superfan
10-14-2007, 01:20 AM
Youth and experience square off
By BOB McGINN
bmcginn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 13, 2007
Green Bay - How Ted Thompson has operated in Green Bay over the last three years and how the Washington Redskins have done business for the better part of 40 years demonstrate anew that no one ever has and probably never will be able to write the definitive book on how to succeed in the National Football League.
This afternoon, the Packers (4-1) and Redskins (3-1) will meet in an attractive match-up of what some would label as the biggest surprise teams of 2007.
No two organizations, however, have gone about building their teams in such a disparate fashion.
The Packers, 4-12 two years ago, have overhauled their roster and strengthened position after position by stockpiling draft picks and making enough of them count.
The Redskins, 5-11 last season, have given the draft short shrift since George Allen reversed three decades of defeat with his "Over the Hill Gang" in 1971. Six of the Redskins' best players also represented their top six picks in the past four drafts, but the crux of team-building in D.C. remains the stockpiling of veterans.
It should be no surprise, then, that Green Bay entered both 2006 and 2007 as the youngest team in the NFL, whereas Washington entered as the oldest team each season.
As it stands now, the Packers' 53-man roster has an average age of 25.91 years and average experience of 3.57 years. For the Redskins, it's 28.36 and 6.40.
Washington has 19 players who have reached age 30. Green Bay has eight.
Given their recent and unusual influx of young talent, the age difference for the starters on the two teams isn't overwhelming. Washington's 22 starters average 28.46 years compared to 27.14 for Green Bay.
The startling difference comes in the average age of the 28 backup players on each roster. The Redskins' subs are 3.57 years older than the Packers' (28.21 to 24.64), with the difference among the offensive backups even more marked at almost five years per man (29.57 to 24.62).
To put it more concisely, Washington has 17 backup players age 28 or older, whereas Green Bay has two. However, the Packers' two oldest backups, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and Bubba Franks, were starters for five and seven years, respectively, before losing their jobs this season.
"We're pretty confident in what we do in terms of taking young guys and coaching them up and playing them," Thompson said. "You shouldn't paint me in a corner as someone that doesn't like experience. I think we all like experience. I just felt this team needed to add some new blood."
In Washington, owner Daniel Snyder has stepped back somewhat and permitted coach and team president Joe Gibbs to set the course since his return to the sidelines in 2004. Vinny Cerrato, the team's vice president of football operations, generally has run the personnel department since Snyder bought the team from the heirs of Jack Kent Cooke in 1999.
"We haven't had a ton of draft picks, so you kind of have to add the guys where you can," Cerrato said Friday. "Our coaches like real smart and tough. We have a lot of younger guys at spots but at certain spots our coaches are comfortable with veterans. Because you know what? You know what you're getting from them."
When it comes to depth, the No. 1 objective across the league is keeping players to help win that season. The secondary objective is to develop players for the future.
From 1971-'77, Allen traded every one of his first- and third-round choices and all but one of his seconds. Later, general managers Bobby Beathard and Charley Casserly did a lot of wheeling and dealing.
In the last five years, the Redskins have drafted just 24 players, keeping 15. In the last three years, the Packers have drafted a league-high 34 players, keeping 28.
In short, Washington almost never has any players to develop.
Year after year, the Redskins shuffle old players. Eight players 30 or older (David Patten, Brian Kozlowski, Joe Salave'a, Renaldo Wynn, Lemar Marshall, Warrick Holdman, Jeff Posey and Troy Vincent) who finished '06 on the 53 are gone. They've been replaced by six new 30-somethings: Keenan McCardell (37), Pete Kendall (34), Jason Fabini (33), Rick DeMulling (30), London Fletcher (32) and Randall Godfrey (34).
"The downside is you're not developing a young guy," Cerrato said. "The upside is a guy isn't going to pee down his leg if he has to go in a game because he's started so many games. The basis of our team is signed for the next few years. We play around with 10 or 12 spots or so."
Beathard found six starters in the 1981 draft, the foundation of Gibbs' three Super Bowl crowns. The knock on Gibbs was that he was slow to change and didn't give young players much of a shot, but Gibbs was Snyder's boyhood idol and the future owner came to believe that a franchise could excel living year to year.
