Jarmon selection is succession planning

The Redskins' selection of Jeremy Jarmon came as a surprise to many; to almost everyone, in fact, except for readers of this blog (sorry, on the rare occasions that I get one right I have to toot my horn). Few were even aware that the Supplemental Draft was going on, not surprising given that the Redskins never before had taken a player in that draft.

But even though Mel Kiper wasn't present and it was conducted via email instead of in Radio City Music Hall, there was instant analysis everywhere. Message board posters who had not heard of Jarmon in the morning were panning the pick in the afternoon. The negative reviews were based mostly on the fact that the posters never had heard of Jarmon and the Redskins had a lot of nerve spending a third on a guy they'd never heard of.

Others compared it to the Jason Taylor trade of a year ago. Never mind that Taylor was well north of 30 and that Jarmon barely is old enough to drink legally. Apparently, expending a pick for a defensive end is expending a pick for a defensive end, no matter what the other facts are.

Then you have Ben at The Curly R saying that Jarmon has to get on the field in 2009 in order to justify the selection and agreeing with Greg at Hog Heaven saying that the third was a bit too high and that the pick was a sign of impatience.

The view here is that Jarmon doesn't have to play a single down in 2009 for the pick to be a good one and that the selection displayed some forward thinking for which the Redskins aren't known.

Actually, it would be disappointing if Jarmon did not see time on special teams. At 6-3, 278 with a 4.79 time in the forty, he would be a scary sight rolling down the field on kick coverage. But with Phillip Daniels starting at left defensive end and Renaldo Wynn backing him up there is no need to line up Jarmon at DE this year. He has the frame to pack on another 15 pounds or so and when he does that he will be the perfect size for a run-stuffing defensive end.

Unfortunately, Jarmon won't be able to accomplish that in the month of August. I see him getting a few snaps in the rotation but not much more than that (barring injury, of course).

And that's fine. Because in drafting Jarmon, the Redskins have done what they have failed to do so often in the past--succession planning. Daniels and Wynn are unlikely to be here in 2010 and certainly both will be gone in 2011. So the Redskins have replaced Daniels. They have their starting left DE of the future on the roster.

Was a third too high? Again, instant analysis of the value of a draft pick is an exercise in futility. It certain, however, that the Redskins would not have been able to get him had they bid a fourth-rounder for him. Lions GM Martin Mayhew has acknowledged that his team had bid a fourth and 0-16 Detroit would have had first priority.

But even if you don't buy Vinny Cerrato's assertion that with a full offseason workout and a combine appearance Jarmon would have been a second you can still make a case that he was worth a third. In the NFL, it's common practice to give up a pick in next year's draft that's a round better to acquire a pick in this year's draft. You pay a premium for getting the services of the player a year early. So, if you take the assessment that Jarmon was a fourth-round talent in the 2010 draft it's fair value to spend a third to get him a year early.

It's a good sign that the Redskins actually are thinking ahead. This doesn't mean that this will become a pattern or that Jarmon won't be a bust. But it is one small step away from the Cycle of Futility in which the team has been mired for much of this decade.

Draft Day: Redskins after UK's Jarmon?

It's draft day!

Well, sort of. The NFL's supplemental draft is being held today and the league's teams will be mailing it in.

Actually, they'll be emailing it in. Each team will send an email into the league office that may contain a draft-pick bid for each of the eight players who have, for various reasons, lost their college eligibility since the April draft. The team with the highest draft bid for a given player is awarded that player's rights and will forfeit that pick in the 2010 draft.

The highest rated of the potential selections is Kentucky defensive end Jeremy Jarmon. He's 6-3, 278 and you can read his scouting report from the Sporting News here. The upshot of the report is that Jarmon is more in the mold of the run-stopping defensive end rather than being a skilled pass rusher. This is the type of left defensive end that the Redskins are seeking, for this year at least.

So, it's not surprising to learn that the Redskins displayed considerable interest in Jarmon at his recent workout. They sent four representatives. One of them was Vinny Cerrato and he had quite a bit to say about the junior Wildcat:

"I think he worked out well," Cerrato said. "He ran well and was in good shape. He needs to get a little stronger, but he represented himself well. He's a great kid, solid in the locker room. He's smart. He's got all of the intangible things."

Under previous Redskins personnel directors, you could automatically eliminate the possibility of the Redskins putting in a bid for a player based on statements like that. If Bobby Beathard liked a guy, he wouldn't comment on him. In fact, you could get a pretty good idea of who he would draft by looking through the papers and eliminating any player he had mentioned from the list of possibilities.

