Back from self-imposed exile...

[sportscurmudgeon]

It's way too long a story about why I've been absent from the forum for about nine months to type it all out here - - and no one would give a damn anyway. Matty knows the barebones situation.

But after the disappointment of last season, I thought I'd catch up by identifying seven things I found encouraging and thirteen things I found very discouraging about the team and the coaching staff:

1. Encouraging: Jason Campbell looks like he can develop into a good QB with another year or so of experience. In terms of a young guy with a big arm, he is a HUGE step up from Patrick Ramsey.

2. Encouraging: Derrick Dockery lost about 40 lbs of "baby fat" and added some muscle and was far more effective as a guard than he had been in previous years. Maybe he can actually become an above average offensive lineman in the league with more work and conditioning...

3. Encouraging: Ladell Betts showed he can run and he can run hard and - most importantly - he can stay healthy.

4. Encouraging: Chris Cooley will never be the best tight end in the NFL, but he is a very good player and he plays hard on every snap of the ball.

5. Encouraging: Rock Cartwright had a solid year as a kick returner AND the coaching staff didn't overreach and ask him to also try to be a RB. He's good on the kick/punt coverage teams.

6. Encouraging: Chris Samuel had his best year in the last three.

7. Encouraging: Antwaan Randle-El is a top-shelf punt returner.

8. Discouraging: Mark Brunell is done/finished/kaput.

9. Discouraging: The coaching staff put Portis in before he was really ready to play at 100%.

10. Discouraging: Santana Moss' stats dropped off significantly and neither Randle-El or Brandon Lloyd or David Patten showed even a hint that as wide receivers they were worth what it cost to sign them in free agency. Lloyd is a HUGE waste of time, space, money and skin.

11. Discouraging: Defensive line generated next to no pressure up the middle by itself. That's fine if you have two 350lb run stoppers in there who are too slow to get to the passer, but the Skins' interior DL got run over AND did not generate push on passing plays. That's a deadly exacta.

12. Discouraging/Encouraging: Andre Carter stunk in spades for the first 6-8 games and then all of a sudden found out how to play DE. Don't know what's up with that so I don't know if it's discouraging that he took the first half of the year off or encouraging that he "found himself" sometime around 1 November... I think it's more discouraging than encouraging, but it's open to debate.

13. Discouraging: Rocky McIntosh is a guy they traded up to get and still it took him 14 games to figure out enough of the defense such that they would allow him in the games. Remember, he's the guy who couldn't get it straight when he should be on the field and when he should come off. Good thing he chose football as a career and not neurosurgery...

14. Discouraging: There are five safeties on the roster; none of them can cover a corpse. One of them was - at the time of his signing - the highest paid safety in the history of the NFL.

15. Discouraging: Shawn Springs is the only reliable cornerback you can put in man-coverage play after play after play.

16. Discouraging: There isn't a real middle linebacker on the roster. If they don't get one - and get a stud DT to keep the OL off of that middle linebacker - the Skins will get run on again next year too.

17. Discouraging: When the Skins were hating on Lavar Arrington, the linebackers coach sneered that anybody who worked at it could learn to play in this scheme. Well, this year it looked as if five or six different guys couldn't learn to play in this scheme because linebacker play was just plain awful most of the time.

18. Discouraging: Could Carlos Rogers possibly have worse hands? Edward Scissorhands would have caught some of the potenial INTs that Rogers dropped.

19. Discouraging: Why did the coaching staff/front office give up anything in order to acquire TJ Duckett if they weren't even going to activate him for the first 6 or 7 games? Duckett is a mediocre back; I'm not saying he should have gotten 20 carries a game. But why spend assets to acquire somebody like that?

20. Discouraging: With so many coaches on the staff, there was an awful lot of confusion/chaos on the sidelines during games. If all of them had defined roles and responsibilities, that wouldn't happen - - unless some of them let their egos get in the way and started to cross over into someone else's area of responsibility. The make-up of the coaching staff and the roles/responsibilities of everyone needs to addressed seriously in the next month or two.

That's it; that's my list.

It feels good to be back...