I guess no one likes VC.

[BigHairedAristocrat]

Originally Posted by REDSKIN1

I think that Danny should seriously take a look at hiring Carl Peterson to replace Vinny. He dosen't have to fire Vinny, just move him to another position.

No GM would want VInny on his staff. As pointed out elsewhere, theres a reason no NFL team offered him any kind of job when Marty fired him... he simply isnt respected by professionals.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

I wonder why nobody likes the guy? He must be a total 100% dick behind closed doors. You have to wonder if Samuels has nothing good to say about you then you must be a dick cause Samuels is a good guy. But you have to wonder why no one wanted him when Marty fired him. Even Casserly got a GM job.

As one of the few, or maybe only, people on this board who has met VC behind closed doors I would say...he comes across as a bit of a jerk. And he's not much of a people person which tends to hurt the organization at times. He's not, contrary to popular belief, a moron. But his people skills are sad.

[bedlamVR]

That is kind of sad to hear that he is actually a dick and doen't just come over as one . I actually don't think Vinny is that bad a football guy, he has been involved in sucess with the 9ers and before in collage .

I think he has been given a bad press in the past because no one really knows what he does and which moves were his .

2008, 2000 and 2002 were the closest you can get to really pin pointing the years that Vinny was the man .

1999 - Charley C and the JKC Estate were in action . They let Trent Green walk and traded a 1,2 & 3 rounds draft picks for a then NFLE journy man Brad Johnson . The draft was saved by the Saints giving up the farm to move up the draft to snag that HoFer Rickey Williams.

2000 - The draft wasn't all bad we parleyed the 3 No1 picks into 2,3 choices overall and got two very good players - Samuels and Arrington . The FA class that had no class was a little more worrying but that had all the hall marks of Dan wanting to play with his new toy as did the firing of Norv while we still had a shot at the playoffs

2001 - Marty .....There was a reason A J Smith was given back the reigns in SD...

2002 - That was an interesting draft . We traded back and back picked up a bunch of extra pics and took Ramsey - (Too soon) and got Betts and a couple of other back ups .

2003 - You could say was a Vinny year but the draft was decimated by all the RFA and player trades and the top overall pick had Spurrriers hand writing all over it . Taylor Jacobs ex gator best practice player in history ...

2004- The first of the Gibbs years .... Gibbs did have quite a say in player acquisition, I am sure everyone remembers Brunell taking Gibbs to hospital with diabetes complications then Woooosh Brunell welcome to Washington . I thought 2004 was a good year for FA. We got Washington, Griffin, Springs, Daniels and the draft was good too (again what was left of it ) Getting Taylor & Cooley. But we also saw a trend of the FO locking onto a player (Cooley) and giving away too much to select him .

2005 - Gibbs and Co again and again we see the willingness to part with draft picks because we locked onto a guy and didn't want to miss him (Campbell) ... The FA was strangely quiet that year though, although much of the available cap space was eaten in the Coles for Moss trade, but still quiet .... the lull before the storm .

2006 - Gibbs and Co and the fractures in the top three (Gibbs, Williams and Saunders) were showing each eager to get their guy . This was possible more indicative of the season . I think this was the year Gibbs was going to start taking a back seat and let Saunders and Williams run the show and 2006 was a test to see how they could co-exisit ... they couldn't ... in the last part of the year Gibbs came back and he was an angry man but by that time although the team played better the damage was done . The draft was rich in LBs, we knew we had no chance at one of the top LBs but again locked on and overpayed for Roger McIntosh . I actually don't think he would have been around when we picked but we should have gone for the BPA and saved the picks .

