Building A Winner Doesn’t Happen One Loss At A Time

There’s never, and I mean NEVER, been a time in my 30 years of rooting for the Redskins that I’ve rooted for them to lose. How can you even consider yourself a fan to do so? When Rex Grossman throws a 50 yard bomb to Anthony Armstrong to potentially win the game, I jump up and down like I won the lottery. I could give 2 shits if it was the Redskins 3rd win or 13th win of the season. When DeAngelo Hall intercepts the ball to wrap up a victory I again cheer and never stop for a second to think…we just F’d up next years draft.

There’s so many other factors that can fuck up next years draft, besides losing games. I won’t list them all here, but here‘s a few…Dan Snyder, Mike Shanahan and Bruce Allen. It all comes down to the front office making the right decisions. It really doesn’t matter if you pick 1st in each round or 20th in each round, there’s quality players everywhere…all you have to do is find them.

Over the last 5 seasons the Colts, Chargers, Patriots, Ravens and Eagles have made the playoffs the most out of all the NFL teams. I’m assuming that it took a few years to build these perennial playoff teams so let’s look at each team’s draft over the last 10 years. In parenthesis you’ll find the draft position for each team over the last 10 years.

IND (22,31,27,29,32,30,29,29,24,11) 5 playoff appearances Avg draft position 26.4
0 drafts in top 10.

SD (18,28,16,27,30,19,28,1,15,5) 4 playoff appearances Avg draft position 18.7
2 drafts in top 10.

NE (28,27,26,31,28,21,32,32,19,21) 4 playoff appearances Avg draft position 26.5
0 drafts in top 10.

BAL (27,25,23,8,29,13,22,21,10,24) 4 playoff appearances Avg draft position 20.2
2 drafts in top 10

PHI (23,24,21,19,26,14,31,28,30,26) 4 playoff appearances Avg draft position 24.2
0 drafts in top 10

For the record that’s 4 drafts out of 50 when these teams were set to pick in the top 10 of the draft. Over a 10 year span the most successful teams in the NFL picked in the top 10 of each round only 8% of the time. Also for the record, the Redskins have drafted in the top ten 50% of those years!

The Redskins have been below average for 20 years because of their personnel decisions…not because of the amount of games they’ve won or lost the previous season. The above statistics prove that it’s not where you pick, it’s who you pick.

I think everyone can agree that under Vinny Cerrato the Redskins drafted horribly, reference the 2008 draft for proof. It’s also a fact that under the Gibbs II era the Redskins basically didn’t draft players. These 2 points are the reasons for the 4-12 and 6-10 seasons. The Redskins draft position had NOTHING to do with our mediocrity, it was the front office’s ineptness that led us here. Let the chips fall where they may and leave it in the hands of the current regime to make the right decisions in next years draft. If there’s a player that they covet, besides Luck, I’m sure that they have the resources to get him. And don’t sleep on the fact that a 3rd round pick may end up being more valuable than a 1st round pick.

I’ll end with this…I’ve written many a post on this blog that could be taken as negative in regards to my outlook on the Redskins. That’s probably a true and fair assessment. But, I’ve earned my fan card with over 30+ years of rooting for this team. Countess hours devoted to watching them, talking about them and blogging about them…I’ve earned my fan card. When the day comes that I start rooting against this team to lose games under the premise and pipe dream that losing games may in some way make them better…well that’s the day I turn in my fan card.

Cheers and Hail