The question has been asked time and time again. What is wrong with the Redskins defense? There doesn’t seem to be any simple answers. Aside from a few personnel changes, the defensive players and system remain the same as last year’s dominate defense. So what the hell is going on here?
Obviously injuries haven’t helped. Key players like Shawn Springs and Cornelius Griffin have missed games which has hurt the performance of the defense. But in football, injuries happen and you can’t blame a complete collapse on a few players missing a couple of games.
Gregg Williams is a self-admitted hard-ass. He seems to take pleasure in having rookie players get burnt in exhibition games. That approach works well in the short term, especially when turning around a struggling unit; but it can also prove to be disastrous in the long-term. After a while players learn to tune out the constant barrage of insults and the threats on a player’s job just don’t work anymore.
In this Washington Post article from the preseason, Williams is quoted as saying Reed Doughty ‘looked stupid’ after getting burned by a trick play. He tells some rookie that his play ‘belongs in the World League’ and complains about Chris Clemons’ injury troubles. That kind of complaining might work for a while, but it gets old pretty quickly. Its especially ineffective when you are coaching a team with a bunch of guys who have huge contracts. You can threaten to cut Adam Archuleta fifteen times a day, but he knows you can’t release him due to the salary cap.
I remember listening to Buffalo sports radio just after the Redskins originally signed Williams. They absolutely hated the guy (the only person they hated more than Williams was Drew Bledsoe). At the time I thought it was just sour grapes from a bitter group of fans, but now you start to wonder if his act just started to wear thin. At the time of his firing, then-Bills president Tom Donahue said “I don’t know if you can coach in the National Football League if you cannot adjust to change. The players change, circumstances change, and you have to be adjusting to that all the time.” Williams lasted three seasons in Buffalo, if he hasn’t learned to make those adjustments yet, his tenure in D.C. might not last much longer than that.
Ok, here I go again. I promised not to embarrass myself anymore with these posts to the internet. But I couldn’t pass this one up.
Williams’ act is definitely starting to get old. I’ve watched him in these post-game interviews and heard him articulate the same old, over-used excuses. The thing that bothers me is that he seemingly never accepts responsibility for failure. Yet he never (really) singles out anyone. He seems to talk a lot without saying anything. The more I see/hear him, the more he resembles a politician. ‘Not sure how much the players really listen to him anymore.
Having said that, it is clear that the league has “solved†his defense. He prides himself in assembling no-names in a “brilliant†scheme. What happens when they figure out the scheme? Then he has to have the athletes. Let’s just be honest, and admit that there’s no substitute for talent.
Worse, the “old ‘Skins†– Bugel and Breaux are quiet, very quiet. It’s almost as if they’ve been pushed to the side. It has me worried – very worried.
I’ve talked with Jim Ducibella at the Virginian-Pilot; he’s the beat writer for them for the Redskins. He says that nearly universally among the reporters, there is a growing frustration with Williams because (as Duce put it, but paraphrased) Williams runs and hides after a loss, particularly one where the defense does not do well, but struts out after a win, particularly if the Defense did do well; he’s not holding himself accountable for failure, in other words, while accepting and asking for the acolades for success.
That’s a (non)leadership trait… you can look at Joe Gibbs to see the exact opposite, someone who slathers the praise around after a win, but deflects (or at least trys to deflect) any criticism from a loss to himself. Most players consider that to be extremely classy, and something that makes them want to go harder, because they don’t want to have someone take the blame for them. What does that say for Gregg Williams ability to inspire the players?
I’ll say it here, for the record. There isn’t a 30% top to bottom difference in the player quality in the league from team to team. You have a few (very few) unique individual talents, but nearly every team has one, or has two that together are nearly as crucial. What seperates the teams that win, and the ones that don’t, isn’t player talent. It’s player desire. And player desire comes from the coaches. Schemes are nice, they help put your players into a situation they can win. But the greatest schemes in the world will only win a given team an extra two or three games a year, at most. It’s the desire of the players that effects whether they perform. Last year, when the Redskins truly desired it, they became nearly unbeatable. This year, they just sit and say “I’m perplexed why we aren’t winning”. They get frustrated… but they don’t, truly, get angry. And that anger, and determination, is what wins games. And that’s what a coach is for; to find that anger, to find that desire and get the player to focus on it. One of the old coaches once said something like “We’re 11 men… and as long as we play like 11 men, we’re good. But if we play as 1 Offense, we’re unstoppable.”
Good points fellas…
Oh, and isn’t Williams the highest paid assistant coach in the league? I hate to throw damned money into the picture here, but sometimes it seems that a Superbowl worthy team is simply ‘buyable.’ I’m no professional within the NFL, but I can tell you that you can’t buy talent and always win.
As the gentleman said just above me, its not the talent, its the drive within those players that perseveres into consistent victory. I really hope we can get on track after this bye, because I truly love the Redskins.
I wondered why LaVar Arrington was so bitter when he left the Redskins. Then, Dale Lindsey pops off with his comments about Arrington just before the Giants game. It was a shot directed to a former player. Made me wonder what exactly Arrington went through in his last season here.
Injuries and an almost total turnover in the secondary – who have a new coach, btw – have more to do with the defensive performance. Coaches personality goes a long way towards the team’s resiliance.
There’s a connection, but you have to be inside to see what it is.
I’m NOT saying that injuries aren’t the single biggest problem the Redskins Defense has had, ESPECIALLY in the secondary…. losing Springs for the entire preseason and essentially the first 6 games of the year and Prilieu for the entire year, but too late to replace him, plays a HUGE roll… they are essentially starting their #2, #4 and #5 corners. I don’t care WHO you are, that’s not good. Against Indy, we started #1, #4, and #5. On most teams, the “Breather Guy” with that package is a Special Teams only player… someone who only made the team because he can play Special Teams. That would scare the heck out of me, if I were Gregg Williams, and I’d want to “cheat” with my Safties to give the Corners help. The problem is, with the #1, #2, and #3 CBs, they they didn’t need a lot of Safety help… so they went out and replaced a “Coverage” Safety with a “Blitz” Safety (Archuleta), to compliment their “General” Saftey (Taylor) who they wanted to become a headhunter. Net result, they don’t have Coverage Safety skills to help the Corners, and we see long pass plays. You try to fix that by cheating even more into Coverage, and you can’t stop the run anymore, and you’re not playing to the scheme your players are best in. That’s where a bad (for the playerss that you DO have) scheme now COSTS you 2-3 games a year… a 4-6 point final swing in the standings. If the Redskins had been 5-2 at this point, there wouldn’t be the gnashing of teeth and wailing in Redskinland (just folks saying “We should be 6-1, 7-0!”) There would be no deep soul searching… but it still comes down to the Coaches.
Coaches call plays, rotate in and out players, etc…. but EVERY ONE of those has been down by a player on the field at one time or another for entire seasons (the Bills, for example, used to let the QB call his own plays, Williams relies on a field general to call the particular defensive play even now, etc.) In that case, what do you NEED coaches for? For getting the players motivated. To find “Poor 10 year old Timmy is dying, loves the Skins, and wants to see one last victory of the Redskins over the Cowboys… let’s win one for the Timster!”
[...] One of the most under looked, yet important aspects of these exhibition games has been the fact that LaRon Landry has been in the starting line-up from day one. Is it finally a sign of flexibility from Gregg Williams whose stubbornness cost the Redskins last year? [...]