Symptom or the Source?

As most Redskins fans sort through the wreckage that is the 2009 Washington Redskins season, I have come to a somewhat peaceful understanding of my beloved team's current situation. I also realize what needs to happen in order for things to get fixed.

At work, when a problem arises one of the things we do is determine whether we're dealing with the symptom or the source. You always need to get to the source of the problem and deal with that. If you are only fixing a symptom of the problem, it doesn't really matter. That problem will just come back since you didn't deal with the source of the problem.

Well, the Redskins need to address the source of their problems. What's the biggest problem facing the Redskins? Unfortunately, the person we need to fix the problems is the one who has gotten us into these problems. Dan Snyder is the source.

Zorn. Cruise. Detroit pregame. This is never a good sign.

If we fire Jim Zorn are we going to be a better team? Will we be more successful? No, of course not. If we bench Jason Campbell because he fumbles too much, doesn't have the any accuracy on his long ball nor the touch on the short to medium passes does that make us a 10 win team? No. Clinton Portis appears to be done, stick a fork in him done. Does benching him and playing Ladell Betts make us a playoff contender? No.

Looking at this team after three games, the Redskins have a coach who's in way over his head, our QB may or may not be any good, we still only have one wide receiver, we haven't scored over 30 points in a game since December, 2007. Our defense couldn't get off the field and made Matt Stafford and the Lions look like Peyton Manning and the Colts running up and down the field. They also gave up four scoring drives over 80 yards.

And that's just on the field. Off the field Vinnie Ceratto headed the a disastrous Draft in 2007 and 2008. Out of a combined 15 picks, the Skins only have 2 players who are contributing (LaRon Landry and Chris Horton). That's it. We are the oldest team in the NFL (average age 28) and we don't have any youth. What's worse, we don't have anyone in the organization who can successfully navigate a draft board, so it's not like we can look forward to a youth movement anytime soon.

And lastly, the fan experience for the Washington Redskins gets worse every year. There's an awful product on the field filled with overpaid athletes who don't give a damn. The team sues it's fans over season tickets contracts even though there's a purported 15 year wait list. Players tweet that Redskins fans are dimwits who work as a McDonalds fry cook because they dare boo a team that scores just 9 points against the St. Louis Rams. Ticket prices are the highest in the league, it takes 4 hours on each side of the game to get into and out of the stadium, and then when you get there you're now not allowed to tailgate.

Great. So who's going to get us out of this mess? Well, the only one who can is Dan Snyder. But will he? Can he? I'm not going to hold my breath.

I'm also not going to sweat it. As I said before, I've seen this show before. The Orioles used to be held in high regard in MLB. The Oriole Way. But since Angelos has taken over he slowly eroded away that idea. Now, if you are unfortunate enough to have to watch the Orioles you'll be outnumbered by opponents as you watch your squad race to a 100 loss season.

Angelos finally hired a "baseball guy" a couple of years ago, but he has a lot to overcome. The Orioles have spent the past 15 years getting into this mess, it's not going to be turned around overnight. It'll be a miracle if it turns around in the next 5 years.

Hopefully Dan "the Communist Midget" Snyder will bring in a "football guy" and a decent head coach, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the NFL as a whole. There's a lot to like, there's a lot to watch. Just this past weekend I got to watch the Seahawks and the Bears finish, the Bengals beat the Steelers and a sick, sick finish to the Viking's/49ers game. If you didn't see it behold:





So no worries Redskins fans. There's plenty of good football to watch over the next 5 to 10 years, and while it won't be anyone wearing burgundy and gold, it'll still be worth watching on Sundays.