But Cerrato is the guy that everyone wants to play poker with. He's the guy with a pair of aces in the hole who does a fist pump when another ace is turned up. So when he heaps praise on a prospective draftee you can bank on the fact that he's high on their list.

I could see the Redskins bidding a fourth for Jarmon. If they agree with the Sporting News assessment that he's a fourth-round talent maybe they will bid a third. When you're making a draft day trade using next year's picks you always have to give up a round higher next year than you're getting this year. The reasoning behind that is that you're getting the services of the player for an extra year.

There were 17 other teams at Jarmon's workout so it may well take a third to land him. If the Redskins are going to keep Brian Orakpo in a hybrid-type role, it may well be a good idea to get a replacement for Phillip Daniels and Renaldo Wynn at left DE.

An announcement regarding the supplemental selections will be made at some point this afternoon.

Roller coaster thriller vs. Raiders 10.02.83

This wasn't the biggest comeback in terms of sheer points, but it may well be the biggest from the point of view of points per minute. I've never heard a half-empty stadium so loud (yes, about half of the crowd were of little faith).

In retrospect, though, it may have been better if they Skins had dropped this one. They were somewhat overconfident when they played the Raiders in the one that really counted, that Black Sunday game that's a haze to many of us. Had the Radiers held on to win this one the Redskins might not have been quite so full of themselves when they went to Tampa.

Regardless, it was a hell of a game. From the pages of The Redskins Chronicle (now on sale).

RFK Stadium 10.02.83—This game had more ups and downs, twists and turns than the newest theme park roller coasters.

The Redskins dominated the early going. Interceptions by Curtis Jordan and Mel Kaufman set up scores to give Washington a 10-0 lead. The Raiders responded with the ultimate display of the vertical offense as Jim Plunkett and Cliff Branch hooked up on a 99-yard bomb.

After that quick lapse, the Redskins moved to reassert their control. A Mark Moseley field goal and five-yard touchdown pass from Joe Theismann to Joe Washington made it 20-7 in the third quarter. It appeared that the home team had some breathing room.

The breathing turned to gasping when Plunkett found Calvin Muhammad for touchdown passes of 25 and 22 yards, giving the Raiders the lead. When Greg Pruitt took a punt back 97 yards for a touchdown that gave the Raiders a 35-20 lead with just over seven and a half minutes left in the game, it was positively suffocating.

In fact, although most of them will probably deny it, nearly half of the crowd of 54,016 headed for the exits after that punt return. What ensued was one for the history books, as Theismann would say afterwards. Or, one for the storybooks.

It all got started on the first play after the kickoff when Washington took a screen pass and rocketed 67 yards down the right sideline. Three plays later, Theismann hit Charlie Brown with an 11-yard touchdown pass to draw the Skins within eight. Then Jeff Hayes kicked off and lined a low, hard one off the foot of a Raider. Greg Williams recovered, and the Skins drew within five after a Mark Moseley field goal with 4:28 remaining.

The Raiders managed to kill some clock, but could not get a first down as Plunkett threw to Todd Christensen for nine yards on third and eleven. Washington started at its own 31 with a minute and fifty seconds left. Plenty of time. Theismann completed three straight passes to Brown for nine, 26 and 28 yards, to the Raiders' six with 43 seconds left. On second down from there, Joe Washington snuck through the line, slid to the right and snared Theismann's pass for the winning touchdown. The Redskins won 37-35. The fans in the half full stands exploded in cheers, making more than enough noise to make up for those of little faith who had already departed.

Lombardi in Carlisle 07.10.69

It was 40 years ago today that Vince Lombardi had the first practice of his only training camp with the Redskins. It ushered in an era of hope that came to a crushing end when Lombardi died of cancer before he could conduct his second training camp. He brought the team its first winning season in 25 years.

We often think that Lombardi was relatively old by the time he came here but the man accomplished a lot in a hurry. He was 57 when he dies; Jim Zorn just turned 56

You can read an account of every game of Lombardi's Redskins career in my new book The Redskins Chronicle, now on sale.

July 10, was the day that the 1969 Redskins were to start training camp at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. For months, the Redskins players looked towards that date with a mix of hope and fear. The hope was that Vince Lombardi, who had been hired as head coach in February of that year, could lift the moribund Washington franchise to glory. The fear came from what they had heard of the methods he would use to do so. As cornerback Pat Fischer said, "Lombardi was preceded by his reputation."

That reputation came from comments such as those made by Henry Jordan, a player for Lombardi in Green Bay.

