Over the past few years in the National Football League, we’ve seen a long list of players experience the difficult ramifications of poor financial decisions. According to a report by Sports Illustrated, 78% of NFL players are bankrupt or facing financial pressure within two years of leaving the league. This summer, quarterback Mark Brunell was forced to declare bankruptcy at age 40, despite a long career in which he earned more than $50 million.

Today Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees talked to me about his own financial experiences, and his project, launched with the backing of VISA, to provide financial education for young people and particularly young athletes. Called Financial Football, you can read more about the project and play its interactive game at practicalmoneyskills.com.

Stay for the last question: Brees won’t rule out a career in politics after he’s done playing football.

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You can subscribe to the Coffee & Markets podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show, and you can listen to more at our episode archive.

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Over the past few years in the National Football League, we’ve seen a long list of players experience the difficult ramifications of poor financial decisions. According to a report by Sports Illustrated, 78% of NFL players are bankrupt or facing financial pressure within two years of leaving the league. This summer, quarterback Mark Brunell was forced to declare bankruptcy at age 40, despite a long career in which he earned more than $50 million.

Today Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees talked to me about his own financial experiences, and his project, launched with the backing of VISA, to provide financial education for young people and particularly young athletes. Called Financial Football, you can read more about the project and play its interactive game at practicalmoneyskills.com.

Stay for the last question: Brees won’t rule out a career in politics after he’s done playing football.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

You can subscribe to the Coffee & Markets podcast by following the links above, and if you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show, and you can listen to more at our episode archive.

Amid all the hatred and finger-pointing swirling around about the 2-4 Washington Redskins, it seemed worthwhile to share a few thoughts before I head out to FedEx for the Monday Night game against the Eagles tomorrow night, where the Redskins will showcase a new (decrepit) offensive playcaller and attempt to keep add to the positive side of a 3-1 record against the Eagles over the past two years.

Disaster is waiting in the wings. So let’s frame things for a moment.

For the six years prior to Dan Snyder owning the team, the Redskins averaged 6 wins.

Under him, they’ve averaged a game and a half better, at 7.6.

In those prior six years, their average Offensive ranking was 16, their average Defensive ranking 20 (both points, not yards — I personally think yards deceive, because it’s points that really matter).

In ten years under Snyder, their average Offensive ranking was 21, their average Defensive rating 15.

In other words, all that’s happened is that the units have flipped. One side got better, the other side worse. The six years prior to Snyder’s arrival had a better offense than we remember — an average offense — and the past ten years they’ve had a defense ranked in the top ten half of the years he’s owned the team (six times if you measure it by yards, but again, I don’t).

This year, the Redskins have an Offense ranked 29th in points scored, 24th in yards. They have a Defense ranked 6th in points allowed and 7th in yards allowed.

In other words: as bad as it seems, this is really par for the course: a below average Offense has become a terrible one, and a Defense has remained a top ten entity.

A top ten defense coupled with a terrible offense makes for a solidly below average team. This is all the more frustrating when you consider that the defense is primarily composed of free agents (only four out of eleven current starters were drafted by the team), while the reverse is true of the offense, a majority of which was drafted by the team in the person of Mr. Vinny Cerrato, a yes-man caricature of a disastrous front office man, whose incoherent style has translated to a misbegotten mashup of players, none of whom fit the offensive scheme the Redskins currently run.

The lesson of the past few years, as told via the Worldwide Leader and countless commentators, is that Defense Wins Championships. This is actually, upon further inspection, a lie — the Baltimore Ravens of old are the exception that proves the rule. There are plenty of examples of top ten defenses, including the Redskins teams of the past decade, that have missed the playoffs or made no mark in them. The truth is that you can’t win without a defense — that Balance Wins Championships. A top flight offense without a capable defense is chewy fodder for better teams in January, but everyone needs to be able to manage the clock, control possession, and score points.

So how do you fix this terrible offense? There are two solutions, both of which the Redskins, in my opinion, are likely to follow: a new scheme (which means a new head coach), and a new front office (which means a new GM).

Let’s take the front office first. This week has, for Redskins fandom, been primarily focused on the injury to left tackle Chris Samuels. Arguably the best and most consistent Redskins player of the past decade, Samuels has consistently faced some of the best attacking talent in the NFL in recent years. What is amazing, if you pause to consider it, is the list of Redskins quarterbacks he’s protected in that time.

