Hunter Axed

[Hog1]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

Making a roster change ought to do something significant to imrove the team - - unless you are making the change as a result of an injury to a starter or unless you are making the change as a knee-jerk reaction.

Is this supposed to put the Fear of God in the rest of the roster with regard to on-field accountability? Give me a break. If on-field accountability mattered, at least a third of this roster would be looking for work in a warehouse by now. The players do not fear The Wrath of the Shanny any more now than they did a week ago.

Did the team get better? Maybe. But when you are expending effort tweaking the performance of your punter, normally the rest of the team is playing lights-out football. Here, we see yet one more PR move by the Skins. Special teams f*cked up a field goal so somebody has to be hung out to dry.

The famous scribe Billy Shakespeare had the line that best describes this entire matter in MacBeth (Act V, Scene V I believe):

Tis a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing...

DO you not think that they believe (as I do) Hunter is NOT the punter and with a handful of essentially meaningless games left that a better time could not be chosen to evaluate some other possible answers at this and some other positions for next year?

Seek now what you will need for the morrow........
-Benjamin Franklin

[sportscurmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Hog1

DO you not think that they believe (as I do) Hunter is NOT the punter and with a handful of essentially meaningless games left that a better time could not be chosen to evaluate some other possible answers at this and some other positions for next year?

Seek now what you will need for the morrow........
-Benjamin Franklin

Actually, I believe that the Skins were perfectly satisfied with Hunter all along. If they were not, then at 4-3 - - with visions of the playoffs dancing in their heads - - they would have taken a look at an upgrade. There are always unemployed punters looking for NFL work; it isn't as if they needed to hire an executive search firm.

At 4-3, an upgrade to any position that you think is deficient makes sense in the context of a season full of meaning (potentially). The Skins made no such move.

At 5-8 and mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, changing your punter to look at new talent is like deciding whether or not to have dessert on the Titanic on that fateful night. It does not matter - - but for those around you it looks as if you are focused on what is in front of you.

I don't think Hunter Smith is a vital cog in the Redskins revival as a franchise by any means. Whether he stays or goes is irrelevant to 2011 - - and like it or not, 2010 has no importance anymore. At the same time, this move is nothing more than scapegoating and public relations nonsense. Even if his replacement is 8 yards better on average per punt - - that is a HUGE upgrade - - it will matter not even a whit.