Gibbs, who turns 67 next month, has never cared much for waiting, and Snyder shares his impatience in spades. Snyder went through four coaches in his first two years, discovered he couldn't buy a Super Bowl and then hitched his wagon to Jason Campbell, who has a chance to be the Redskins' finest quarterback in a generation.
"One thing about our owner and our head coach, they're very aggressive," Cerrato said. "They're not afraid to take chances. We're very fortunate to have an owner who is willing to spend."
If the Redskins needed confirmation that their ways still might win, New England provided it. In 2001, the Patriots were an aging mélange of second-tier unrestricted free agents, but for some reason the chemistry was right and the result was one of the most unexpected Super Bowl champions.
Not only is Thompson reluctant to play in free agency, he doesn't much like "street" free agency, either.
During the '06 regular season and the first five weeks this year, the Packers have made 17 changes to their 53-man roster. Eight of the 17 slots were filled by promotions from their practice squad.
This season, both the Packers and Redskins have added three players to their rosters. Green Bay moved up Chris Francies and Orrin Thompson from the practice squad and re-signed Shaun Bodiford (average age: 24.7). Washington signed Reche Caldwell and McCardell from the "street" and re-signed Omar Stoutmire (average age: 32.7).
All the numbers and names on the back end of a roster mean little or nothing, however, until some of those people have to play. And play some of them will this afternoon, most critically in the offensive line.
For the sake of argument, let's set aside left tackle Chad Clifton and right tackle Mark Tauscher for Green Bay, and left tackle Chris Samuels and center Casey Rabach for Washington. Clifton, Tauscher and Samuels were drafted long before Thompson and Gibbs began running their shows, and this is Rabach's third season as a starter.
How the two teams went about filling the other three berths on their offensive lines speaks eloquently about their methods and probably will go a long way in determining today's winner.
Each week, teams lose players to catastrophic injuries. After the Redskins lost right tackle Jon Jansen (broken ankle) for the season in Week 1 and right guard Randy Thomas (arm) until December in Week 2, my thought was to all but write them off.
Jansen and Thomas ranked as the Redskins' second- and third-best blockers. If the Packers had lost two from among center Scott Wells, Clifton and Tauscher, it's safe to assume they wouldn't be 4-1.
The Redskins' first key move came Aug. 24 when they traded a mid-round draft choice for Kendall, the Jets' disgruntled left guard. In March, Washington had given tackle Todd Wade a $3.5 million re-signing bonus to fill their void at left guard, but when Wade flopped inside, Gibbs boldly moved on Kendall and his 156 starts.
When Jansen went down, Gibbs had the 30-year-old Wade and his 86 starts to replace him.
When Thomas went down, Gibbs had Fabini and his 114 starts to replace him. Both the Jets and Cowboys had given up on Fabini, but the Redskins signed him to a minimum deal March 26.
"Kendall is killing it," a personnel man for a recent Redskins' opponent said. "He definitely was a huge pickup for them. He's having a damn good year. Fabini actually has played OK. He can't move, but he's just strong and smart. Wade played OK, too."
Sacked just five times and the beneficiary of a 10th-ranked ground game, Campbell's development hasn't been slowed one iota behind a patchwork line.
Just as the Redskins lost left guard Derrick Dockery to a big-money deal in March 2007, the Packers lost left guard Mike Wahle the same way in March 2005. Thompson piddled around for a year with veteran Adrian Klemm, then drafted Daryn Colledge in the second round.
Today, the Packers will be without center Scott Wells (eye) for the first time and might be without right guard Junius Coston (ankle). Thompson has Jason Spitz, a third-round pick in '06 with 14 starts, to replace Wells and Tony Moll, a fifth-round pick in '06 with 10 starts, to replace Coston.
It's possible that Colledge, Spitz and Moll - three members from Thompson's superb 2006 draft - still will be playing for the Packers after Kendall, Wade and Fabini are long gone. But my preference to win a game this afternoon would be Kendall, Wade and Fabini.
Flesh and blood, man against man determines the outcome of football games, but the philosophies set forth by front-office executives determine who those men will be.
No one has all the answers. But everyone in the NFL understands that each move has ramifications, and on Sundays there can be no excuses.
