How Redskins can rebound from rock-bottom

There is no other way to start this article or sugar coat anything about the Washington Redskins. After last Saturday’s hard-fought loss to the Tennessee Titans, the Redskins were still getting hammered as a dysfunctional organization. Critics will point to recent weeks of the Reuben Foster fiasco, linebacker Mason Foster speaking out or not against his team, Mark Sanchez’s signing initially over current QB Josh Johnson, safety Montae Nicholson brawling in a late night video hours before practice and safety D.J. Swearinger ripping defensive coordinator Greg Manusky and being released.

All of these issues are a black eye for the team in a growing list of bad decisions from within. The fact that people are brazen enough to do what they did speaks of a toxic culture of no accountability.

Certainly every player and person within the organization is not part of this equation. But for Redskins Nation, far too many are. The disconnect between the organization and its fans starts at the top of the food chain.

For every person who talks about team owner Dan Snyder and his love and passion for his franchise, he/she should also say he needs to clean house of the buddy system that has plagued this once proud organization. No longer can the Redskins operate under this method because, in the end, it is dissolving its loyal and passionate fan base.

The Redskins can’t use team president Bruce Allen’s claims of “winning off of the field” anymore either because, since the start of the preseason, FedEx Field has been historically empty for most, if not all, of the Sunday games… empty to the point where any first-time visitor to the stadium would marvel at how barren the place is. And when the product that trots out onto the field is dysfunctional, there really isn’t much that the team can say. There is no flavor of Kool-Aid that tastes good to even the most devout fan at this point.

Johnson and a few other storylines are feel-good ones for the moment. But they can’t mask what is happening. The Redskins’ turmoil isn’t about all of the injuries on the field (which surely will be used as an excuse to push an offseason of hope). When players openly quit — as they did in a recent loss to the New York Giants — in front of thousands of season ticket-holders and viewers; things need to change. Young players such as defensive linemen Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne are a few that came from collegiate greatness and they should not be indoctrinated to a culture of getting paid and then not performing. Guys like OLB Ryan Kerrigan, who plays hard all of the time and keeps his head down, should not continually see their best days squandered. Left tackle Trent Williams came back early from a surgically repaired thumb just to watch others not play to their full potential.

Again, this starts at the top and trickles down. Snyder must put the organization on better footing. The foundation of the Redskins is sitting in quicksand and has been for some time. The owner has surrounded himself with a mixture of old and young but the young needs to be more in control to get the franchise moved diligently into the modern age.

A good move for the organization was to hire Brian Lafemina as the team’s President of Business Operations and Chief Operating Officer. But the former NFL executive and his department was shown the door.

The Redskins reasoning for the drastic move — considering they courted Lafemina and gave him business ‘control’ — is baffling, to say the least.

Not sure what the #Redskins are trying to accomplish with yet another weekly disaster. Today’s news of FO staff firings wreaks of mismanagement. I feel awful as those people have families and moved here only 6 months ago. I feel equally bad for Skins fans who deserve better.

— Lake Lewis Jr (@LakeLewis) December 27, 2018

Washington’s next move should be to restructure who is actually running the football aspects of this team. It’s no secret that the Redskins have a young upstart who has a good eye for talent in Kyle Smith, currently the Director of College Personnel (scouting). He’s been with the team for nine seasons although in his current role the past two. During that time, the Redskins have had two very good draft classes with a fundamental shift to building in the trenches. They should go ahead and name him GM in the offseason if not sooner. Doug Williams has also done a nice job as Senior Vice President of Player Personnel although the former Super Bowl MVP erred recently in his misguided wording regarding the team’s recent signing of Reuben Foster after the players’ recent domestic violence incident.

In Williams’ defense, however (he publicly apologized for his insensitive comments made during a radio interview), why was he the figure to speak about the Foster signing and the organization’s stance in the first place? That should have been handled by Snyder or Allen. Unfortunately, those two seem to be in hiding from public comments about that move and others everyone knows are ultimately being mandated by them.

The Redskins have handled things poorly on many issues and a clean slate within the organization would be viewed as a step in the right direction.

Coach Jay Gruden has done an admirable job with obvious restraints placed on him at times.

Has he really been able to get his hand-picked players in a Burgundy and Gold uniform or allowed to say who he wants to keep on the roster?

That’s debatebale, but, the head coach should be kept around for another year because the past two seasons he has basically kept his ball club together with duct-tape considering the unprecedented amount of injuries.

Gruden can improve on his game management and play calling for sure. But where would the Redskins find a better coach who would come in and make a huge difference from the onset?

And what coach in their right mind would even want to coach in D.C. with all of the questionable decisions coming out of the front office?

Regardless of who is coaching, there is young talent in the building that is impressionable and needs to be shown how to handle adversity and be professionals the right way. The organization would do those players and Gruden right by leading with conviction and not through the cowardice of not facing the media… especially since it is from the press that the fan base gets its daily information. The Redskins have always been the first to lead the media rush but the last to handle it with class.

The team’s PR department is not to be faulted. It is the folks within it that are tasked with doing a job that, again, is handed down from the top. The access that has been given to the media is far greater than it was in previous seasons and the working relationship with the PR department is at an all-time high.

Having one of the top fan bases in sports is not enough anymore. That same fan base is telling the team to fix their transgressions or continue to watch declining interest and plummeting ticket purchases. The Redskins are not the only team in town anymore with a faithful group. The Capitals are Stanley Cup champions and are starting to rev-up their engine again for perhaps back-to-back title runs. The Nationals have been a playoff contender for most of the last five seasons. The Wizards, despite their weak start to the season, are a playoff contender by default in the top-heavy NBA Eastern Conference. Even the D.C. United has growing interest with a newly-minted state-of-the-art facility.

The time is now for the Redskins to finally do right by their loyal fans. The front office needs to make sound decisions and changes to what has become a failed product going forward. The issues need to be fixed now and not by someone simply with a recognizable last name. They should be addressed by people hired for their body of work which will indicate that they are more than qualified to lead one of sports’ most historical outlets.