NBC4 Sports Roundtable: Picking Up the McCloughan Pieces

In case you missed it, and in case you care… I was on NBC 4 on Sunday night with the Post’s Master Tesfatsion to discuss the fallout from Scot McCloughan’s firing. It was good to share notes with a rising young newspaper beat reporter both on air, and off.

I think the worst part of the “Coup de McCloughan” affair is the lasting damage to reputations. Winning cures a lot of  things, but it doesn’t cure everything. Redskins fans desperately want our team TO BE good, but we also want to FEEL GOOD about it.

That gets harder and harder to do with unseemly affairs like this one. If Allen was genuinely sideways with McCloughan on football matters, fine. Fire him for that, and stand up in front of a microphone and be accountable. Make it entirely about football differences.

If McCloughan truly did become unmanageable and unaccountable at the worst possible time, then at the very least don’t lie through your face about him dealing with his dead grandmother. Don’t even go on that silly radio show in Nashville! Why? For what? The highest ranking team official – second only to the owner – lying so cavalierly and about something so petty, has diminished everything around him.

Bruce Allen’s reputation might never recover from this. I can’t envision a world in which this team is such a purebred winner for years on end, that we would all sit back, laugh and say… “Remember that time with the old GM… haha!” I remember when he was first hired, and most of us thought: “Well.. thank god we’ve got a credible former GM and NFL executive in the house. And he’s a legacy!”

He even brought back the yellow pants! I would have kissed him in public 5 years ago! Now, I can’t see a W-L record good enough for our fanbase to say “Ah yes… good ol’ Bruce!”

And while it’s technically the “high road” to stand by your statement that you’ll have no further comment on McCloughan’s dismissal, reality has it’s own rules. Reality says SOME DAY, Allen will have to present himself for questions in front of a microphone and podium.

When that day comes (and it would make for a fun office pool guessing how long that is) he WILL be asked about the whole McCloughan “thing.” And it won’t be a passing question, either. It will be a barrage of questions, that he can either try to parry with a slew of “no comments” or at least try to answer candidly, and humanely.

Now the talk is of bringing in somebody shiny, and smart, and fresh, and new. Like the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock. God help us, if that’s really what Dan and Bruce are thinking. It would be the most Redskin-y thing ever. A shiny new toy, to distract us fans for a while, until the wreckage of the most recent disaster stops smoldering.

Nothing against Mayock. I have had him on my radio show numerous times, and I really enjoy his work on television and respect his sharp eye for football talent. But not only does he have no experience MANAGING, he would have no real juice here. Not with Allen still running the team.

The logical hire is to bump up Doug Williams in house. Not only does he have the resume, but he could help bring a little humanity to the entire operation. The kind of guy who can remind everyone that doing the right thing is only part of it.

Doing the right thing the RIGHT WAY, is even more important.