Vinny Cerrato: How Does He Still Have a Job?

Vinny Cerrato, a modern day Judas. I shutter even writing his name out.

That’s right, hide the kids, because Dan Snyder’s “racquetball partner for life” has made a bevy of moves that have been downright scary.

You only need to start with last year as the Redskins once again traded draft picks for a guy in Jason Taylor, who this year is not on the roster. This just follows a trend of Vinny pulling in more washed up stars than a VH1 reality show.  Cerrato was the chief operator in the moves to bring in such oldies as Bruce Smith, Deion Sanders and of course Jeff George, our own person Ryan Leaf.

Cerrato has also traded draft picks in the past for such Redskins mainstays as T.J. Duckett and even Brandon (lost the ball in the light) Lloyd, and in both 2008 and 2009 failed to draft for the teams need at the offensive line.  Why? Well for our boy Vinny,  it is all about drafting the best guy available, no matter the need. In 2008 he said the following: “You know, so you’ve gotta go with how you have them ranked, how you have them graded, and you can’t just go take a need. The way that you can screw up your team is if you go draft a need, you’re gonna get a bunch of guys at those positions but you’re not gonna be happy with the results.”

So let me get this straight. You hurt the team by acknowledging a weakness and drafting for it, you help the team by getting the best available player, a guy like Jason Taylor. Wow thanks Vinny for clearing that up, that philosophy explains a lot about the plunging status of this team. You guys really do think you are dealing with fantasy football here don’t you?  Because in fantasy football, veterans are obviously more important than players coming out of the draft. Of course, in fantasy football the regular season ends before the playoffs, kind of like a certain team of late, so maybe that explains a couple of things.  

Former Redskins coach Marty Schottenheimer might have been the smartest man in the room when he decided to relieve Cerrato of his player/personnel decision-making role in 2001.  An 8-8 year might have ended the reign of ‘Martyball’ in DC, but Cerrato, since being given the wheels back to the franchise, and rehired in 2002, has done even worse. Since that year the Redskins are 26-38 under Cerrato. Even Norv Turner had a better winning percentage than that, but Norv of course never played racquetball or made appearances hosting a show on a radio station that Dan Snyder owns! How else can you explain why Vinny is still here?