10 Days of Bruce-Mas! - No. 3 "Winning Off The Field"

Tuesday is the ten-year anniversary of the hiring of Bruce Allen. He's made it this far, despite embarrassing moments at every turn and a constant humiliating dumpster fire of bad decisions, turmoil and chaos.

Here's our countdown of the top-ten moments of absurd management under Allen over the last ten years.

No. 10: The $36 million dollar salary cap penalty in 2012 and 2013.

No. 9: McNabb-Mania was running wild! Until it wasn't!

No. 8: The Shanahan Era - Firing multiple successful head coaches on same day!

No. 7: The RG III Experience - Trading for & completely empowering Robert Griffin III.

No. 6: A KURT-Alert! - Completely mis-managing the best quarterback the Redskins have had.

No. 5: Toying with Trent: The Trent Williams debacle that has no end in sight.

No. 4: Hiring/Firing of Scot McCloughan & Stabbing him in the back.

Losing is everywhere. It was Sunday, it was last week in Green Bay. Five games in a row to start a year that Bruce Allen said they "close" in. 95 regular season losses in the games with rosters constructed by Allen.

There's losing on the field and there's losing off the field. The Redskins have been very good at both under Bruce Allen, during Dan Snyder's reign and over the last 28 years.

They haven't been good at much else. Except "winning off the field" as Bruce Allen once famously said on December 31, 2014 after finishing (4-12), which capped off two entire years with SEVEN wins total.

Allen and the Redskins essentially fired Jim Haslett that morning. The team called it a "mutual parting of the ways." That made me sad. Haslett was blamed for everything although he often had very little to work with and the two years he had an appreciable amount of talent, the Redskins were good on defense, winning a division title and performing admirably well in 2011, despite a horrific offense.

When Allen took to the podium at a packed media room at Redskins Park, he was peppered with questions about the state of the franchise.

My pal Grant Paulsen asked him about sous chefs and such, basically a way to say "hey Bruce, how about hiring someone that has a clue about football." It was quite humorous.

Bruce was not thrilled, however.

Jason Reid, now of ESPN, then of the Washington Post and the team owned radio station correctly grilled Allen on a number of issues that as usual, Allen had no good answer for.

I asked Allen about the possibility of having A.J. Smith in the building on a full-time basis to help him. Smith had served alongside Allen in an executive role for two years after being let go by the Chargers and winning five division titles and 95 games during his ten-year run in San Diego.

Allen answered it this way: “You know, the technology today, if you’re in Hawaii, you can watch the game tape as quickly as I can watch it here at Redskin Park. And, because we have telephones in Hawaii, we can have a conversation immediately after the game. We are going to listen to the people who are in their roles, make sure we have the right people in their roles."

That's not what I asked but was a typical Allen response and just hoping that his words would hood-wink somebody. Not here, pal.

Allen mentioned the Redskins record that year of (4-12) being "unacceptable" and also said "if there's anything we can do to get this team back to where is belongs, we will do it. We'll do it."

Five years later.....we're still waiting.

But wait...there's more. Arguably - the most infamous quote of the Allen dynasty, via Redskins Public Relations:

On why he believes the organization is in better shape now than when he inherited it:

“Well, I think we’ve done a lot of things as an organization that have improved, but we’re going to be based on our win-loss record on the football field. It’s hard to stand here and tell you that 4-12 was a good season. I couldn’t even try to do that. It was as frustrating as it can be, and week to week, it eats away at your core when you lose. But we’re going to make sure everyone understands that that’s not acceptable and that everybody is working together in order to get success on the football field and off the football field. I do think our Charitable Foundation does a fantastic job. We’re winning off the field, but we’ve got to start winning on the field.”

There you have it boys and girls. The Redskins were winning off the field in 2014 and still are.

The only problem is that you're judged by how much win on the field. Allen's Redskins have never answered that challenge.

Chris Russell is the Publisher of Maven & Sports Illustrated's Washington Redskins channel. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621.

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