I haven't been on here much lately so forgive me if this has already been covered.  Obviously we need to spend alot of money in FA to meet the minimum.  I'm curious about the best way to spend it.  My main question is how we should structure the contracts.

What if instead of locking people up to normal deals we picked a few key FA's and offered them seriously frontloaded contracts?  So that the majority of the guaranteed money impacts this years cap.  Would it be better to snag a few blue chip guys who will have very affordable contracts from the end of this season on?  That is also to me a much more acceptable way of overpaying.  I don't care if we gave someone a total deal considered too large if the majority of the impact is this season which is not a year we have Super Bowl aspirations.  This keeps us flexible longer and helps create added trade value down the line for any of the FA's signed(Haynesworth would have no trade value if the rest of the contract wasn't so affordable now).  It also means fewer FA's signed this year and you need to take extra care in evaluating character to find people who will still work hard even after getting a huge payday upfront.  It also might help us avoid the pitfalls of the Snyderatto era down the road.

I don't really have any strong thoughts on the matter, though I do lean towards fewer contracts that are frontloaded, but I was curious what you guys thought.  I'm not sure if it was discussed from this angle already but I think it should atleast be considered.  HTTR

KC Joyner had this article about Haynesworth and making the switch to 3-4 NT.  I think he will be a DE but it was still informative.  Since it's an ESPN insider Article I thought I would cut and paste the whole article for everyone on HH.  Everything below the jump is from the article.  Sorry if the formatting is bad.

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     So I have been having this slight problem lately.  I am just not good at rooting for McNabb yet.  I thought the trade was a much bigger gamble than a lot of people on HH but have accepted it.  I’m not trying to start up a discussion on the McNabb trade because I definitely have moved on.  My problem is intellectually I understand he’s our QB and want to root for him but when it comes to it I am just really bad at it.  Several times already a friend has made a comment like “McNabb, huh” and I’ve reflexively been like “That injury prone bum is always choking” before I realized that I was talking about MY starting QB.  I’ve got to fix this before the season starts.  Has anybody else had this problem?

     As I’ve mentioned I went to college 45 minutes from Philly in Eagles territory.  Being the lone Redskins fan in Eagles territory from 2000-2004 was really rough.  I developed an instinctual hate for all things Eagles and took so much abuse.  All those years rigorusly trained me to immediately bash all things Eagles.  Now when it comes to McNabb I’m having trouble turning it off.  It’s like when a player switches schemes and has to develop the muscle memory for his new position.  It takes time and a lot of repetition before you start doing things the right way without thinking about it.  Maybe there are some drills I can do.

     One last McNabb thought.  An unfortunate result of going to UD was that most of my friends on both coasts are Eagles fans.  I’ve gotten a variety of opinions from them on the trade itself.  This weekend however I had a bunch of friends come down to see Hot Chip(sorry I thought we needed better music references on this site) rock the Fox Theater in Oakland.  We talked for like 20 minutes about the trade.  I flat out stated that if we were able to win a SB with McNabb they would never be able to say a word to me about Football again.  They couldn’t agree on whether or not they liked the trade but they all agreed that scenario was their worst nightmare.  My one friend said that would be the worst thing that ever happened to him.  So while it is a gamble the upside, for me personally, is enormous.  Unlimited bragging rights over some world class shit talkers and never having to tolerate a Snyder insult again.

     Probably no point in this post but I thought I’d put up something non draft related today and I’m sure there are plenty of people on HH that would love to shutup some Eagles fans in their life.  So go McNabb and the Redskins.  HTTR.

Since the Skins brought him in this week I thought I would throw Dan Williams up there.  Since we might trade down there is a shot we could look at him.

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Take the jump for the breakdown.  I really like his point on not overvaluing one facet of a position.  I had been hoping he would drop to us.

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Here is the draft lab for Davis.

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I really enjoy the draft lab series on ESPN insider.  It adds a another perspective I find very valuable.  I know alot of people here on HH hate Metrics and Advanced stats but I find some of them helpful.  For instance I think alot of the stuff they use for safety play is really ambiguous but for line play I think it is really helpful.  For line play it is basically watching every play and seeing who won a 1on 1 blocking matchup or how often they allowed a pass to be tipped or had a penalty, got beat forcing a QB to hurry a throw....etc.  The whole premise of the series is he has found certain metrics translate into the NFL consistently.  For instance for DT he has found, surprise surprise, that DT's who come off the field alot in college come off the field alot in the NFL with Big AL posting similar snap percentages in college and the NFL.

  I'm not trying to say this is the definitive word, just offer a different look.  People asked me to post this so I will post all the draft labs that involve players we might actually be taking a look at for the non-Insiders.  Take the jump for his Trent Williams summary.

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Don't really feel like giving a big write-up but wanted to throw a thought or two out.

1)What does this mean with the #4 pick? - For the sake of argument I am gonna rule out Bradford at that spot or any crazy trade where we get rid of McNabb(can that even happen?).  That makes it look like Okung all the way.  He might not be there but I'm not as convinced as others that Detroit will take him.  What do you guys feel about a trade down?  It can help mitigate the draft picks we are now missing.  For me it depends on how far we fall.  We have set this team up so we need a Day 1 starter at LT.  No taking a year at RT or having to beat out a vet.  A starter from the moment we draft him.  I'm not too sure about any of the second tier guys(Davis, Campbell, Brown, Saffold) being able to step right in like that.  Since we now have an aging, injury prone QB I'm not sure we can afford to hope that one of those guys is ready.  This makes a trade down risky as we HAVE to protect McNabb this year.  What do you guys think we should do?

