Redskins Owner Dan Snyder Speaks Up About the Team
When Washington Redskins owner, Daniel M. Snyder speaks to reporters, he doesn’t make any long speeches. After two minutes, they’re over.
He usually uses only one key adjective to describe the current state of the team.
On Thursday, while being surrounded by a mob of reporters with microphones and notepads, Snyder gave his latest, pithy assessment of his team, after a ceremony at the Youth for Tomorrow School, which is funded by Hall of Fame coach
and former Redskins coach and president, Joe Gibbs.
"I'm personally frustrated we're 5-7," Snyder said.
Although it might seem bad, his analysis of the team is better than last year, when he said that he was “apologetic” and “embarrassed.”
Last year, the Skins had a 4-12 record, which is even worse than the 2008 season, when they were 8-8. Two bad seasons in a row led to the firing of Coach Jim Zorn. Over the last decade, the Skins have become a punch line for poor
teams.
Their record was supposed to change this year. Snyder hired new Coach Mike Shanahan, a two time Super Bowl winner, and general manager Bruce Allen, who would restore professionalism. This was to be the end of the Skins being laughingstocks
in the NFL.
However, it’s just the same old story for the third year running.
An almost comical, vacillating argument with Albert Haynesworth has dominated the season, resulting in the linebacker being suspended for the rest of the season. Fans would also wonder why in the world Shanahan benched Donovan
McNabb late in the game, which they lost, against the Detroit Lions. They scratched their heads when Shanahan explained why he benched McNabb like a novice coach. They then scratched their heads again when they extended McNabb’s contract, only to find out
the next day that, according to the fine print, the Skins can cancel the deal at the end of the season.
Besides that, there have been some lesser instances of laughable entertainment from the Skins this season. One such is when the team accidently submitted the wrong name to the inactive list before a game , meaning that someone
who was supposed to play was listed as inactive, and one who wasn’t to play was on the active roster.
But that’s only the beginning. Cornerback DeAngelo Hall threatened to ignore his designated position on defense to cover the opposing team’s top receiver instead. Clinton Portis then insulted journalists saying that he was sorry,
and then said a week later that he meant what he said.
Something is always going on with this team, isn’t it?
"No doubt," cornerback Carlos Rogers said this week. "We'll give you some news, whether it's good or bad. We always seem to have some news."
The news this week is Shanahan suspending Haynesworth for the rest of the season without pay for “conduct detrimental to the club.” Haynesworth is called the biggest of mistakes during the 11 years of Snyder’s free-spending ownership,
seeing as $41 million of his $100 million is already paid.
"I wish it had worked out better," Snyder said Thursday. "I wish he had played better and everybody played better."
That’s all that Snyder had to say about his bad investment. He says that Shanahan is now the person who “speaks for all of us.”
"When you have a new organization in place with Bruce Allen and his team, and coach Shanahan and all new coaches, things take a little time for them to shape what they want to do," Snyder said. "It took Joe Gibbs a year (6-10 in
2004) to get his organization shaped the way he wanted to, and the next year we went to the playoffs and made a good run, and we're looking forward to the same thing with coach Shanahan and Bruce Allen.”
"Obviously where we are right now in the season is not where we want to be, but we're making progress as an organization, and I'm feeling great about Mike and Bruce. They've got great leadership. We're in good hands."
The Skins play their next game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday December 12th at home.
Even though the Skins are 5-7 this year with no chance to go the playoffs, we just hope for luck for Shanahan and the rest of the Redskins squad next year.
Tags: