Mike Kennedy

4-Year Plan to Fix the Redskins

[What follows assumes that the lockout will be settled this summer and the new rules will be broadly similar to the old rules].

Year 1 - 2011 - Build The Worst Team in NFL History

A.    Here is the current Redskins roster according to ESPN.com (not including the 12 draft picks).  It has 74 players.  On the train back from New York, I was bored so I copied it into a Word document, pretended I was a GM, and did the following:

CUT (50):  Rex Grossman, James Davis, Chad Simpson, Keiland Williams, Darrel Young, Mike Sellers, Terrence Austin, Mike Furrey, Taurus Johnson, Malcolm Kelly, Santana Moss, Maurice Price, Roydell Williams, Fred Davis, Will Montgomery, Casey Rabach, Artis Hicks, Kory Lichtensteiger, Mike Williams, Xavier Fulton , Stephon Heyer, Clint Oldenburg (Offense); Adam Carriker, Phillip Daniel, Kedric Golston, Vonnie Holliday, Darrion Scott, Anthony Bryant, Joe Joseph, Maake Kemoeatu, Lorenzo Alexander, H.B. Blades , Robert Henson, Rob Jackson, Edgar Jones, Chris Wilson, Kevin Barnes, Phillip Buchanon, Macho Harris, Reggie Jones, Carlos Rogers, Byron Westbrook, Reed Doughty, Chris Horton, Kareem Moore, Sha'reff Rashad, Anderson Russell (Defense); Graham Gano, Josh Bidwell, Sam Paulescu (Specialists).  [I understand some of these guys like Moss and Rogers aren't technically "cuts" because they have expired contracts].

TRADE (6)  Chris Cooley (for a 4th in the 2012 draft); Jamaal Brown (5th); Albert Haynesworth (5th and 7th); Donovan McNabb (6th); DeAngelo Hall (6th); Rocky McIntosh (7th).  Anyone from this list who can't be traded, even for a bag of footballs, goes on the "cut" list.

There are now 18 players on the roster.

B.   Sign the 12 draft choices.  There are now 30 players on the roster.

C.    Look to sign only veteran free agents who have spent significant time (i.e., years) with one of these three organizations:  Colts, Patriots or Steelers.  The theory being that they know how an organization is supposed to be run and have good work habits that will rub off on the rest of the team.  (For the same reason, I spared London Fletcher from the "cut" list).  Applying this criterion, I did some Internet searching for lists of projected free agents and ended up signing three guys - Matt Light (OT), Ike Taylor (CB) and Jim Sorgi (QB).  You'd have to overpay them to play here but that's ok, there should be plenty of room on the payroll after steps A and B above. There are now 33 players on the roster.

D.    Fill out the remaining 47 slots (up to the training camp maximum of 80 players) with rookie free agents, practice squad guys from other teams, get a punter who played Australian Rules Football, get a soccer player to kick, hold an open tryout like in that movie with Mark Wahlberg. Just find young guys who are hungry and want to play, and let everyone compete for starting jobs on an equal footing at camp.  By my count at least 15 of the 22 starting spots would be genuinely wide open, even before the inevitable injuries happen.

E.    Psychological break with the past - put the three Lombardi trophies in storage, paint over the murals of the old greats, take down the Ring of Honor, no more alumni ceremonies.  Treat the Redskins like an expansion team, to drive home the point (including to fans) that the glory days were 20-30 years ago and to dispel the sense of entitlement that continues to hang over everyone connected with the team.  We all need to stop pretending that this is a "marquee" franchise anymore, because it makes everyone from Snyder on down thing we're always "one player away" from contending, when in reality we're at least 25 players away.  They can bring all the memorabilia back once the Skins actually win something again.  

F.     You'd end up with a starting 22 that looked something like this:

        QB: Beck; RB:  Torain/Helu; WR: Armstrong, Banks, Hankenson; TE: Paulsen; LT: Williams; LG: [street FA]; C: [street FA]; RG: [street FA]; RT: Light

        DE:  Jarmon, Jenkins; NT: [street FA];  OLB: Orakpo, Kerrigan; ILB: Fletcher, P. Riley; CB: I. Taylor, [street FA]; S: Landry, Atogwe.

Year 2 - 2012 - Stockpile Premium Talent

Let there be no illusions.  The team described above would be the worst team in NFL history, by a fairly wide margin.  A team with 32 rookies (most of them not even drafted) would be lucky to win 1 game in the NFL.  I honestly think, however, that Redskins fans would enjoy watching such a team much more than they have enjoyed watching most of the teams of mercenaries and spoiled brats that have been assembled over the past 20 years.  Fans have become very cynical and negative about the Skins and at least this plan would get the poison out of the system and allow fans to root for players who are young, have a ton to prove, and who play really hard all the time.

A.    Assuming no lottery in new CBA, we will use our "hard-earned" #1 overall pick to get Andrew Luck, our franchise QB of the future, as well as 13 other draft choices (including the 7 picks stockpiled by my trades in 2011).  

B.    The priority need areas by this point will likely be (1) interior line; (2) cornerback; and (3) nose tackle. In particular, unless I got lucky with one of my guys off the street who were starting at both guard spots and center all last season, John Beck is probably deceased by this point.  I don't want that to happen to Andrew Luck so, to the extent I can't find good guards and centers with the first picks in Rounds 2, 3 and 4, the Skins will dip into the free-agent pool to bolster the O-line (again, with priority on bringing in guys from winning organizations).

C.    The percentages say that at least a few of my 47 random guys off the street turned into real NFL players.  Cut the others loose and bring in some new hungry guys.  Hold another "Invincible"-style open tryout, I bet its a great PR move that makes the team look like real populists.

Year 3 - 2013 - Acquire Playmakers

Hopefully the Skins were able to go 5-11 or so in Luck's first season.  Now we've gotten rid of all the cancers and built a young nucleus of Luck, Trent Williams, Orakpo, Kerrigan, Landry, and 2-3 guys I brought off the street that are now household names.  

A.    Having fixed the O-line last year, the goal in this year's draft is to get two of these three needs - (1) featured back; (2) #1 WR; and (3) shutdown corner.

B.    We will open things up a bit more in free agency to obtain whichever one of the three key needs we didn't fill in the draft.

Year 4 - Luck Makes the Leap

In his second season, behind a much-improved O-Line and with a couple of decent playmakers, Luck becomes the best Redskins QB since at least Brad Johnson.  At this point the Skins are hopefully a real NFL team again and are challenging for a playoff berth.

Book Review 001 - Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains

I'm not a rocket scientist or anything, but whatever earning power I have is bound up in my ability to use my brain to develop arguments, spot issues, quickly learn and be able to teach others unfamiliar subject matter, write clearly and persuasively, and manage others.  So I was deeply disturbed to learn of new research, surveyed in this book, suggesting that the Internet is fundamentally changing our brains so as to make it impossible to engage in deep thinking.  What I took from this book is that, like other technologies adopted through the centuries, the Internet makes our thinking processes different.  Unfortunately, I need the brain functions the Internet is taking away.  And I find the last few years that I get distracted easily and need constant sensory input to function - I compulsively check my Blackberry and iPhone for example, sometimes at once.  People on the Metro have looked at me like I'm an idiot when I have them both in front of me, checking e-mails on the Blackberry and using my Twitter app on the iPhone. 

Grand Old Junkmailers

Now that I have a little money lying around, I've made a few small political contributions ($250 to the RNC during the Presidential campaign, $350 to Governor McDonnell and $50 to Scott Brown).  For my trouble, I have been absolutely BOMBARDED with junk mail from the RNC and various officeholders who all want more money.  My favorite was a letter from an incumbent Senator from Louisiana -you know, the one who loves to visit prostitutes.  I think Republican-related junk constitutes at least 25% of all my mail.

What I really could do without is when the RNC disguises its junk mail as official correspondence to get you to open it instead of just throwing it away.  More than once, they have sent mail labeled "Official Census Correspondence".  And then tonight, I get a letter with a return address of "Office of Control and Audit".  After a second of thinking "oh, shit, I'm being audited", luckily I recognized the address as the RNC's address on First Street SE, and was able to follow my usual practice of throwing the letter away without opening it.  There's got to be some kind of law against dressing your junk mail up as official correspondence.

I don't know why anyone would give money to the RNC, anyway.  (The only reason I did so in 2008 was because, at the time I made my contribution, the McCain campaign was legally barred from accepting any more money directly).  I follow politics closely enough that I know which candidates need my money the most, and with the Internet I can donate to them directly.  Or, I could give my money to the guy who wanted to name his official GOP blog "What Up".

Belichick Made the Right Call

Tonight's classic Pats-Colts game featured one of the most interesting coaching decisions in recent memory - Belichick going for it on 4th and 2 at his own 28 with 2:00 left ahead by 6.  Of course, since the call didn't work, Belichick is now getting ripped by every sportswriter in the country.  But if you take the hindsight out of it, it was the right call.  He figured (correctly) that the most important consideration was keeping Manning off the field at all costs, and made a ballsy decision that (unfortunately for him) didn't work.

I was going to run the numbers on it to confirm my intuition, but I see that some geeks already did the calculations and found that the Pats had about a 9% better chance of winning if they went for it on 4th:

With 2:00 left and the Colts with only one timeout, a successful conversion wins the game for all practical purposes. A 4th and 2 conversion would be successful 60% of the time. Historically, in a situation with 2:00 left and needing a TD to either win or tie, teams get the TD 53% of the time from that field position. The total WP for the 4th down conversion attempt would therefore be:

(0.60 * 1) + (0.40 * (1-0.53)) = 0.79 WP

A punt from the 28 typically nets 38 yards, starting the Colts at their own 34. Teams historically get the TD 30% of the time in that situation. So the punt gives the Pats about a 0.70 WP. 

As the article goes on to explain, these percentages are based on league-wide averages, not based on playing against the Colts' offense.  In particular, going for it on 4th down becomes an even better play for New England taking into account how badly they had been clowned by Manning & Co. on the previous drive (79 yards in 1:45 of no-huddle without even bothering to use a timeout).  Realistically, the Colts' success percentage from Pats territory (after a 4th down failure) should go from about 53% to 75%, and let's give them a 50% chance of scoring from their own 34 (after a punt).  Using the same equation as above, that gives the Pats a 70% chance of winning if they go for it on 4th down and a 50% chance if they punt.  (You could also give the Pats better than 60% to convert, considering that they have one of the league's best offenses, which would make it an even clearer case for going for it).  The bottom line is that Belichick made the decision that gave his team the best chance to win on the road against the best team and best quarterback in football.  

It's also very interesting to me to listen to the simple-minded commentary from the former players and coaches on TV (like Dungy and Harrison) criticizing Belichick for not doing what "everyone knows" you're "supposed" to do.  The type of relatively simple analysis found on these geeks' website is readily available to any NFL coaching staff or anyone covering the league, but apparently nobody associated with the NFL is aware that it exists.  This league-wide ignorance may create an opening for a team like the Redskins (after Zorn is fired) to hire a coach who is willing to buck the conventional wisdom in situations like this and give his team an edge.  For example, maybe we can fire our punter and go for it on every 4th down.

Twitting the Skins

Instead of bothering my friends with texts while I tried to watch the Skins and do work at the same time, I opened a Twitter account.  Here's the feed

I Like Nyjer Morgan

Boswell beat me to it, but I've been thinking for a while that this guy Nyjer Morgan the Nats got from Pittsburgh for Milledge is really underrated.  (Not that I had ever heard of him prior to the trade).  People dump on him because, horror of horrors, he is already 29 and only reached the majors a couple of years ago.  But who cares, he probably has another 8-10 years of stellar CF play and a .360 OBP.  Most teams don't have a leadoff hitter with a .360 OBP.  (I was too lazy to find current OBP stats for leadoff hitters, but the average across all MLB is currently .333.  And Morgan's 2009 OBP of .372 is tied for 22nd in the NL, and most of the people ahead of him are power hitters).  To have a .360 OBP, Cristian Guzman would need a batting average of, oh, .359. 

The same people rave about Milledge because of his alleged "upside", even though he's already proven that he's a punk who can't walk, hit for power or play center field.  Other than that, he's great.  

Also see this article asserting that Dunn and Morgan are equally valuable players: 

Keep on sucking, Nats

The Nats may have just caught a huge break.  This guy is getting his GED and enrolling in junior college so he can be eligible for the draft in 2010 instead of 2011.  He is the consensus #1 pick for next year.  And, the Nats are 9 games "ahead" for the #1 pick next year.  And - no draft lottery!  We might actually have a real team in a couple of years.

Hasn't anything else ever happened on June 6?

Google has a practice of redesigning its portal page (google.com) on certain days to reflect the theme of that day.  For example, on Valentine's Day "google" will be spelled in pink letters surrounded by hearts, on Christmas the page will be green and red, etc.  I just turned to the home page to find that apparently Google is today honoring the 25th anniversary of Tetris.  I shrugged and figured that it must be a slow day for anniversaries, but then I suddenly remembered that today is also the 65th anniversary of a rather more important historical event.  To be fair, that particular event has never come to the attention of the idiots who run Google, since it doesn't get discussed on The Hills.

Behold the Power of the PX Pressure Exchanger

The flagship product of my latest investment.  Anytime you can buy a bunch of shares of a company that sells pumps used in desalination plants, you have to do it.  I hope this at least works out better than my Sirius investment from last year.

Haynesworth - Triumph of Hope over Experience

If Albert Haynesworth is such a great player, why do I feel sick about this?  (I KNOW why I feel sick about the DeAngelo Hall signing - because he's a clown who is not as good as he thinks he is and dogs it whenever he has the security of a big contract.)

Negative Shout Out to Noodles & Company

I think a new hobby of mine is going to be writing complaint letters to businesses.  I am so fed up with the ever-declining level of customer service in this country.  Look, if you don't want a job, go home and stare at the wall or play on Facebook (which both amount to about the same thing).  I wrote a note of complaint to Noodles & Company today.  This is a shit restaurant chain with a location in Ballston Commons mall near my gym - the pad thai and potstickers they make are adequate and I was starving today.  

I walk in today around 3PM and the place looks like a bomb hit it.  About 75% of the tables had dirty plates and cups all over them.  I walk up to the counter and nobody was there except for a cook who was trying to ignore me.  I ask him if he can help me.  He stared at me.  I asked him if the store was open. He walked away.  Then, a pimple-faced kid ambles behind the counter, talking on a cell phone.  Without interrupting his conversation, he snaps at me "What do you want?"  What is this, Clerks?  I stared at him for about 10 seconds.  Against my better judgment, I decided to order (I was really hungry).  I'm still disappointed with myself that I did.  At some point you have to fight the power.  I already stopped going to The World's Worst Starbucks a while back.  I think I'm going to need to add this shithole to my list too.  

Why I Shouldn't Play Poker

I had trouble sleeping Friday, so I was up by 4:30 AM Saturday.  Since I was up anyway, I signed up for a $5+rebuy tournament, and finished 6th out of 750 entries, for a profit of about $500.  I also had a good run in sit-and-goes and cleared a bonus, so I ended up with a profit of $846 for the day, which is my best single day since I began playing poker in 2004.  I don't remember being particularly excited about this turn of events.

This morning, I woke up and whiffed in eight straight sit-and-goes (2 $60s and 6 $38s) for a loss of $348. Despite the fact that I'm still up $500 for the weekend (and up for the month and for the year), the Sunday results have left me with a bad taste in my mouth that more than cancelled out whatever slight good feelings I had from my "best day ever" on Saturday.  Thus, even when I make a profit in money, I run a huge psychic deficit.  I thought hobbies were supposed to make you feel happy.

Paid Like Stars; Not Actually Stars

The Post's Redskins beat reporter Jason La Canfora really ripped the Redskins a new one today.  La Canfora has been relentlessly negative towards the Redskins for years.  He viciously rips Snyder and Cerrato every single day, especially on his Post blog.  Needless to say, I really enjoy his work.  He actually calls Snyder and Cerrato on their endless bullshit.  Maybe he could move to the White House beat and teach the Post's Obama-groupie political reporters something about speaking truth to power!  

I certainly agree with his assessment of the Redskins' talent level.  Other than the secondary, the Redskins' overall talent is average at best, and certainly far below the Giants and Cowboys.  The team is also old and brittle, especially on the offensive line.  I'd say the only genuine building blocks we have for a future champion are Cooley, Landry, Rogers, and maybe Campbell.  That's a start, but our lines need a total overhaul that probably can't be accomplished in one draft.

Despite the obvious failure of the talent procurement and scouting operations, it feels like the Redskins' management is starting to quietly lay the groundwork to fire Zorn, at least if La Canfora is accurately recounting what Zorn was told on the air by official team shill Larry MIchael:

Michael was sitting there with Jim Zorn, and was quite miffed that a reporter - in this case, Jason Reid (The Mayor) - would question Zorn about the lack of obvious talent at certain positions and point out what a detriment that is to the coaching staff. Michael then proceeded to prompt and cajole Zorn into boasting about the excellent talent procurement we've seen over the years here (Michael managed to do this with a straight face).

If Snyder was willing to eat millions of dollars to fire Schottenheimer, I'm sure he'd be willing to do the same for Zorn if he thought he could get Cowher or Holmgren.  But he's delusional if he thinks anyone good is going to work here, especially with so many better jobs probably opening up (like Cleveland, Jacksonville, San Francisco and maybe even San Diego).  Remember that nobody wanted to work for Snyder last winter, which is why he hired Zorn in the first place.  

Zorn has made some mistakes, but I will say that he appears to be making progress with his number one priority:  Campbell's QB rating has gone from 77 last year to 85 this year.  That's only 17th in the league, but teams like Pittsburgh, Carolina and Tennessee are winning with quarterbacks with even lower ratings.

The World's Worst Starbucks

It's official, the World's Worst Starbucks location is at 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington DC 20004.

This is the closest Starbucks to my workplace.  I have lately developed the (bad) habit of having a mocha frappucino for lunch, so I go here.  Everyone really must visit this place, it is something special. To illustrate why this place is so great, consider the following incidents (all of which have happened in the last 60 days):

1)  Some of the workers there know me, so they know that I like my frappucino with whipped cream but not with the fudge topping they usually put on them.  The woman who knows me prepares my frap, complete with the whipped cream, but then has to duck under the counter to get a plastic cover.  In the two seconds she turned away, another employee rushed over from five feet away, grabbed the fudge, and poured a HUGE gob on my frap, all as I looked on in horror.  Team play, guy.

2)  On at least four occasions I have seen them assign a non-English speaker to the register while four or five fluent English speakers made the drinks.  This has predictable results.  Every time someone orders, he needs to call over a colleague to translate, or even in one case to figure out what a bill is worth.  One time I saw the entire store grind to a halt for 10 minutes while he tried to process a refund.  It was hysterical, there were four employees huddled around the counter and the woman who wanted the refund was losing her mind, and the line was going almost out the door.  The person trying to get a refund eventually decided to eat whatever money they owed her and walked away in disgust.

3) I came in one Saturday to find three people standing behind the machines but nobody at the register.  I asked them if I could order.  At that point, one of the employees starts barking into the back room, asking a cashier to come out.  When he does, she starts tearing him a new asshole, right in front of me.  The highlight was when she implored him to "at least TRY to act like a professional".  

4) I came in another slow day and ordered my frap and got rung up.  I wandered over to the newsstand to peruse the Washington Post while I waited for them to make my order.  I guess I got engrossed in whatever I was reading because after 10 minutes I remembered to get my order.  Well, it wasn't up yet.  I asked what was going on, and the employee literally slapped his forehead and said, oh, I forgot. There was like, one other customer in the store at the time.

5) Then there was the Ipod-listening cashier.  You could get your order in as long as you repeated yourself two or three times, and as long as you were willing to wait for your change while he changed the song on his Ipod.  I think I complained about that guy, and perhaps I had some effect - I haven't seen him in a while.  

6) Mindful of 4, above, I now watch them like hawks to make sure they are actually making the drinks I pay for in a timely fashion (after all, time is money, the firm bills me out at something like $400/hour).  One time when I didn't get my frap right away, I asked the guy working the machines what the deal was (in a polite way).  He snapped at me, "I'm getting it, ok?!".  Then when it was ready he scowled and literally shoved it across the counter at me.  

I don't think any of my trips to this Starbucks ever go smoothly, but I still go out of habit and because sometimes the amusement value of incidents like this outweighs the aggravation.  I do feel like I should stop rewarding incompetence though.

Redskins

I missed the second half of today's game and I'm probably glad I did.  The first version of the AP story on the game put it best (I'm paraphrasing since they've changed the story since I read it):  "It wasn't so much a football game as a series of unfortunate events".   I especially enjoyed Fletcher's "taunting the bench" penalty on third down.  That's the kind of veteran leadership they pay him millions of dollars to provide.

I am not sure why the skins continue to suck in the second half.  Gibbs used to be good at making halftime adjustments, but I guess he's lost that touch.  Or maybe the team is out of shape and gets tired.  I don't really know.  What I do know is that this feels like an 8-8 team.  The offense can't run the ball worth a damn with 3/5 of the offensive line missing.  Maybe the thing to do is to forget about the running game and throw 50 times a game.  At least trying to win through the air would be entertaining, which is more than one can say for this offense the last four years. 

It will be interesting to see if our stout defense can slow down New England next week.  I'm guessing no.  I saw Moss catch a 50-yard pass today with one hand and two defenders mugging him.  I don't know how to defend against something like that.