2007 - There was no way they were going to select another DB in 2007 after selecting one first overall twice over the last 3 years ... I was wrong and as it turned out Landry wasn't a bad pick and we had a short glimpse of what could have been ( the cover 3 and cover 0 could have been something for the history books . No one could pass deap on that secondary - unfortunately as the Pats discovered you didn't need to) until tragedy struck. FA again was quiet more by necessity than anything and other than the Wade experiment that played out poorly and us needing to get help in the shape of Pete Kendall the personnel were classic Gibbs guys no real stars just a good team

2008 - Vinny takes his place at the top of the pile . Now everything rides on him . What is interesting is we had a few guys we were watching in the first round but instead of locking on to one player we traded down and down ... What was interesting about the Thomas pick is he would have been the guy at 21 but the FO ignored him then and traded down, they had no idea WR hungry teams behind us would let him slip further so it seems we didn't believe he had enough value at the end of the 1st . I think we were looking at Merling but he went first pick of the second round and so when Thomas came round again he was the top player on the board .

The Davis pick looks like an interesting one . He was probably the second most impressive rookie out of the 2008 draft . For a converted WR he blocked exceptionally well and improved as the season went on .

Kelly was another guy I think we might have taken earlier if Thomas had not fallen to us but at the end of the second he was the player with possibly the most upside but those knees look to be letting him down ..

...My point is looking at 2008 there is a definite sea change in the way we select the players. There were a few picks that were targeted Davis I think, Tyron and possibly Horton . But we didn't seem to get locked on to one guy as we often did in 2004-2007.


I guess this is my long winded way of saying we should see what Vinny can do and if 2008 was a one off or if it really is a change of direction now Vinny is the undisputed power .

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by bedlamVR

That is kind of sad to hear that he is actually a dick and doen't just come over as one . I actually don't think Vinny is that bad a football guy, he has been involved in sucess with the 9ers and before in collage .

I think he has been given a bad press in the past because no one really knows what he does and which moves were his .

2008, 2000 and 2002 were the closest you can get to really pin pointing the years that Vinny was the man .

1999 - Charley C and the JKC Estate were in action . They let Trent Green walk and traded a 1,2 & 3 rounds draft picks for a then NFLE journy man Brad Johnson . The draft was saved by the Saints giving up the farm to move up the draft to snag that HoFer Rickey Williams.

2000 - The draft wasn't all bad we parleyed the 3 No1 picks into 2,3 choices overall and got two very good players - Samuels and Arrington . The FA class that had no class was a little more worrying but that had all the hall marks of Dan wanting to play with his new toy as did the firing of Norv while we still had a shot at the playoffs

2001 - Marty .....There was a reason A J Smith was given back the reigns in SD...

2002 - That was an interesting draft . We traded back and back picked up a bunch of extra pics and took Ramsey - (Too soon) and got Betts and a couple of other back ups .

2003 - You could say was a Vinny year but the draft was decimated by all the RFA and player trades and the top overall pick had Spurrriers hand writing all over it . Taylor Jacobs ex gator best practice player in history ...

2004- The first of the Gibbs years .... Gibbs did have quite a say in player acquisition, I am sure everyone remembers Brunell taking Gibbs to hospital with diabetes complications then Woooosh Brunell welcome to Washington . I thought 2004 was a good year for FA. We got Washington, Griffin, Springs, Daniels and the draft was good too (again what was left of it ) Getting Taylor & Cooley. But we also saw a trend of the FO locking onto a player (Cooley) and giving away too much to select him .

2005 - Gibbs and Co again and again we see the willingness to part with draft picks because we locked onto a guy and didn't want to miss him (Campbell) ... The FA was strangely quiet that year though, although much of the available cap space was eaten in the Coles for Moss trade, but still quiet .... the lull before the storm .

2006 - Gibbs and Co and the fractures in the top three (Gibbs, Williams and Saunders) were showing each eager to get their guy . This was possible more indicative of the season . I think this was the year Gibbs was going to start taking a back seat and let Saunders and Williams run the show and 2006 was a test to see how they could co-exisit ... they couldn't ... in the last part of the year Gibbs came back and he was an angry man but by that time although the team played better the damage was done . The draft was rich in LBs, we knew we had no chance at one of the top LBs but again locked on and overpayed for Roger McIntosh . I actually don't think he would have been around when we picked but we should have gone for the BPA and saved the picks .