"He treats us all the same," said Jordan of his coach. "Like dogs."

Especially notorious was the grass drill. The players would run in place, knees pumping up high and then, on Lombardi's command, flop onto the ground. Failure to spring back up immediately and resume the fervent churning of the legs would usually result in a public tongue-lashing by the coach. In Carlisle he ran the grass drill unmercifully, cursing at the n on-performers so loudly that Dickinson secretaries working near the field complained to the dean of the college.

"There are two ways of motivation," said Sam Huff, who had come out of retirement to become a player-coach under Lombardi. "One is through fear and the other is through group motivation. Lombardi motivated through fear."

A big fear that players had was for their jobs. Being cut was always a clear and present danger for those who did not do things Lombardi's way. Even being a recent first-round draft pick didn't grant any immunity. When fullback Ray McDonald showed up late for the team's first meeting in Carlisle, Lombardi stopped speaking and asked the third-year player what his name was. "Ray McDonald," the player said. Those were his last words as a Redskin as Lombardi announced to the team right then and there that McDonald had been cut. From then on, job security dictated that one keep one's watch set to Lombardi Time, which was ten minutes faster than Eastern Time.

One player whose job appeared to be safe was quarterback Sonny Jurgensen. Not only did he have Hall of Fame talent, but also he fully bought in to Lombardi's methods. The signal caller who NFL Films' John Facenda once described as possessing "a=2 0hairline going north and a belt line going south" had once blown off his head coach's suggestion that he improve his conditioning, telling Otto Graham, "I don't throw the ball with my stomach." Now, however, he was flopping on the Carlisle turf with the rest of them.

Nobody was spared the wrath of Lombardi, not even his own flesh and blood. His brother Joe had recently been hired by a sporting goods company and thought he would take advantage of his family connection to bring a couple of the company's executives out onto the practice field. Lombardi ejected all three of them, using more of that language that made the secretaries blush.

As players such as McDonald and some rookies who packed up and bolted in the middle of the night fell by the wayside, replacements had to be found. Vince Lombardi wasn't a mere raving tyrant; he had an uncanny knack for finding talent. The coach was chatting with Jurgensen after the first practice when Lombardi pointed to a rookie running back out of Kansas State. "See that [rookie] over there in the overalls?" said the coach of the eighth-round draft pick. "When the rest of these guys are gone, he'll still be here." Lombardi was pointing at Larry Brown.

As camp wore on Brown continued to impress the coach with his ability, but the back always seemed to be a half step slow getting off the ball. "Does that Brown hear," Lombardi asked one night at a coaches' meeting. They decided to find out and, sure enough, a test revealed that Brown was quite deaf in one ear.

The team fitted Brown's helmet with a hearing aid that transferred sound from the side of his head with the bad ear into the good ear and the results were immediate and impressive. A couple of days later Brown scored two touchdowns in the exhibition season opener at RFK Stadium. A few days after that, assistant coach George Dickson saw Lombardi with his arm draped around Brown's shoulders. Later on, knowing that Lombardi doesn't show such affection to just anyone, Dickson went up to Brown and said, "Son, you've got this ball club made." Brown went on to rush for 888 yards in his rookie season and 5,875 in his seven-year career.

With Brown and a fit Jurgensen in starring roles, Lombardi led the Redskins to a 7-5-2 record, their first winning record since 1955.

The Redskins Chronicle is now on sale

My book The Redskins Chronicle is (finally) on sale.

I just put up a special Real Redskins landing page for preordering the book. What's the deal with preordering?

• You get a $3.00 discount off of the cover price. This applies to as many books as you order during this period so it's a good time to look at Redskins fans who have fall birthdays or are on your holiday shopping list.
  
• I'll put a personalized autograph on your copy of the book. Anything you want, just not too long.
  
• I'm doing a drawing to give away sets of four packs of books by yours truly. You can mix and match any of the three (The Redskins Chronicle, Hokie Games, The Redskins From A to Z). Again, a good way to reduce your Christmas list. There is no purchase necessary to be entered in the drawing for the books, check the site for details.
  
• Of course, you'll be the first on your block to get the book!
  

In exchange for these perks, you'll wait about 4-6 weeks for delivery. My own company publishes the book and this helps with gauging demand and with cash flow.

If you don't know what the book's all about by all means poke around the site and decide if you want to order. If you do, use your back button to return to the Real Redskins landing page or just use the code RealSkins when you order.

Thanks much for your support, if you have any questions, shoot me an email.