Letter to Snyder

So I was messing around on facebook and one member of a redskins group decided to draft a letter to Dan Snyder while we were speculating about Cutler being a redskin. I personally think it's interesting in that it shows what Snyder has done with this team since coming into the picture. Enjoy.

Dear Mr. Snyder,
As is customary with these job review letters, I feel that I must start off on a positive note. Firstly, I love what you have done to celebrate the team’s past. Those throwbacks from 02’ and 07’? They looked great. Props to whoever you hired to design them. Another good thing you did was to bring back Joe Gibbs and give us four years of stability on which to build. That was a good move on your part too.
However, after Gibbs retired, you chose to essentially scrap most of the coaching staff that he had put in place, thus losing the team at least a year of productivity to learn a new offense, as was evident last season. On another note, after last season’s 8-8 record, you have chosen to revert to your pre-Gibbs habits of signing big name free agents at exorbitant prices. $100 million for Haynesworth? $54 million for Hall? While both are certainly good players in their own right, there are very few in the game who are worth that much, and I’m not convinced that they are among that category. In fact, I’m fairly certain that if you had let Hall shop himself for a bit, you probably could have gotten him back for half the money.
The next thing that I would like to say is this: nobody doubts that you love the Redskins. The amount of money that you annually spend to try to make this team better is evidence of this love. However, as we have seen for the last decade under your ownership, money doesn’t buy championships. Jeff George, Bruce Smith, Laverneous Coles, Deon Sanders, Adam Archuleta.....all big name guys, all “great” players, but none worked out here. Chris Samuels, Chris Cooley, Sean Taylor, LaRon Landry, Chris Horton, Fred Smoot, LaVar Arrington, and, dare I say, Jason Campbell, have all worked out much better than the pricey free agents. How did we acquire these effective players? Through the draft, not the free agent market.
Now, there have been some great signings from other teams. Surely players like Clinton Portis and Santana Moss are evidence of this. But I ask you, Mr. Snyder, who told you to sign them? Joe Gibbs, a man with a knack for picking players with character, not just a desire to make money. Cornelius Griffin, London Fletcher, and Shawn Springs were among the players signed by Gibbs, and I don’t think that there is a thinking person among us who would say that they didn’t earn every penny in their contracts. But what happens when you pick people to sign? You look for flash. You want Star Power from your players. Never mind that some of the greatest football dynasties of all time have been built on team players and not stars.
Which brings me to the crux of my argument: by looking back from an objective standpoint at your tenure as owner, it is clear to me, Mr. Snyder, that you are utterly incompetent when it comes to building a team. You mean well, yes, but you still have a habit of destroying a season’s worth of work every year. Don’t take it from me. Just look at what every football pundit says every offseason. What are the Redskins? They are the “Champions of the Offseason”. When has this supposed championship translated to an actual championship? Never. At least, not under your tenure.
Now, it seems, that you want to trade Jason Campbell, presumably along with what few draft picks (see paragraph 3) we have for Jay Cutler. Before I tell you why this would almost certainly not translate into instant wins, let’s look at this from a logical perspective. As we have already established, you have a bad habit of firing players after rather short periods of time if they don’t prove themselves. Let’s say that you sign Jay Cutler and get rid of Jason Campbell. Then what? Do you plug him into Jim Zorn’s offense and watch him flounder for a season while he adjusts? Probably. Then, also judging by your past habits, you will fire Jim Zorn for being unable to have a winning season within his first two years as head coach. What then? Well, you will probably go out and try to find a big name, fancy coach who will take the reigns of this team and lead it to a Super Bowl. However, as we saw last season, nobody wants to coach this team. Why? Because you keep firing everybody. You fired Marty Shottenhiemer after one 8-8 season, Steve Spurrier quit after two, and probably would have been fired anyways, and then Joe Gibbs left us, a decision which you did nothing to stop. Now we have Jim Zorn, a promising young coach who is coming off of an alright rookie season. I wonder, with mild amusement, how much longer he will last under your rule? You’re already foaming at the mouth to get rid of Jason Campbell, who was the reason that you hired Zorn in the first place, so, I wonder, when will you fire Zorn too?
I would like to return to the problem of getting Jay Cutler for a moment, though. So we have assumed that we will get him and trade Jason Campbell. Ok, so the first game of the season rolls around and Jay looks great. The whole team looks great. But then the cracks begin to show, chiefly along our offensive line, which we couldn’t patch because you had to trade several draft picks to get Jay Cutler. With the offensive line down, Clinton Portis is not being nearly as productive as he was earlier in the year. With the running game almost gone, it is now up to Jay to prove that he is a great quarterback. But he can’t. With all the wear and tear on our line, we have to start plugging in young players who haven’t ever seen playing time before. Their inexperience shows as Jay Cutler’s performance suffers as well, resulting in no better statistics than those that Jason Campbell produced last season, though I would suspect that Jay would throw a few more interceptions. When the season ends, you no doubt fire Jim Zorn for failing to get the team to the playoffs. You try to hire another coach, but, as we have already stated, you cannot because nobody wants to coach for you. So you hire another rookie coach and the cycle begins again, only you never learn from your mistakes and Jay Cutler never takes us to the next level.
If I had to cite the main problem that you have as an owner, Mr. Snyder, I would have to say that it is your lack of patience. You never wait for something to get better. You always just assume that if it doesn’t work after a season, then it is not worth having at all. It is this destructive impatience that is holding our team back from becoming a truly great franchise again. It is my opinion that if you do truly care about the Redskins, then you will stop picking the players that the team signs, because you are just not that good at it. Hire a GM and let him build a team for you. That is how we will win in this league.