The Ouster of Vinny

I'm going on record as saying this might be the happiest day in my life as a Redskins fan since the return of Joe Gibbs. ESPN 980 first reported this morning that Vinny Cerrato has resigned from the Redskins. This was followed by the announcement that Bruce Allen was hired as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the team. On the Cerrato front, I have noted my disapproval of him many a time. In fact, despite my dislike for Marty Schottenheimer, the one absolute great thing he did was fire Vinny. While we can not blame all the Redskins woes on him, he was part of the mastermind team that put together the disasterous resulting football organization. His "playoff caliber team" that this group of Redskins were declared is much short of that goal. Short at least 3 offensive linemen and at least one cornerback. The 2008 draft class was both his best and worst. Drafting Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, and Fred Davis all in the second round (BTW after trading in to get all in the second round) made little sense. No argument a good number one receiver was needed to take the place of Santana Moss, but an extra one and a receiving tight end to backup Chris Cooley? Vinny was proven somewhat right only that Cooley would miss nearly half of this season and Thomas has turned in a couple of good to stellar games. But no excuse to ignore the rest of the teams needs for places that were not the worst.

Bruce Allen is the former GM of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Fans may also know that he is a son of former legendary coach of the Redskins George Allen and brother of former Governor of Virginia and Senator George Allen. Finally after a decade of near total control by Dan Snyder, the team appears to have a professional front office manager to handle team operations. Whether he will be the missing piece to right the Redskins ship will need to wait. However, I think all Redskins fans think it would be hard to do a worse job than Cerrato did.