2007 - There was no way they were going to select another DB in 2007 after selecting one first overall twice over the last 3 years ... I was wrong and as it turned out Landry wasn't a bad pick and we had a short glimpse of what could have been ( the cover 3 and cover 0 could have been something for the history books . No one could pass deap on that secondary - unfortunately as the Pats discovered you didn't need to) until tragedy struck. FA again was quiet more by necessity than anything and other than the Wade experiment that played out poorly and us needing to get help in the shape of Pete Kendall the personnel were classic Gibbs guys no real stars just a good team

2008 - Vinny takes his place at the top of the pile . Now everything rides on him . What is interesting is we had a few guys we were watching in the first round but instead of locking on to one player we traded down and down ... What was interesting about the Thomas pick is he would have been the guy at 21 but the FO ignored him then and traded down, they had no idea WR hungry teams behind us would let him slip further so it seems we didn't believe he had enough value at the end of the 1st . I think we were looking at Merling but he went first pick of the second round and so when Thomas came round again he was the top player on the board .

The Davis pick looks like an interesting one . He was probably the second most impressive rookie out of the 2008 draft . For a converted WR he blocked exceptionally well and improved as the season went on .

Kelly was another guy I think we might have taken earlier if Thomas had not fallen to us but at the end of the second he was the player with possibly the most upside but those knees look to be letting him down ..

...My point is looking at 2008 there is a definite sea change in the way we select the players. There were a few picks that were targeted Davis I think, Tyron and possibly Horton . But we didn't seem to get locked on to one guy as we often did in 2004-2007.


I guess this is my long winded way of saying we should see what Vinny can do and if 2008 was a one off or if it really is a change of direction now Vinny is the undisputed power .

Solid recap. One theme I noticed was it seems like especially during the Gibbs/Vinny years, the front office locked onto the player they wanted (examples, Brunell, Lloyd, Archuleta, McIntosh, Campbell) and made sacrifices-sometimes unnecessarily, in order to 'get their man'. It seems like last year Vinny did the same thing with Thomas and Kelly but was more patient and the draft just kind of fell that way. It will be interesting to see next year, assuming a fully healthy training camp, how Thomas, Davis and Kelly develop and see if his patience was rewarded.

[grantarchy]

There's not much to like about the Snyder/Cerrato combination. Snyder is an impulsive moron when it comes to football, and Cerrato is his yes man. It's a bad combination. I don't have much hope that the Redskins will recover as a franchise until either they're both gone or Snyder hires a real football GM and leaves him alone.

Also, Cerrato recently said that we don't really need to change much this offseason. Really? That just baffles me. He's an idiot if he thinks that we're close to competing for a Superbowl and he's just delaying the inevitable if we continue the patch a hole here, patch a hole there for eternity. This team is not even close to being in a state where a few tweaks will fix it.

[skinsfan1987]

Originally Posted by grantarchy

There's not much to like about the Snyder/Cerrato combination. Snyder is an impulsive moron when it comes to football, and Cerrato is his yes man. It's a bad combination. I don't have much hope that the Redskins will recover as a franchise until either they're both gone or Snyder hires a real football GM and leaves him alone.

Also, Cerrato recently said that we don't really need to change much this offseason. Really? That just baffles me. He's an idiot if he thinks that we're close to competing for a Superbowl and he's just delaying the inevitable if we continue the patch a hole here, patch a hole there for eternity. This team is not even close to being in a state where a few tweaks will fix it.

I agree there is no hope for this franchise unless synder fires vinny cerrato, and gets a GM, and backing off all of the team and personnel decisions!!!!!!!!!!!

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Beemnseven

I don't "know" Vinny Cerrato. So it's impossible for me to say whether I "like" him or not. I can only go by his results as the director of player personnel, executive vice president of football operations, or whichever title he has had in his tenure with this team.

66-78. That's the overall record of this team under Dan Snyder's ownership and Vinny Cerrato's guidance with personnel -- however you choose to describe his official status. We can all see what that record is. Yes, we have a couple of last place wild card appearances. But those were against incredible odds when all seemed lost or with the backdrop of immense tragedy. Both coincidentally, came under the leadership of Joe Gibbs, without whom those playoff spots may never have happened under any other coach.

