some credibility here for the purpose of discussion. If I can accomplish anything with this blog, however, I want Redskins fans to be educated consumers when it comes to the media. While we're going to keep the vague nature of the source in mind, we're going to proceed on the basis that he staff at PFW didn't make it up out of thin air or use the guy who mops the floors at Redskins Park as their source.

So, with that in mind, here's how I see it:

Far less friction at Redskins Park

I wasn't under the impression that there was all that much friction among the coaches and the team. In fact, I thought that Joe Gibbs worked to build a consensus rather than taking on a more confrontational style. Certainly there were some moments of public discord, such as the 10-man defense tribute to Sean Taylor that Gregg Williams approved without Gibbs' consent. In the big picture, however, when they weren't on the same page it was due more to excessive delegation and problems with clarity in roles than to in-house conflicts.

Still, it would be a major upset if things weren't calmer at Redskins Park now. The team has yet to face a four-game losing streak under Jim Zorn. The new coach hasn't yet dealt with the inevitable quarterback controversy. A potential vs. experience roster decision won't have to be made for another six weeks or so. Check back in mid October to see if things really are different.

Gregg Williams the root of the stress

Did Gregg Williams overstep his bounds on a regular basis? I don't know, but my common sense tells me that the 10-man defense was the most public example of Williams overreaching his authority, but not the first and only time he did so. One usually doesn't start out pushing his boundaries with something major like that; you work your way up to it.

Is it possible that Williams acting as though he already was the head coach cost him his shot at the real job when it came up? Again, it's just speculation here, but I have to think that he had enough such moments to badly damage his chances.

Zorn a nice guy, but not a pushover

The line between being the good guy without being the softie is very fine and is very difficult to navigate. It's easier when the toughest challenges you face are a rookie tight end oversleeping and missing a minicamp practice and a veteran receiver missing a voluntary workout due to having partied like a rock star the previous weekend. It's quite another when players get in trouble with the law or when team rules are broken during the regular season. That's when Zorn's approach truly will be tested.

Fortunately for Zorn, he inherited a roster populated mostly with high-character guys who won't test him. However, it takes only one or two events either to establish his authority or to undermine it altogether.

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Santana Moss —X-man

Santana Moss is going home.

No, he's not going back to Miami or even to New York.

According to my friend John Keim at the DC Examiner, he's returning to the X-receiver position, the spot where he has enjoyed his greatest success in the NFL.

The two wide receiver spots on the Washington Redskins (and, generally, around the NFL) are labeled the Z, or flanker position, and the X, the split end. In most two-receiver formations, the Z lines up on the same side of the field as the tight end while the X is alone on the other side.

The X receiver has more room to operate and can generally use his speed more to his advantage. The Z is the more physical spot, the one that has to work in traffic.

In 2005, when Moss set the Redskins team record with 1,483 yards receiving, he played the X spot. When the Skins acquired Antwaan Randle El and Brandon Lloyd, they put those two in the X and moved Santana to Z.

In his two seasons in that position, Moss has just over 100 more yards combined (1,598) than he did in that one Pro Bowl year.

I'm sure that Joe Gibbs and Al Saunders had their reason for moving Moss, listed at 5-10 but in reality not that tall, to the more physical flanker spot. But moving him back to the X certainly doesn't qualify as an act of genius on the part of Jim Zorn.

Zorn in an awkward spot

Bob Molinaro, Washington Redskins reporter for the Virginian-Pilot in Tidewater, did a Q&A with Jim Zorn when the Skins were down in Virginia Beach for their annual Beach Blitz.

Certainly, nothing earth-shattering was revealed in the interview. I did, however, find one of Zorn's answers interesting because it pointed out a challenge that he faces that most other rookie coaches don't have to deal with.

Here is the exchange:

Will your system make Campbell a better quarterback?

I just cringe answering a question like that, because it might imply that the staff before me failed, and that's not it at all.

Usually, when a new coach takes over he doesn't have to tiptoe around making sure that he doesn't say anything that could be interpreted as a knock on his predecessor. Sure, you don't want to go around slamming the guy you replaced, but by the same token you don't have to be guarded in any implied criticism.

However, most new head coaches aren't replacing legends with busts in Canton, Ohio. In fact, Zorn is in a spot where few, if any, have been before.

He's replacing Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls here in his first run. While his second run wasn't as successful, he helped get the Skins back on the right track. On top of all that, he's a better person than he is a football coach.

Now, many who followed the team through the glory years and the more recent so-so comeback—present company included—have had some critical things to say about the way Gibbs coached in his comeback.

But that would be vastly different from Jim Zorn coming in and going negative on Coach Joe. We have been here, watching every play of every game, following every event from week to week, month to month, year to year. We've earned the right to take issue with the Hall of Famer.

Zorn, on the other hand, has been hanging out on the Left Coast for most of the past few decades. He hasn't been here so he hasn't built the credibility to be critical of what Gibbs did and didn't do.

And, no doubt, behind closed doors, Zorn occasionally wonders, "What the hell was he thinking?" when watching film. Every once in a while he's talking to a player who was here last year and wants to say, "He wanted you do it that way?" And, behind closed doors, Zorn might let such comments pass through his lips.

That doesn't mean that Zorn thinks he's smarter than Gibbs or that he knows more than Gibbs. Different coaches have different ways of getting things done and it's natural that what one coach thinks makes perfect sense would have another coach rolling his eyes

But in public, talking to reporters, he has to be very careful not to let anything slip. For the next several months, well into the season, Zorn will continue to "cringe" every time he gets a question that involves an answer that could be phrased in a way that might be considered to be a knock at the way Joe Gibbs did things.

Zorn is just starting to live down the "maroon and black" gaffe. He doesn't need to make another verbal misstep. It's obvious that he's being consciously careful not to.