Big Al suspended for the remainder of season

[Paintrain]

Originally Posted by sportscurmudgeon

There is no way on the planet that anyone can say that the 2010 Redskins are worse than the 2009 Redskins. With 4 games to play, this year's team has one more win than last year's team. You are what your record says you are - - and in this case it says the Redskins aren't real good but they are improved over last year when they were really awful.

Having said that, I would say that Mike Shanahan has fallen way short of expectations for this year. That is not to say he is a failure nor is it to say this team should have 9 wins at this point of the season. His "failures" have been in terms of building cohesion on the squad to make it into a team. It's not just Haynesworth - - and by the way that opera went on a lot longer than it should have.

We had DeAngelo Hall declaring that it is his defense and he is going to track the opposition's #1 receiver all over the field no matter what the defensive coordinator called or said. Even if he didn't mean it, that is not the kind of thing that should ever come out of the mouth of a player who is imbued with the concept of "TEAM".

And I think that it is Mike Shanahan's fault that the concept of "TEAM" has not taken hold in the 2010 Skins squad. That is a large portion of the job that a head coach has to do.

I also think that Shanahan's handling of the "McNabb benching" in the 48 hours after it occurred was juvenile. That is what I would have expected from a 35-year old rookie head coach not a guy with Super Bowl rings. He blew it - - and the bulls[p]it he tried to sell on that issue hung around in the locker room and stunk out the joint for a while.

The Skins are far better off with the current regime in place than they were - - - assuming that Danny Boy Snyder continues to sit on his thumb and to not try to insert himself into the running of the team or the construction of the roster for 2011. But Mike Shanahan has fallen way short of expectations despite the improvements he has obviously made.

I'll agree that I expected far less drama than we had this year.. Hall, McNabb, Haynesworth-all too public and too much foolishness. He should have taken whatever was offered at the draft for Al. He should have reprimanded Hall for his comments (although I think in the grand scale they were really benign) and the McNabb handling was a disaster.

That being said I think the concept of TEAM is much stronger than it has been since the Taylor tragedy. It's unrealistic for anyone to expect that he or anyone else can completely change the tenor and culture of the entire locker room, especially with a room full of mercenaries, in one offseason.