Regardless, this organization has been mired in mediocrity or downright failure. And there's an alarmingly large number of fans who accept it, defend it, and fall for the promises of "next year".

And this year's draft? It's shaping up to be like all the rest. Our rookie wideouts have an ironclad defense other rookies don't seem to require -- they're rookies, so we have to give them time. Desean Jackson, Eddie Royal, Anquan Boldin, Randy Moss, Donnie Avery all prove that rule to be complete bullshit. That's an excuse that bad teams use. Yes, there are the occasional hits: Golston, Montgomery, Cartwright, Horton. But those types of players are taken with far more regularity among the teams that are successful. I don't see how anyone can "love" Chad Rinehart. You can love the idea of finally picking an offensive lineman, I suppose. But he hasn't played a single down. The best you can say about him is that his grade as a pro is incomplete.

It's not just this year's draft that's open to criticism. It's an entire body of work over the years that ignores the basic rules of building a franchise that all the good teams accept -- build your lines first. We haven't taken an offensive lineman in the first two rounds in eight years. There hasn't been a defensive lineman selected in the first four rounds in eleven years with Vinny and Snyder calling the shots. That's inexcusable. It defies the fundamentals of football.

If it's one thing Cerrato and Snyder are good at, it's luring legions of fans to tolerate mediocrity, and to trick them into believing that the Redskins are one step away from championship contention.

It's a trick that won't work with this fan.

You picked 5 players out of 200 in some to prove that rockies can have an impact. Not sure if the numbers support that. Yes some do come in and produce from day one but thats the exception and not the rule. Also is it his fault that we did not get production out of these guys or the coaches fault.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by skinsfan69

I think it's fair to say that we should judge him here forward. So far if we judge him on the Zorn hire and the 08 draft class I'd say it's below average. We've got a draft class that basically did nothing and a coach who had one of the worst offenses in the league and showed no ability to adjust. So far it's not very good.

Sounds like what we have said over the past 4 years when Gibbs was here.

[Sonny9TD]

Vinny sees the same thing we do and more.

Fire Away![/QUOTE]

Except that he doesn't see the same thing most fans see.

[44ever]

Originally Posted by Sonny9TD

Vinny sees the same thing we do and more.

Fire Away!

Except that he doesn't see the same thing most fans see.[/QUOTE]

Which is?

[sportscurmudgeon]

I have been in the same room with Vinny Carrato precisely one time and I believe the only words I spoke to him were "Nice to meet you; good luck this year." So, I have no basis to like or dislike him.


I do not subscribe to the idea that he is a great evaluator of college or pro talent. While I agree it is too early to dclare last year's draft a disaster, it is highly dissappointing that only ONE of the draftees/undrafted free agents made significant contributions on Sundays.


[Someone said that if the Skins were not running a WCO then they might have found Desean Jackson useful. Excuse me, but the Eagles run the WCO too. Andy Reid worked with Bill Walsh and Mike Holmgren on the offensive side of the ball; his ideas and Jim Zorn's ideas about offense are far more similar than they are different.]


Here is what I really would want to see happen. I want Vinnie to stop with his radio program twice a week. I did a little bit if radio many years ago - - probably before half the folks on this board were born - - and you don't do a two-hour radio program by showing up 15 minutes before the light goes on and just start talking. (Smootsmack can provide some current insight here.)


Vinnie's most important job is to evaluate talent - - talent he should try to get on the Redskins' roster. Vinnie's fifty-ninth most important job is to do a two-hour radio show twice a week. He is not evaluating talent when he is on the radio or when he is prepping for his radio show.


Yes, I know that some coaches and GMs have radio shows besides Vinnie. But just because someone else does it does not make it the best thing to do. I suspect your Mom told you that a time or two when you were growing up...

[LandrySlice]

Say what you want, but I like Vinny. He has a plan as to what he is doing, and why don't we just sit back and see what he does in this years draft and FA before we totally bash him. I also love his laugh.