10 Days of Bruce-Mas! - No. 4 - Hiring/Firing of Scot McCloughan

Yup! Your eyes aren't deceiving you! Instead of the 12 Days of Christmas, we here at Redskins Maven and SI.com are honoring Bruce Allen's ten years of leadership with the Redskins with a countdown to his ten-year anniversary on December 17th.

You've also heard of "Stras-mas" for the Washington Nationals. Welcome to the "10 Days of Bruce-Mas!"

Here's how we're celebrating: Our team of Rick Snider, Bryan Manning, Ivan Lambert and myself along with some help from a secret contributor, ranked the top-ten moments in in the Bruce Allen era as President/General Manager/Executive Vice President of the Washington Redskins.

Only we're not doing it in the nice way. No. This is a list of the ten worst moments and disasters of Bruce's reign. Sorry, in advance. Oh and one more thing: We're extending this out until Tuesday, which just so happens to be December 17th. That might catch up to us if Dan Snyder hasn't calmed down yet and pulls the plug.

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.

Now - No. 4 or the hiring/firing of Scot McCloughan and sticking a dagger in the back.

Scot McCloughan knows football. There's no doubt about that. He knows how to evaluate a football player, how to run a college draft and how to help build a winner.

The problem is that he's struggled with powerful demons his whole life. Alcohol abuse causes other issues and severely affected McCloughan's ability to do his job, in a high pressure environment.

At the time of his hiring, January 2015, I was still employed by ESPN 980 and the Washington Redskins Radio Network. I said multiple times that I loved the idea of hiring Scot but I was extremely concerned about his past marrying the state of the building and what that would do to make McCloughan's struggle worse.

It didn't even take six months. While everything seemed great on the surface and McCloughan was running the draft, the first sign of non-independence was obvious. Robert Griffin III was named the starter in February of 2015 for absolutely no reason AND McCloughan surprisingly announced that the Redskins were picking up Griffin's fifth-year option.

After a summer of relative bliss, an accusation was made by McCloughan's wife towards a situation with an ESPN reporter that became a debacle because of the nature of the accusation and other issues involved.

I am not one to crush people for certain mistakes. Life is really hard. I've made more mistakes than I could ever care to count. There are way too many temptations, but this was unusual. It was a complete mess, if we're being honest.

The Redskins won the division, the arrow was pointing up for the first time in a while and it appeared that there was a new sheriff in charge.

Based on those that I've talked with, both inside and outside the building, the public view was very different than the private view. It was a mess.

I've heard many, many stories that quite honestly I won't publish here because it's unfair to all involved. Not to mention, I wasn't a personal witness. It was only what various sources relayed and let's just say none of them were flattering.

Everything was coming to a head in late February 2017, when reporting that I was a part of at 106.7 The FAN led us to finding out that McCloughan was not at the scouting combine. The Redskins made up an extremely strange excuse centered around a memorial service for McCloughan's grandmother. It was befuddling to say the least.

Controversy swirled. We did more reporting behind the scenes and ultimately McCloughan was fired on the first night of free agency.

Redskins fans were obviously upset and it was the first time that I remember the fan base going from frustrated to hostile and angry.

The Redskins clearly had more than good reason for firing McCloughan but the low-rent, disgusting and humiliating way they handled it in the Washington Post, was about the lowest form of decency that a human(s) being could possibly have.

Per the Post, an unnamed team official said this: “He’s had multiple relapses due to alcohol,” said the official, who spoke on a condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on personnel matters. “He showed up in the locker room drunk on multiple occasions. . . . This has been a disaster for 18 months.”

The Post later added another quote: “He’s been drunk at work,” the team official said. “He’s been drunk at games.”

I was shocked that the Washington Post would allow an unnamed quote like that but they did. I've heard many things but I was always extremely sensitive toward using them because of the nature of what I was hearing.

It showed you everything you need to know about the people in charge at 21300 Redskins Park Drive. They were and in many ways still are rotten to the core. They should have never, ever said that in such a cowardly manner. They did and it shouldn't have been surprising.

The Redskins won their case against McCloughan that he filed against them. To be clear: they had many, many reasons to fire him despite the results on the field being better in a two-year period than they had been for a long time. It was the way they did it, not that they did it.

Allen said he didn't really know McCloughan much at all when he hired him. He knew his brother and Dad who were longtime scouts.

So he thought it was a good idea to hire someone who had been let go from two previous high profile situations, that had a documented issue with alcohol, to a building that booze, chaos and anger flows freely in.

It's more than possible that Allen was forced to do this but surely an executive with any level of common sense, could have stood on the table for the right thing and made it clear that this was not going to work. Allen is not that executive and the chaos he's presided over, more than proves that.

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.