What Should We Think About This Mess?
By Steve Thomas
It’s been quite a week in Redskinsland, both good and bad. After several weeks of wildly varying speculation, general manager Scot McCloughan was fired without any official substantive explanation from either owner Daniel Snyder or team president Bruce Allen. Anonymous stories leaked out of Redskins Park that McCloughan’s past documents problems with alcohol had resurfaced, and other sources claimed that the his firing had actually about personal conflict between he and Bruce Allen. Some alleged that McCloughan’s free agency failures were a factor. Others believe that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of all of these stories.
So just what the heck is going on here? Do the fans have the right to be so upset at Bruce Allen as to demand his firing? What should fans think about this mess?
Just to be clear, all fans have the right to be angry at whatever they want to be angry about. Given the sheer volume of unpleasant events that the franchise has been through over the past twenty years or so, at this point, we are all entitled. But what about the loss of Scot McCloughan in particular? What should we make of this? Some of you may recall my very first post on this website, “Hope Springs Eternal” (read it here: http://www.thehogsty.com/2015/03/12/hope-springs-eternal/), in which I suggested that Scot McCloughan represented a new hope for a downtrodden franchise. Up until recently, this seemed to be correct. It wasn’t that McCloughan’s free agent selections and draft choices were infallible or the best we’ve ever seen – several free agents ended up failing in DC and more than one draft choice has thusfar produced questionable results. No, it was that Scot McCloughan’s mere presence gave fans hope that an actual, living and breathing “football man” was in charge and was seemingly giving the franchise new-found credibility after years and years of neglect and embarrassment.
Now, not only is that new-found credibility gone, but its departure was ushered by a blast-from-the-past dose of good old fashioned dysfunction. We also recently learned that said “football man” might not have been quite as in charge as we were led to believe, which is a major sin by the powers that be. It was the combination of the loss of hope coupled with the manner in which it occurred that caused such a strongly negative fan reaction. One without the other – McCloughan’s departure or front office dysfunction – might have generated a few eye rolls but nothing like what we saw late last week. The Redskins fanbase is to conditioned to chaos to get too worked up, but the totality of these particular circumstances put together proved to be more than most people found acceptable, understandably so.
I’ll just say here that we at The Hog Sty don’t really know any more of the truth than anyone else. We did hear a few rumors that most of you probably haven’t heard, but we mostly read the same stories and listened to the same radio segments as you have. My purpose here is not to diagnose the exact truth of what led to Scot McCloughan’s firing. No, my real purpose here is to discuss how we should react to this news.
Far be it from me – a regular fan who happens to have a website and a show – to tell any of you how to feel or how to root, or not root, for your team. If you’ve reached your breaking point, then by all means go find some other way to fill your entertainment hours. What I would suggest to you, though, is this: the recent events aren’t worth your anger. At the end of the day, what’s going on right now is that Redskins management (whoever that may be) is working free agency and preparing for the draft. All of the intrigue and drama in the front office is interesting and certainly makes for good talk show fodder, but to us, the fans, it just is not that important. What’s important at this juncture to me is the players that are being brought to the team, and the players we lost.
What I choose to focus on is my annual obsession on the roster. The front office mess is what it is. Maybe Scot McCloughan brought on his own professional demise; maybe Bruce Allen and Dan Snyder did him dirty; maybe it was a combination of all three. It isn’t really worth my time. We can’t control any of it, and it isn’t going to have an effect on my enjoyment of analyzing the roster and eventually watching the games. I just refuse to let the drama consume me, so please leave me out of your protest marches, your #fireBruceAllen campaigns, and the nonstop doom and gloom. I am not going to let this drama ruin my ability to enjoy Redskins football. I was originally drawn to the Redskins because my father took me to watch Redskins games when I was very young. I like the “sports” part of this NFL thing, not necessarily the bad reality TV show part of it.
This isn’t to say that I’m happy about what the Redskins have become or the fact that they seem to have remained a laughingstock of the NFL. Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen most certainly share the bulk of the blame for this team’s current predicament. It’s just that I’m done letting it bother me because it isn’t what is ultimately important. The roster and the games are the real fun of NFL football.
So here’s what I think: I’m sorry that Scot McCloughan lost his job, regardless of the circumstances. It’s never good when a person is out of work. But no longer am I going to let the things Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen may or may not be doing define my fandom or ruin my day. Those two men are going to do what they’re going to do, but regardless of anything else, come September, the Redskins are going to take the field. Until September arrives, let’s focus on the players and the team, shall we? It’ll be much better for everyone, I promise.