NFL Offseason: your team's opportunity to overpay for mediocrity

[briantw]

 

[DanteGabriel]

There's at least one Washington Post reporter saying that Washington execs were jealous of McCloughan and were planning in advance to use the drinking as an excuse to fire him.

It always seemed to me that a guy with alcohol problems would have a bad time of it in that organization. If the reporter is right, this transcends the usual level of scumbaggery, douchebaggery, and incompetence to be found in NFL front offices. This is genuine evil.

[Jaime L]

52 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

There's at least one Washington Post reporter saying that Washington execs were jealous of McCloughan and were planning in advance to use the drinking as an excuse to fire him.

It always seemed to me that a guy with alcohol problems would have a bad time of it in that organization. If the reporter is right, this transcends the usual level of scumbaggery, douchebaggery, and incompetence to be found in NFL front offices. This is genuine evil.

Agreed. This is Trump administration level loathsome. This is the culture Dan Snyder fosters. And this is why competence never lasts long in DC. It's always driven out by the poisonous elements in the organization. So many brilliant minds have tried to fix this thing and they all fail because it's irrevocably broken at the top. 

Was the biggest diehard of this team for the longest time...but I might be done. We'll see. Sick of rooting for a team run by people I actively loathe. 

ETA: At least I'm not alone 

[James Arryn]

41 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

Agreed. This is Trump administration level loathsome. This is the culture Dan Snyder fosters. And this is why competence never lasts long in DC. It's always driven out by the poisonous elements in the organization. So many brilliant minds have tried to fix this thing and they all fail because it's irrevocably broken at the top. 

Was the biggest diehard of this team for the longest time...but I might be done. We'll see. Sick of rooting for a team run by people I actively loathe. 

ETA: At least I'm not alone 

Can we do a board vote to choose your next team? I won't recommend my Niners as it's possible Jed York has a painting of Snyder above his mantle place, though of course you're welcome and you might recognize a lot of the faces. Also don't see you as a front runner. I'm actually gonna say the Browns. The Leafs have been really enjoyable to watch rebuild from the ground up, and I think the Browns might actually be committed...hoping for the same in Santa Clara, but not holding my breath. Also your (I assume) hatred of the Ravens is therefore portable. Also they're my Dad's team, and I've always felt a bit guilty for not following suit. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, briantw said:

 

You know how that guys' story ended, right?

[briantw]

3 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

You know how that guys' story ended, right?

Hey, if we end up with one of the best five season runs ever before it all collapses, I'll call it a win.

[Maithanet]

11 hours ago, Jaime L said:

Agreed. This is Trump administration level loathsome. This is the culture Dan Snyder fosters. And this is why competence never lasts long in DC. It's always driven out by the poisonous elements in the organization. So many brilliant minds have tried to fix this thing and they all fail because it's irrevocably broken at the top. 

Was the biggest diehard of this team for the longest time...but I might be done. We'll see. Sick of rooting for a team run by people I actively loathe.

There are reports that he's been drinking, and other reports that the Redskins were planning on firing him and blaming it on drinking for months.  If McCloughin did start drinking again, then the Redskins have to fire him.  He's been fired from two teams already for drinking, and it's quite possible he fell off the wagon a third time. 

 

BUT, if he isn't drinking, and the Redskins are just smearing him to make themselves look better for firing a GM at the start of free agency...it boggles the mind.  That would mean that the Redskins are both petty/vengeful/monstrous AND incompetent.  Accusing someone in recovery of drinking just so you can fire him?! Just astonishingly awful.  That is right up there with the worst things I've ever heard of an NFL team doing.  This isn't the team just tolerating awful behavior like drunk driving or domestic abuse.  This is the team actively participating in it. 

 

I expect we'll find out which of the two stories is true in the next couple days/weeks. 