• Brad Johnson
• Jeff George
• Todd Husak
• Tony Banks
• Kent Graham
• Shane Matthews
• Danny Wuerffel
• Patrick Ramsey
• Tim Hasselbeck
• Rob Johnson
• Gibran Hamdan
• Mark Brunell
• Jason Campbell
• Todd Collins

There’s something you’ll notice about this list, and it’s not good: only two of these quarterbacks could ever have been considered in the top tier of passers in the league, and only one of them — Johnson — had his best season in a Redskins uniform (in 1999, Johnson threw for 4,005 yards, 24 TDs, 13 INTs, and a 60.9% completion percentage). The next best single season is the veteran Brunell’s, in 2005, when he threw for 3,050 yards, 23 TDs, and 10 INTs — a shadow of his former self, but good enough in a run heavy offense. Both, as you might expect, were playoff years.

There’s something else you may notice here: very few if any of these quarterbacks have the same skillset or similar talents. A consistent offense demands a consistent passer. While Campbell has proven himself to be an acceptable if limited pro-caliber passer in the past two seasons, the rest of these players are backup quality at best. Consistency demands a signal caller who has the capability to make a variety of throws, limit turnovers, lead a two minute drive, and force defenses to stay honest. Surveying the league, this can be said to be true of, by my count, 22 out of 32 franchises — the exceptions being the Raiders, Bills, Dolphins, Buccaneers, Jets, Lions, Browns, Niners, Titans and yes, the Redskins.

Collectively, no team in this grouping has more than three wins, several are winless, and most are at the bottom of their divisions. Only two teams with terrible records — the winless Rams with an injured Marc Bulger, and the one win Chiefs with an injured Matt Cassel — have quarterbacks who have proven themselves to be in the top tier of quarterbacks in the NFL in the recent past.

Under Snyder, the Redskins desperately need someone who can build, run, and sustain an offense. That means adopting a mentality, drafting players who fit that mentality, and going from there. Most importantly, it means having a quarterback who fits your system: there’s a perfect example of system-shock in the circumstances in Chicago, where Jay Cutler’s inability to adapt to Ron Turner’s offense is proving disastrous, versus those in Denver, where the previously mediocre Kyle Orton has shown himself to be an excellent fit in Josh McDaniels’ system.

It does not require years of effort to build a consistent above-average offense with acceptable personnel. One need not look at the Colts, Patriots, Eagles or Saints as the model here: instead, look at a team like Houston. The Texans have built a showstopping offense around the solid Matt Schaub (seeing Schaub several times at UVA, I always believed he’d be an excellent quarterback at the pro level, but even I am amazed at his skill at this point in his relatively young career), a field-stretching receiver, a relatively light but agile line, and a quick athletic scatback in Steve Slaton.

These pieces fit together well, after being assembled in essentially three years, in ways that contrast notably with the schizophrenic pursuits of the Redskins — a team which has shifted from Norv Turner’s Dallas attack, to Martyball, to Fun-and-Gun, to Gibbs’ Smashmouth 2.0, to Al Saunders, to a hybrid West Coast attack all in less than a decade. Inconsistent offensive schemes make for inconsistent offensive drafts, and while the Redskins’ defensive scheme is for the most part unchanged, and the consistency there has proved rewarding, the back and forth nature of the demands and requirements of the offense has resulted in a soup of ridiculously unmatched talent, with an aging offensive line nearly bereft of depth and aging skill players backed up by a mix of mediocrity and outright busts.

The front office has to take the blame for this circumstance, and in this team’s arrangement, that translates to the aforementioned Cerrato. Cerrato is not the worst personnel head in the NFL, and he deserves credit for his strong, defense-focused first round picks — he ignored pleas from the fanbase in taking Sean Taylor over Kellen Winslow, Carlos Rogers over Mike Williams — none of whom were embarrassing busts (which cannot be said of nearly any team in the NFL over the past several years). The worst first round pick arguably happened in the one year he was absent (Rod Gardner). That said, Cerrato fails not on the big questions, but on countless little ones — his drafts have failed to produce the cheap raw talent in the middle rounds that grows into starting caliber players.

In my opinion, entirely from the outside, Cerrato now understands his destiny is tied to Coach Jim Zorn’s. His recent statement of support for the coach is just the last domino in a long chain of events — particularly Cerrato’s notable failures in the 2006 free agent period and the 2008 draft, both of which had wide-ranging ramifications for the franchise — which has put his head in the stocks. If this season doesn’t turn around for the Redskins — and a turnaround, ridiculously unlikely at this point, would mean a better than .500 season — it is altogether too convenient for Snyder to send a signal to the fans by dismissing both Zorn and Cerrato, and starting anew: a new scheme, and a new front office to fuel it.

