10 Days of Bruce-Mas! - No. 5: Toying with Trent

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 baby out over the next week plus, which 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.

There's not much new to say on the Trent Williams saga and fiasco but because the wounds are still fresh and the Redskins blew a golden opportunity to get a much needed resource or two, Bruce Allen's handling and feud with the former Redskins captain is No. 5 on our countdown.

If Allen was a good executive, he would have defended the organization's stance on not trading Williams publicly already. Because he isn't - the only logical reason that I can figure out besides a revenge story line is that the Redskins saved an enormous amount of money this year under their salary cap and will be able to use those resources going forward.

For a team with Alex Smith still on the roster at 20+ million and providing nothing, plus other dead cap money and upcoming potential cuts in Josh Norman and possibly the retirement of Jordan Reed, that's a huge savings.

The more likely reasoning for not trading Williams at any point before the deadline was to ruin his career and make him pay financially for having the audacity to challenge Allen and the Redskins.

Which is what I fear moving forward for Williams. The point's already been made. They won something. He won something and only the fans and his teammates lost.

Williams won his dignity and managed to tell his perspective from inside the Redskins locker room. That further infuriated Allen and Dan Snyder. That's one of the main reason, if not the only reason, why they decided to put him on the NFI list a week earlier than they had to.

When your number one motive is revenge or winning the public war and you don't give any consideration to how it will be viewed and how most reasonable people will side, you wind up looking like Bruce Allen.

Hopefully, an executive that uses common sense and smarts first, will be brought in at some point (soon?) to rescue the Redskins and they'll immediately trade Williams for at least a second round pick in this April's draft, because the Redskins currently don't have one.

Trent Williams should stop talking.....After another interesting interview with @Lescarpenter - he needs to remember who controls his rights. The @Redskins do. We explain -->https://t.co/AN2DCTVhXN #HTTR #NFL #Skins @SInow pic.twitter.com/tMbx6579IW
— Chris Russell AKA the 🐓🐓! (@Russellmania621) December 6, 2019

As I said a week or so ago, if I was Williams, I would not do any more interviews. He's made his point. Everyone knows that Trent has a lot of reasons to be upset and most know that the Redskins have a bad history with many of their former players and even current ones who trust me - have Williams' back more than Allen's side.

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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