Al Saunders: Useful Idiot

Al Saunders is one of the 38 or so assistant coaches hired by the Washington Redskins (a playoff team last year) that has helped propel them to their current 4-9 record. Saunders’ most notable impact has been to burden the team with a 700 page offensive playbook, none of which seem to be very effective at generating touchdowns. Did I mention they’re paying this guy $2 million per year?

Jason Campbell replaced Mark Brunell as the Redskins starting quarterback midway through the season and has since had to play catch-up in learning Saunders’ complicated offense. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Washington Post article about Saunders and Campbell:

In high school, he could stand back and wait for a receiver to get open and the velocity of the ball would get there before a little guy who just came from chemistry class could go and break it up. And he played against Vanderbilt[in college], and he's flushed out of the pocket and throws downfield and the ball gets there before the nuclear physicist two years down the road can get there.

Did you catch that? Chemistry students and nuclear physicists aren’t very good cover corners. Wow, Al, that’s quite an observation. I guess they’re too busy studying for tests or tutoring the kinesiology and sports management majors to learn their schemes. Oh well, I guess they’ll have to be satisfied with careers that are actually, you know, useful to society.

What a tool, and an overpaid one at that.