Snyder is not an awful owner. There are clearly worse ones in the league — in my opinion, I’ll always favor an owner who’s willing to take the money gained on a team and re-invest it, as opposed to one happy to stand pat with below average personnel and a system proven not to work — and Snyder is clearly a fan of the franchise, not merely a money-grubbing businessman looking to benefit himself. Unfortunately, it’s clear that Snyder has many of the same weaknesses as Jerry Jones in Dallas: a tendency to meddle, to waste money on subpar or over-the-hill talent (Dallas tends to overspend for young while Washington overspends for old — the Cowboys trade a third round pick for Drew Henson and hands him $3.5 million guaranteed without playing a down, the Redskins trade a second and sixth round pick for Jason Taylor), and to make excessively petty moves. Snyder has more playoff wins in his tenure than Jones, of course — but otherwise, their teams are remarkably similar: they make a great deal of money for their owners, they dominate the offseasons, and their fans are watching someone else in January.

If Snyder truly wants to change that, he’ll hand the reins of the front-office to a proven GM — there are a solid five or six names in the market this coming year — who will select and approve a proven offensive-minded head coach, and allow him the time to build, run, and sustain that offense. That’s the only way you’ll achieve balance on this team, and in my opinion, it’s the only way the Redskins will ever be a real contender.

My friend Tom Bridge over at WeLoveDC asked me for a Redskins preview, and I gave him this:

Football teams have windows of opportunity in the NFL. They have a handful of years to make a run, usually tied to the tenure of an established quarterback paired with a solid defense. Pittsburgh is in the middle of their window right now, as is San Diego and Baltimore — for the Colts, the Eagles and New England, those windows may be closing. Looking at the Redskins of 2009, it’s hard to feel like this is a team that has several good years ahead of it. While the defense is young and solid, the offensive line is one of the oldest groups in the league, and it’s thin to say the least — young talent like RT Stephon Heyer and RG Chad Rinehart look more like backup quality players than starters. Stud running back Clinton Portis likely has only two more years of life, if the 30-year mark for RBs in this NFL holds true, wideouts Santana Moss and Antwaan Randle El are aging, and last year’s crop of second-round pass-catchers has failed to impress thus far. Once again, this looks like a team that will hold opponents to low scoring outputs, but be frustrated from putting points up on the board.

Prediction: Mediocrity! But at least it’ll be entertaining mediocrity.

Anyone who lived in Virginia in the 1990s heard plenty about Michael Vick. It was impossible not to. He was another child of the Tidewater region, famous for producing some of the best athletes in the country, even to the point of rivaling California, Texas and Florida in producing football stars, at least at the collegiate level.

Vick never got the national coverage he deserved prior to going to Virginia Tech – back in those days, and still to some extent, the Washington, D.C. newspapers were more interested in covering Maryland sports than southern Virginia – but once he was in college, he took off like a rocket. Virginia Tech alumni were invigorated by Vick’s arrival — he made the Hokies matter nationally, and for all Virginia sports fans. And his performance on national TV in a loss against Florida State made him matter to the whole nation.

It’s amazing to look back at some of the coverage of Vick prior to the 2001 NFL draft and see how much of what was to come was already being implied. Even then, the questions were lurking in the background: could he handle it?

In the first few seasons after Vick’s arrival in the National Football League, it looked like the San Diego Chargers had made a huge mistake passing on him to select LaDainian Tomlinson (he fell to number 5 – can you believe it?) and Drew Brees. He was the Human Highlight Reel. He did things that were just incredible, superhuman – I remember watching a game against the Carolina Panthers where, down to their last play and needing a touchdown, Vick somehow managed to hover an inch above the ground as he flew in to score. His amazing ability revitalized football in Atlanta, coming off 5-11 and 4-12 seasons – his jerseys were everywhere – and put him on the cover of Madden, even though the curse of that video game ultimately doomed his next season.

But in 2006, he broke a 34-year-old record for rushing yards by a quarterback, breaking the century mark. That’s an incredible achievement, especially for a kid who just a few years ago was being wheeled around with a cast on his foot by owner Arthur Blank. He was already considered one of the best mobile QBs of all time by many in the NFL. Vick wasn’t just a sideshow — he won, too. In 2002, when he was just a 22 year-old kid, Vick did what no other starting quarterback had ever done — winning on the road at Lambeau Field in the playoffs, a performance that, if it ended today, would probably go down as the biggest game of his professional career.