By BOB McGINN
bmcginn@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 13, 2007
Green Bay - How Ted Thompson has operated in Green Bay over the last three years and how the Washington Redskins have done business for the better part of 40 years demonstrate anew that no one ever has and probably never will be able to write the definitive book on how to succeed in the National Football League.
This afternoon, the Packers (4-1) and Redskins (3-1) will meet in an attractive match-up of what some would label as the biggest surprise teams of 2007.
No two organizations, however, have gone about building their teams in such a disparate fashion.
The Packers, 4-12 two years ago, have overhauled their roster and strengthened position after position by stockpiling draft picks and making enough of them count.
The Redskins, 5-11 last season, have given the draft short shrift since George Allen reversed three decades of defeat with his "Over the Hill Gang" in 1971. Six of the Redskins' best players also represented their top six picks in the past four drafts, but the crux of team-building in D.C. remains the stockpiling of veterans.
It should be no surprise, then, that Green Bay entered both 2006 and 2007 as the youngest team in the NFL, whereas Washington entered as the oldest team each season.
As it stands now, the Packers' 53-man roster has an average age of 25.91 years and average experience of 3.57 years. For the Redskins, it's 28.36 and 6.40.
Washington has 19 players who have reached age 30. Green Bay has eight.
Given their recent and unusual influx of young talent, the age difference for the starters on the two teams isn't overwhelming. Washington's 22 starters average 28.46 years compared to 27.14 for Green Bay.
The startling difference comes in the average age of the 28 backup players on each roster. The Redskins' subs are 3.57 years older than the Packers' (28.21 to 24.64), with the difference among the offensive backups even more marked at almost five years per man (29.57 to 24.62).
To put it more concisely, Washington has 17 backup players age 28 or older, whereas Green Bay has two. However, the Packers' two oldest backups, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila and Bubba Franks, were starters for five and seven years, respectively, before losing their jobs this season.
"We're pretty confident in what we do in terms of taking young guys and coaching them up and playing them," Thompson said. "You shouldn't paint me in a corner as someone that doesn't like experience. I think we all like experience. I just felt this team needed to add some new blood."
In Washington, owner Daniel Snyder has stepped back somewhat and permitted coach and team president Joe Gibbs to set the course since his return to the sidelines in 2004. Vinny Cerrato, the team's vice president of football operations, generally has run the personnel department since Snyder bought the team from the heirs of Jack Kent Cooke in 1999.
"We haven't had a ton of draft picks, so you kind of have to add the guys where you can," Cerrato said Friday. "Our coaches like real smart and tough. We have a lot of younger guys at spots but at certain spots our coaches are comfortable with veterans. Because you know what? You know what you're getting from them."
When it comes to depth, the No. 1 objective across the league is keeping players to help win that season. The secondary objective is to develop players for the future.
From 1971-'77, Allen traded every one of his first- and third-round choices and all but one of his seconds. Later, general managers Bobby Beathard and Charley Casserly did a lot of wheeling and dealing.
In the last five years, the Redskins have drafted just 24 players, keeping 15. In the last three years, the Packers have drafted a league-high 34 players, keeping 28.
In short, Washington almost never has any players to develop.
Year after year, the Redskins shuffle old players. Eight players 30 or older (David Patten, Brian Kozlowski, Joe Salave'a, Renaldo Wynn, Lemar Marshall, Warrick Holdman, Jeff Posey and Troy Vincent) who finished '06 on the 53 are gone. They've been replaced by six new 30-somethings: Keenan McCardell (37), Pete Kendall (34), Jason Fabini (33), Rick DeMulling (30), London Fletcher (32) and Randall Godfrey (34).
"The downside is you're not developing a young guy," Cerrato said. "The upside is a guy isn't going to pee down his leg if he has to go in a game because he's started so many games. The basis of our team is signed for the next few years. We play around with 10 or 12 spots or so."
Beathard found six starters in the 1981 draft, the foundation of Gibbs' three Super Bowl crowns. The knock on Gibbs was that he was slow to change and didn't give young players much of a shot, but Gibbs was Snyder's boyhood idol and the future owner came to believe that a franchise could excel living year to year.
