Starting from Day one, Dan is a Fan.
He grew-up like many of us watching the Redskins of the 80s. He enjoyed the smash-mouth game as we all did but the Redskins were scoring machines setting an NFL record in 1983.
He wants to make the Redskins champions again;
He tried the fantasy football way, it didn't work
He wanted to recapture the high scoring domination with the hire of Spurrier it didn't work.
Go with the old coach, possibly learn.
We will have to see if he has learned, the past 4 years appears to have rebuilt the foundation.
The unplanned event, now how to maintain with the right coaches and players. He knows the "heir" apparent doesn't always work (verified with 4 interviews)...I believe he's trying to get it right...again time will tell in 2008
I agree, Dan is a fan and I never wanted to imply that he is tanking the team on purpose.
Rather, he is a perfect example of the Peter Principle, the org behavior theory that dictates an individual will rise to his level of incompetence. Dan owns the team and no one can tell him what to do or fire him.
His highest level of football competence would be a decision to hire someone that would be considered a quote unquote football guy and let that person run the football side of the house.
That would include picking a head coach, working with that coach to build a staff and then letting that head coach have the space to set the roster up for success on the field.
That GM would be involved in player selection, free agency, drafting and be in charge of capology, hiring someone if needed.
All this would be essentially independent from the owner and codified as such by contract. The owner could be involved consultatively and even have some input but the owner should never assert himself into the football side of things.
Look at Dallas, the apparent model for Dan Snyder. After their initial run in 90s the Cowboys now have not won a playoff game since 1996. They went 5-11 three years in a row with Dave Campo. There are some objective measures by which the Cowboys are as bad or worse than the Redskins, and it is the Dallas model to which Dan aspires.
There are plenty of other areas of an NFL franchise that need attention, the business and marketing side.
But Dan thinks he is as smart as any other football person associated with the league which is demonstrably untrue.
So he asserts himself on the football side where he is incompetent.
And we get this mess, this whipsaw from Marty to Spurrier to Joe Gibbs to trashing everything Joe did.
Check out part two of this series for more.
I agree. Except the "pitch and catch" Spurrier ball had a) no audibles and b) very poor blocking schemes.
Spurrier ruined Patrick "David Carr" Ramsey. You can't get hit that much and be unafraid of the next one.
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