The Skins and Free Agency

Free agency opened last night and so begins one of the most annoying times of the year to be a Redskins fan. Every year we hear the same story: the Skins release or don’t sign a few quality players and then either sign washed-up veterans or players unwanted throughout the NFL. They do this, of course, for outrageous sums of money both groups of players do not deserve under any circumstance. Want examples?

Rock Cartwright (undervalued, quality player who was released); Bruce Smith (washed-up veteran who had no reason to be on the Skins); Brandon Lloyd (under-performer whom no one wanted, including the pathetic 49ers). What do Lloyd and Smith have in common? They were paid incredible amounts of money for mediocre contributions at best.

Maybe the start of free agency should be called the “NFL Sports Agent’s Bonus Cash Money Extravaganza from Redskins Park” or the “Drew Rosenhaus Gets Paid No Matter What by Dan Synder Day.”

Kidding aside, I hope the Redskins do something smart this year and stay away from the temptation of trying to sign someone famous or headline grabbing. Unfortunately I can promise you that DannyBoy has been on the phone with Randy Moss’s agent and I can also assure you that Drew Rosenhaus and Vinny Cerato text each other at least 50 times a day. They literally can’t help themselves -- last time I checked the Post, Lance Briggs was in the Skins' rumor mill. Great.

But maybe Coach Zorn will take a different approach this year and not make any stupid moves. The Post is reporting that the Skins may take a more “conservative” approach to free agency this year. A few things to note from this article:

1. The Skins will have around $7-10 million dollars of cap space, and this may be why the Skins are taking it easy. When other teams have $20-40 million to spend on players, why should the Skins try to compete with the bigger offers that may be out there? I won’t go into the atrocious management of the Skins’ salary cap, but suffice to say the cap may be preventing the Skins from making big deals this year. Good thing? Maybe.

2. This is a team which made the playoffs twice over the last few years. There may be a slight possibility common sense prevailed. For exampe, someone may have said, “Wow, this team gets along and plays pretty well together. Maybe we shouldn’t release everyone this year, overpay our underperformers, and sign some big name free agent for no good reason…” One can only hope Coach Zorn had a though similar to this one.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed during the next few weeks....