Gibbs, who turns 67 next month, has never cared much for waiting, and Snyder shares his impatience in spades. Snyder went through four coaches in his first two years, discovered he couldn't buy a Super Bowl and then hitched his wagon to Jason Campbell, who has a chance to be the Redskins' finest quarterback in a generation.
"One thing about our owner and our head coach, they're very aggressive," Cerrato said. "They're not afraid to take chances. We're very fortunate to have an owner who is willing to spend."
If the Redskins needed confirmation that their ways still might win, New England provided it. In 2001, the Patriots were an aging mélange of second-tier unrestricted free agents, but for some reason the chemistry was right and the result was one of the most unexpected Super Bowl champions.
Not only is Thompson reluctant to play in free agency, he doesn't much like "street" free agency, either.
During the '06 regular season and the first five weeks this year, the Packers have made 17 changes to their 53-man roster. Eight of the 17 slots were filled by promotions from their practice squad.
This season, both the Packers and Redskins have added three players to their rosters. Green Bay moved up Chris Francies and Orrin Thompson from the practice squad and re-signed Shaun Bodiford (average age: 24.7). Washington signed Reche Caldwell and McCardell from the "street" and re-signed Omar Stoutmire (average age: 32.7).
All the numbers and names on the back end of a roster mean little or nothing, however, until some of those people have to play. And play some of them will this afternoon, most critically in the offensive line.
For the sake of argument, let's set aside left tackle Chad Clifton and right tackle Mark Tauscher for Green Bay, and left tackle Chris Samuels and center Casey Rabach for Washington. Clifton, Tauscher and Samuels were drafted long before Thompson and Gibbs began running their shows, and this is Rabach's third season as a starter.
How the two teams went about filling the other three berths on their offensive lines speaks eloquently about their methods and probably will go a long way in determining today's winner.
Each week, teams lose players to catastrophic injuries. After the Redskins lost right tackle Jon Jansen (broken ankle) for the season in Week 1 and right guard Randy Thomas (arm) until December in Week 2, my thought was to all but write them off.
Jansen and Thomas ranked as the Redskins' second- and third-best blockers. If the Packers had lost two from among center Scott Wells, Clifton and Tauscher, it's safe to assume they wouldn't be 4-1.
The Redskins' first key move came Aug. 24 when they traded a mid-round draft choice for Kendall, the Jets' disgruntled left guard. In March, Washington had given tackle Todd Wade a $3.5 million re-signing bonus to fill their void at left guard, but when Wade flopped inside, Gibbs boldly moved on Kendall and his 156 starts.
When Jansen went down, Gibbs had the 30-year-old Wade and his 86 starts to replace him.
When Thomas went down, Gibbs had Fabini and his 114 starts to replace him. Both the Jets and Cowboys had given up on Fabini, but the Redskins signed him to a minimum deal March 26.
"Kendall is killing it," a personnel man for a recent Redskins' opponent said. "He definitely was a huge pickup for them. He's having a damn good year. Fabini actually has played OK. He can't move, but he's just strong and smart. Wade played OK, too."
Sacked just five times and the beneficiary of a 10th-ranked ground game, Campbell's development hasn't been slowed one iota behind a patchwork line.
Just as the Redskins lost left guard Derrick Dockery to a big-money deal in March 2007, the Packers lost left guard Mike Wahle the same way in March 2005. Thompson piddled around for a year with veteran Adrian Klemm, then drafted Daryn Colledge in the second round.
Today, the Packers will be without center Scott Wells (eye) for the first time and might be without right guard Junius Coston (ankle). Thompson has Jason Spitz, a third-round pick in '06 with 14 starts, to replace Wells and Tony Moll, a fifth-round pick in '06 with 10 starts, to replace Coston.
It's possible that Colledge, Spitz and Moll - three members from Thompson's superb 2006 draft - still will be playing for the Packers after Kendall, Wade and Fabini are long gone. But my preference to win a game this afternoon would be Kendall, Wade and Fabini.
Flesh and blood, man against man determines the outcome of football games, but the philosophies set forth by front-office executives determine who those men will be.
No one has all the answers. But everyone in the NFL understands that each move has ramifications, and on Sundays there can be no excuses.