2)Is this the first step in a major housecleaning? - I've been kicking this around in my head for awhile.  There is a new Sherriff in town and I can see him completely cleaning house at the draft.  He has no allegiance to any of these peoples.  I've been of the thought that we might see 5-6 more guys go out in draft day trades for late round picks.  The fact that we were shopping Big Al before he blew off workouts and Landry might give a little more credibility to that though.  Especially when certain guys like Carlos haven't been in a hurry to get in line I can't see Shanny keeping them.  He doesn't care when they were drafted.  I can easily see us shipping out Rocky, Carlos, At least one of our SS's, Golston, Carter for 4-6th round picks.  I know alot of people have thought we would trade those guys for second or third rounders but I see us having a firesale.  I think that might be partly why they weren't afraid to give up draft picks for McNabb.  Do you guys think that is likely?  Would you be happy with that?

The post is reporting that we are bringing in Antonio Bryant for a FA visit and might sign him.  I honestly didn't think we would look at WR but it's what is happening.  Not sure what to make of it.  I kinda like our recieving group even though I'm not super high on Moss anymore.  Obviously if we could get him cheap thats cool I guess.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider/free-agency/with-new-coach-system-an-upgra.html#more

Also the Post is reporting Andre Carter looks like the odd man out in the 3-4 and seemed to imply he might not make the team this year especially if we get Larry Foote.  How do you guys feel about that?  For the long term I don't mind getting rid of him I guess but I think he had 2 good years left at DE in a 4-3.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider/3-4-defense/andre-carter-may-be-the-odd-ma.html#more

I'm going.  Struggling to round up anyone to go with me but I am definitely going and would be down to meet up for drinks beforehand with any BF members.  Hopefully we will get a nice win in our only Oakland game this year and I am pretty sure we have some Northern California members of the BF community.  If we could get a couple people there I'm sure it would be a good time.  See you there.

So one of the hardest parts about this season, for me, is the element that it has brought to HH.  There is always the usual people who hop on Sunday’s after the games to put up poorly written hate screeds.  But what bother me the most is that nowadays it seems like every post or comment has to start with a rant about Snyder/O-Line/Cerrato etc….. It’s a sad state of affairs that reflects poorly on both the Redskins and us that one has to start out with a rant to prove your Redskins bonafides.  I see people having the pessimist/optimist discussion a lot but I don’t really care how you see something as long as we talk about something substantive.  Lots of people on here are pessimistic and very funny about it or offer good points.  Others feel the need to keep on pointing out the obvious and never really make any real points.  Is there really anyone on here who thinks Snyder isn’t a bad owner?  Anyone think this line is anything better than mediocre or that we were right to ignore it for so many seasons?  If so speak up now.  Personally I don’t think there is more than one or two people on here that think that.  For some reason though unless you mention all that in any post/comment regardless of topic your likely to be accused of being ignorant or a Snyder lover by certain others on this site.  I feel this limits intelligent discourse and diminishes what makes HH so great compared to RI.

Now that being all said I’ve probably been too hard on certain people on here and in my role as uniter not divider I’d like to maybe offer a fix.  Maybe we can come up with some acronym or term that sums up the universal disgust with Cerrato/Snyder/O-line.  We have a lot of hate and creativity on this blog lets have some fun coming up with a term or Acronym.  Then when we do everyone can add that acronym/term to the beginning or end of their comments/posts and not have people point out the stuff so obvious they felt that no one should need it mentioned.  I am mostly serious about this so let’s have some fun with it instead of wallowing in despair.  Besides maybe it catches on like Dan Savage using Santorum as term.

What do you guys think?  How do you guys feel about the tenor around here?  How are we gonna deal with stuff going on through the season?  Again I am really interested to see what you guys think.  Lets have a discussion and clear the air and then get back to some actual football talk.

In a way I feel like I have been a part of the problem.  My last couple fan posts have been about off-the-field stuff instead of some football stuff.  I did a lot of research 2 weeks ago analyzing Football Outsiders stats on our D the last 3 years in an effort to debunk the myth that we were a top 5 defense last year and I think I found a lot of good evidence to support my belief.  I also spent some time at looking at the performance the last 3 years of both our O-line and D-lines and found some interesting numbers which sheds a slightly different light on the Orakpo/Haynesworth/Jarmon acquisitions.  I have been too bummed to write about it though.  I'll get it done though.  I gotta look up this years updated stats again and doubt I will get it written before I leave on Wed. to go Phishing in SoCal(OCHO WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!).  I will have it next week and will hopefully get a short post up later today on some thoughts after the last game.  It will be nice to be talking about football stuff again.

This is a really low point for me and all Skins fans.  I have been feeling the frustration we all feel and looking for somewhere to vent my anger.  I have been unsure of what to do or how to try and effect change however.  I've been thinking about it alot and was hoping to bounce it off you guys.  Take the jump to see my take.

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