[DanteGabriel]

Following up on Snyder drama, Deadspin has a very Deadspinny post about McCloughan's firing. One thing I didn't realize when I posted about it yesterday, was that the team's "We wish him well and will never talk about him again" statement was followed, literally minutes later, by a long Washington Post smear piece that he'd been drinking for months, of course sourced to anonymous team executives. Petchesky noticed the timing and made it the lede of his column.

I am well familiar with the local newspaper carrying water for sports franchises to smear departing employees. Terry Francona, the best manager the Red Sox have probably ever had, endured "He lost control of the locker room because his divorce made him a distracted pill popper" stories in the Globe. I wasn't even sad when the Sox got swept by Tito's team in the playoffs last year.

But man, this hatchet job on McCloughan is incredible and appalling, even if he was actually drinking. Let's say it's true and that he'd been drinking, showing up drunk at meetings, etc. Why send Chris Cooley out talk about it, and leave no comment on his statements? Why let the stink of the accusations linger for weeks? Why throw in a literal dead grandmother story that was obviously fishy? It can be true that McCloughan was drinking AND that the team had the worst, most cynical and damaging possible response to it. The Deadspin column makes a solid case that someone with an alcohol problem should never have been hired into Washington's boozy culture (which I hadn't been aware of, but the reference to Snyder's "Crown Royal muscles" is priceless).

But even if Bruce Allen and his gang were teetotalers, we all should have seen this coming simply for the fact that everything involving Dan Snyder gets boiled down to the greediest, shittiest, most callous and petty instincts of human nature. It doesn't seem like anyone running that team ever chooses the graceful or kind option. They optimize their awfulness like Belichick optimizes his roster. Maybe the worst thing McCloughan could have done was to be good at his job. If he sucked, maybe Allen wouldn't have gotten jealous, or maybe the team could have just fired him without having to leverage his demons into an excuse. Nah, that's probably wishful thinking too. Snyder always does the worst thing.

[Maithanet]

A different WaPo piece said that McCloughin had been drinking when the Redskins hired him, and has been drinking the entire time he was employed.  That the Redskins front office was generally very drinking intensive, which was of course a terrible fit for a guy with a drinking problem.  That makes it sound like the Redskins were hoping that alcoholic McCloughin would still be a good GM.  And maybe he could, who knows?  The plan was is he really lost control, Allen would grab the wheel. 

But if that was the strategy all along, why was he fired now?  Why not fire him right at the end of this season, when several promising GMs were available?  Why wait until the most important day of the year for a GM?  If things have been getting out of hand for weeks (or months or years) then why wasn't he fired right before the combine?  What could they be thinking?

The article also noted this:

Quote

It’s interesting to note that McCloughan left jobs in San Francisco and Seattle in a similar fashion, around draft time and with plenty of innuendo about what was really happening. Of the three times this has occurred, two of the teams declined to expose McCloughan’s alcohol problems, leaving it to the GM to admit instead. The other team, well, it takes perverse joy in devouring its own, doesn’t it?

Classy.

[sperry]

I'm more and more convinced that Jimmy Garopollo is not going to be good. These backups basically never end up being good, and Garoppolo wouldn't be on the market if he was the real deal.

 

The Browns need to stay true to the process, unlike the Sixers who bailed on it halfway through. Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Browns become the smartest franchise in sports, but trading for Jimmy G is a sucker bet.

 

Sam Darnold, the USC kid will be available next year. That's a franchise QB. Hold the line, get the #1 pick next year and draft him. I think Mason Rudolph from Oklahoma State is another franchise type QB who will be in the draft.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, sperry said:

I'm more and more convinced that Jimmy Garopollo is not going to be good. These backups basically never end up being good, and Garoppolo wouldn't be on the market if he was the real deal.

 

The Browns need to stay true to the process, unlike the Sixers who bailed on it halfway through. Nothing would make me happier than seeing the Browns become the smartest franchise in sports, but trading for Jimmy G is a sucker bet.

