Do the Skins Lack an Identity?

Carlos Rogers is having an existential crisis.  More specifically, he believes the team he's playing on has one.  They, like your typical angst-filled teenager, don't know who they are.

After Sunday's loss to the Lions, the slippery fingered cornerback sounded off on what he views as the team's problems.

"We don’t have an identity," said Rogers. "I don’t know what we’re going to be on offense, I don’t know what we’re going to be on defense."

Au contraire, our pass-dropping friend.  As noted philosopher Dennis Green once opined, "They are who we thought they were."

The Redskins have an identity on offense.

They're a team that can't run block effectively with an undersized running back who, after years of taking punishing hits with a heavy work load, appears to be a step slower.

They're a team with a quarterback who can pass efficiently if given enough time but who rarely takes the big play and often just misses his chances for the home run, settling for a solid single to the opposite field.

They're a team with receivers who don't always get open and whose largest receiver rarely gets the ball thrown to him in key situations where his size advantage could come into play.

They're a team with a coach who thinks that calling the occasional trick play or fourth-down conversion will blunt the criticisms of his otherwise typically conservative play-calling.

The Redskins have an identity on defense.

They're a team that has absolutely no ability to create turnovers, rarely forcing fumbles (and almost never recovering them).

They're a team with a secondary that can never ever ever ever hold on to the ball, even when it floats into them, smacking them between the numbers.  And it's a secondary that gives the receivers far too much cushion, in part because they don't have the coverage ability deep.

They're a team that spent $100 million on a defensive tackle who's a game-changer when he's on the field, which he rarely is.

Rogers doesn't think they have an identity?

Look up to the owner's box, where a money-grubbing, fan-unfriendly, palling-around-with-Hollywood-Superstars-who-are-shorter-than-him man does whatever he thinks will make him more money and has shown no aptitude to put the right people in the right spots to make the right decisions.

That's the team's identity, Carlos.