Bruce Allen and Jay Gruden Have Everything They Want, Now They Must Win

Do you suppose Washington Redskins team president Bruce Allen or head coach Jay Gruden read Oscar Wilde? If not, maybe they shouldn't start now before a pivotal second season where the pair will be out of excuses if they still don't win.

Wilde once said: "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it." Allen and Gruden had better hope the latter part of that quote isn't true.

If it is, Wilde's words deserve to be reprinted and typed into every postmortem of Washington's disappointing 2015 season. That is, if the Redskins crash and burn the way they did in 2014, the first year of the Allen-Gruden regime.

All that produced was a 4-12 finish, merely one game better than the previous season's 3-13 mark. Of course, any Allen and Gruden apologists could simply argue the pair were hamstrung by the mistakes of the previous Mike Shanahan-led regime.

After all, Gruden inherited a read-option-style quarterback who only seems to pay lip service to wanting to get better in the pocket. Gruden's subsequently stunted offense couldn't even count on the support of a defense that had been left wafer-thin after four seasons near the bottom of the team's list of priorities, as ESPN 980 reporter Chris Russell noted:

In fact, the entire roster was a footballing quicksand, certainly not underpinned by substantial and quality depth. That's a nightmare context for any head coach, especially a rookie with a lot to prove.

Of course, Gruden was Allen's man. He was the choice supposedly set to benefit from the decisions Allen made as general manager in 2014.

But whatever Allen's failings in that role, and last season revealed plenty of those, no GM could arrest years of lopsided drafting and the effects of a salary-cap penalty in one offseason.

There's enough reasons listed here to excuse even a 4-12 season. Assuming you're an Allen and Gruden apologist.

If you're not, you're likely to contend the pair didn't win many games during their disastrous debut year because they found more duds than studs in the 2014 NFL draft.

They didn't win more games because Allen botched free agency. He let greed lead him to luxury items such as wide receiver DeSean Jackson and defensive tackle Jason Hatcher, at the expense of improving the offensive line and secondary.

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Gruden fell flat on his face because he couldn't get along with the quarterback he was hired to fix.

Again, that's a lot of reasons. A lot of excuses for the failures of 2014.

But Gruden and Allen had better know they're all out of excuses for 2015. Out of excuses because they are getting everything they want.

Allen got to hire a new general manager, his choice, Scot McCloughan. Now he's out of the firing line when it comes to personnel matters and free to focus on "winning off the field."

If McCloughan's as good as advertised, Allen will earn the credit for saving this franchise. But if McCloughan doesn't quite live up to his billing as the master talent evaluator John Schneider and Ted Thompson say he is, then Allen will be vilified for betting big and rolling snake eyes.

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But even his punishment won't be as severe as what Gruden will receive if he still can't coach this team to a winning finish. More specifically, if he can't coach HIS team to a winning record.

Like many new coaches, Gruden did have to live with some of his predecessor's decisions. For instance, a coach with a preference for power blocking instead had to base his ground game around lightweight linemen recruited for Shanahan's famed zone scheme.

He also had to live with defensive personnel acquired for a generally more traditional and conservative version of the 3-4 defense. Ditching those systems altogether would've required the kind of large-scale overhaul of the roster not possible in a single offseason.

While Gruden didn't quite stick with every concept that suited his players, even his gradual schematic transitions required keeping a lot of Shanahan's assistants around.

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But all of those things have already changed. Previous O-line coach Chris Foerster has left town to be replaced by ex-Dallas Cowboys blocking guru Bill Callahan.

Both he and Gruden favor power-based, gap-blocking. The change at the coaching level is supposed to reflect those at the playing level.

Gruden signed Shawn Lauvao from the Cleveland Browns last offseason as a beefier option along the interior. That thinking was also likely behind the decision to draft both 6'6", 314-pound tackle Morgan Moses and 6'5" 320-pound guard Spencer Long in the third round.

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Both failed to shine as rookies, but the team has apparently not given up on them, per WalterFootball.com writer Charlie Campbell: "The Redskins are optimistic that they have some in-house answers from their 2014 draft class [for their offensive line.]"

So Gruden will have the coach and the players he wants to execute the kind of blocking he prefers to see in the running game. It's the same story on defense.

Gruden got the defensive coordinator he wanted when Washington settled on ex-San Diego Chargers linebackers coach Joe Barry to succeed Jim Haslett. Gruden got Barry even though there were much better choices, such as Wade Phillips and Vic Fangio. Even though the decision angered fans, per Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post.

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Fans may not like it, but Barry's here now, and he's ready to run the "shoot-the-gap-type" 3-4 Gruden wants, per Mike Jones of The Washington Post. New line coach Robb Akey will put that theory into practice up front, while Perry Fewell has been hired to fix woes in the back end.

But will a defense using more one-gap principles and lining up in a 4-3 a "significant percentage of the time," per Real Redskins blogger Rich Tandler, really improve things?

Will the coaching changes be enough to fix a unit that finished 30th in scoring in 2014, enough to help a pass defense that ranked 24th last season?

If those schematic changes don't work, what will? More to the point, if the changes Gruden and a new staff are putting in place don't work, can they still blame the failings on problems with the previous regime?

It's unlikely even the staunchest Allen and Gruden supporters would buy that bill of goods for another offseason.

Shanahan gave the pair some more ammunition recently when he went on ESPN 980 and blamed everyone bar himself for the losing that dominated his four-year tenure, according to another Post article by Steinberg.

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Shanahan has been busy trying to revise history to suggest he never had a fair chance of turning the Redskins around. The problems were real, but not of his making. Excuse me while I take an indigestion tablet.

One thing is for sure, though. By the end of 2015, the failures of the Shanahan era will no longer apply. This is now Gruden and Allen's team.

Maybe Gruden still isn't sold on Griffin. Maybe making that decision is one privilege he hasn't been given this offseason. If it is, it'll be the only one.

Gruden has even been given experienced quarterback guru Matt Cavanaugh to help him do what he was hired for in the first place. So that's one less excuse for next offseason.

There's the rub, or more specifically, the potential impasse between this regime and the team's fans. If Allen and Gruden still lose with a team they've built at every level, the pair will be out of excuses.

Then, it'll be time for yet another purge and massive rebuild in Washington.