“We’re in the middle of the pack. We’ve been in the middle of the pack the last three seasons.”
“It means you’re close.”
With respect, Redskins president Bruce Allen, it doesn’t.
“Close” is a dangerous word to use in today’s NFL. It’s often been said that the NFL of the modern day is riddled with parity; that truly any team can win, in any year. In a sense, this is true, as a watered-down version of reality. But a team has to know the right way to win.
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In the older era of football, when passing was a perilous venture, hard-nosed football was the way to win championships. Dominate the trenches, churn out yards in the run game, while holding at least a competent passer in tow, and you’ll compete. The Washington Redskins did this in the 1980s, when John Riggins ran laps around opposing defenses, and the Capital Defense wreaked havoc upon its adversaries.
Now, however, times are changing. Rules favor the wide receiver in today’s NFL, and offenses are finding new ways to adapt and maximize the greater potential of the passing game. The best franchises are putting to use analytics, to determine what traits to look for in their players, how to maintain versatility, and how to keep the opposing defense on their toes every week.
Even in the front office, the innovation is on a furious tear. The rookie quarterback contract has become the newest and most efficient way to open a Super Bowl window. Get a cheap, cost-effective quarterback, and build a young, talented roster around him with other rookie contracts, while using free agency as a gap filler. Teams have to have direction, both on the field and off the field. And simply throwing darts, saying “we’re close, we want to win”, isn’t going to cut it.
There is no one way to win in the NFL. There never has been. But now, it’s clear that the teams that don’t streamline themselves, reset when they need to, and show a willingness to mend scheme to personnel, as opposed to the inverse, will never be as close as they want to believe.
It is in this subset where we find Bruce Allen, a team president with a head coach and a defensive coordinator who’ve both proven they don’t know how to effectively mend scheme to personnel, and they don’t know how to adjust when they need to. A team president with a roster handicapped by cumbersome cap numbers from uninspiring or aging players, with no contract more crippling than Alex Smith‘s, who, if released, would incur over $50 million in dead cap, and is set to earn $20,400,000 in a year he might not be able to play.
The Redskins can clear cap space still, and add to their measly $17 million in cap space (which will become $21 million at the start of the new league year). They could offload their bad contracts, accept defeat for a temporary period, and stock up on picks and cap space, reloading until they can truly restart with a new franchise quarterback, if Alex Smith can’t return. But they might not be willing to do so. Why not?
Because they’re “close”.
It’s this kind of mentality that’s kept the Redskins from vaulting past 7-9 for so long; clinging to fleeting glimpses of unsustainable success. And if Bruce Allen doesn’t look into the mirror and diagnose the gravity of the issue his roster building and staff construction has unearthed, then Washington won’t truly compete until someone else takes the reigns.