tadcranky

Redskins Miss Arrington
I think everyone has heard about the ESPN Magazine article by Tom Friend, where an unnamed Redskin blasts Gregg Williams as being an egomaniac who is hated by his players.

Although I appreciate the job that Williams did with the Redskins defense prior to this year, I've never thought he's the savior of Redskins football. The three years he was head coach in Buffalo, he was 3-13, 8-8 and 6-10. After he was fired, Bills officials noted that the team had regressed in his third year. Hmm. So I didn't think appointing him future head coach in waiting was really a great move.

When Williams first got here, Lavar Arrington quickly established permanent residency in Williams' doghouse. Poor Lavar couldn't do anything right. Williams, seemingly with the support of Joe Gibbs, missed few opportunities to bash Lavar. Lavar could take it, though, he didn't hide from the media, he defended himself, and sometimes even said that, well, the coaches have somewhat of a point about some of his weaknesses. Lavar's teammates defended him, and seemed to take inspiration from the fact that their coaches were giving their friend and teammate a hard time. And they played well. When Lavar got to play, they played better, as their friend fired them up.

This off-season, Williams and Gibbs got their wish. Arrington goes to New York, and Williams loses his scapegoat. Now, instead of focusing on bashing Lavar, he bashes his whole team. They don't like it. Nobody likes to be yelled at by a guy with breasts. He humiliates new guy Adam Archuleta, which can't make his bosses, who made Archuleta the highest paid safety in NFL history, too happy. He's hard on the other defensive backs, who perhaps shouldn't be playing, and wouldn't if the Redskins had made some better personnel decisions. He's made some questionable decisions about the defensive coaching staff. And what we have is a defense that makes stars out of pretty average players.

While it's unheard of for a head coach to be fired mid-season, it's not so much with assistants. Fire him. Not because of some comments by an unnamed player. Because he's doing a bad job.