Yup.  Load up on young talent this year, get a top 5 pick again next year.  There are several promising qbs coming out next year.  Take whichever one you want to pin your hopes on (trade up if you have to), and start building.  They have a solid O line now, and Garrett is going to improve that defense.  It's not surefire success, but it isn't some crazy pipedream that in 14 months the Browns will have all the pieces they need to be contenders. 

[sperry]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Yup.  Load up on young talent this year, get a top 5 pick again next year.  There are several promising qbs coming out next year.  Take whichever one you want to pin your hopes on (trade up if you have to), and start building.  They have a solid O line now, and Garrett is going to improve that defense.  It's not surefire success, but it isn't some crazy pipedream that in 14 months the Browns will have all the pieces they need to be contenders. 

The #1 pick in the draft next year should be a 3 horse race between the Browns, Bears and Niners. Since Cousins is allegedly going to the Niners, they would be amenable to trade the #1 pick if they got it, and nobody would have more to offer than the Browns.

[Fez]

6 minutes ago, sperry said:

The #1 pick in the draft next year should be a 3 horse race between the Browns, Bears and Niners. Since Cousins is allegedly going to the Niners, they would be amenable to trade the #1 pick if they got it, and nobody would have more to offer than the Browns.

The Jets are absolutely going to be right there at the bottom as well.

[sperry]

1 minute ago, Fez said:

The Jets are absolutely going to be right there at the bottom as well.

 

As embarrassing as the Jets are, they are still miles ahead of the Niners, Browns, and Bears.  They should comfortably win 3-4 games and out of the conversation for #1 pick.

[Fez]

2 minutes ago, sperry said:

As embarrassing as the Jets are, they are still miles ahead of the Niners, Browns, and Bears.  They should comfortably win 3-4 games and out of the conversation for #1 pick.

Never underestimate the ability of the Jets to suck. If they do sign Cutler I agree they won't be in contention for #1; he's probably still got it in him to get really hot a couple games throughout the season despite how depleted the rest of the roster is. if they don't sign him (which I think long-term is best), I don't see them winning more than 2 games.

[sperry]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

Never underestimate the ability of the Jets to suck. If they do sign Cutler I agree they won't be in contention for #1; he's probably still got it in him to get really hot a couple games throughout the season despite how depleted the rest of the roster is. if they don't sign him (which I think long-term is best), I don't see them winning more than 2 games.

 

As bad as they are, there's some talent on that roster. There is nothing in Chicago, San Francisco and Cleveland. 

[James Arryn]

1 minute ago, sperry said:

 

As bad as they are, there's some talent on that roster. There is nothing in Chicago, San Francisco and Cleveland. 

We have Robbie Gould!

[Jace, Extat]

11 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

We have Robbie Gould!

It took a lot of sifting for the prospectors to find something even moderately shiny in all that muck. 

[James Arryn]

59 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

It took a lot of sifting for the prospectors to find something even moderately shiny in all that muck. 

Hey, if you feel entitled to get something for nothing, I suggest the Patriots (#imperialismrocks!) Giants (#eugenics4ever!) or Dolphins (#oceangoingfratboys...really, do you ever see a dolphin rolling up their sleeves and getting down to some hard work?)

We're fucking miners. While you Colts are out frolicking around green pastures in the sun, we're stuck in some dark dingy hole in the earth or waist deep in some freezing river just hoping for a sign of a sign of a sign of a sign of something of value. This explains our work ethic, our toughness, and our complete absence of talent. It probably even explains Jed York, but I haven't seen the sun in so long that I'm vitamin D deficient, and therefore can't summon up the energy to figure it out. Fuck Moria, man. What was I saying, again? 

[Kalbear]

Here's my uninformed hot taek: I think the Browns are going  to be a lot better next year. Yes, even with basically a hot mess at QB and some talent issues, they're going to be surprisingly decent - because their OLine is so much better. I don't think they'll be a playoff winner, but I do think they'll go like 7-9 with a couple of upsets of teams built around having a pass defense largely on their ability to rush the QB.