My own favorite Vick clip from his time in the league came in a different game against the Panthers when he staged a fourth quarter comeback by levitating like Superman, inches above the turf (go to the 1:40 mark) to dive into the endzone on a fourth down scramble. So much of his career is encapsulated in that moment — incredibly close to failure, but somehow managing to pull off what was, for others, impossible.

Then, it all came to an end. Vick was foolish enough to commit and fund a series of dogfighting-related criminal activities, mostly by paying for the activities of friends and relatives who turned on him the minute they were arrested, that had only recently become federal offenses. Roger Goodell’s announcement this week of his decision on Vick’s suspension has riled the sports radio stations and opinion pages across the country once again. Just two years ago, a lifetime ban was being discussed openly. Now, some are crying racism that he was suspended at all.

Let’s be clear about this: Michael Vick deserved to go to jail. He broke the law, and he’s suffered a major penalty. For a football player, he missed two of his prime seasons. But there is no question in my mind that he deserves a shot to resume his career. And on balance, Goodell’s decision is an understandable one, if still — as with all this Commissioner’s decisions — a bit heavyhanded.

At the time, I think Gregg Easterbrook took what was a pretty brave stand on this point. While I don’t agree with him or with Howard Bryant about the racial nature of this crime — I think that any player would have experienced this sort of reaction and coverage if, say, Jeremy Shockey had committed the same crime, or if Tony Gonzalez was running a cock-fighting ring — I do agree that there’s a distinct lack of perspective on this. Looking back, PETA and their lobbying forces successfully convinced the sports media to turn dogfighting — a vile activity, to be sure, but one that’s engaged in all too frequently in the South – into the worst possible crime an athlete can engage in. And that’s just ridiculous.

Here’s the truth: the NFL has had more than its fair share of thugs, criminals, and drug pushers in its recent history. Easterbrook cites the obvious examples of two murderers – that you can still purchase an O.J. Simpson or a Rae Carruth jersey, and that the former is still in the NFL Hall of Fame. But there’s far more than that. There’s thief and attempted murderer Barret Robbins, there’s Lawrence Taylor and Lawrence Phillips, drug dealers like Jamal Lewis and Terrence Kiel and Bam Morris, there’s Brian Blades, Nate Newton and his pounds and pounds of pot…and of course, there’s former ESPN analyst and newest NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, whose long litany of drug related offenses reach a new level of ridiculousness each year. And then we have the examples of self-destructive embarassment, like Plaxico Burress and Pac Man Jones…but enough has been said about them already (and remember, it’s the NBA that’s supposed to have “thug” problems).

But perhaps the best example of the double standard Michael Vick experienced is one Leonard Little, defensive end and sack machine for the St. Louis Rams. With a pattern of DUI offenses, the intoxicated Little plowed through a red light into an intersection and killed a middle-aged wife and mother. Little got 90 nights in jail (work-release), and 1,000 hours of community service. When he was picked up in 2004, speeding again and drunk out of his mind, Little could’ve been prosecuted for a felony. Instead, he just got more probation, and a brand new multi-million dollar contract. ESPN’s coverage of Little was muted at the time, and his past crimes are rarely referenced if at all during broadcasts of Rams games. Dogfighting is round the clock — alcohol-fueled vehicular dual-manslaughter, let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.

Michael Vick, by action and inaction, did horrible and illegal things, yes. He has received the punishment for his crime. But his crime should not end his career simply because of the political pressure of a powerful lobby or the hot lights of round the clock sports coverage. Vick is still a competitor, and having served his sentence, he deserves the chance to compete and win a shot with another team in the future. That team — and I do believe there will be a team who eventually takes the shot — will likely have to endure protests from the animal rights lobby. But it shouldn’t.

Let’s be honest about what this all means for this young man. Ending the prospect of a possibility to play football again will, in all likelihood, take Vick down the sad path toward despair and self-destruction. Commissioner Goodell’s choice on this matter hasn’t just determined the future of an athlete, a commodity for his sport — it determines the future of a young man who has hoped for, worked for, and risked his body for one singular goal since he was just a kid, playing tag in the inner city streets, and dreamed of the gridiron and the bright lights of Monday night. Whether Michael Vick ever reaches the big stage again or not, he should have the chance to sink or swim on his own abilities — not simply because some view his crime, unlike those perpetrated by the rest of his fellow players, as unforgiveable.

Slingin Sammy Baugh – the greatest two-way quarterback who ever lived – has died at age 94.

The only quarterback to ever lead the league in touchdowns, defensive takeaways, and punting (he still holds the NFL record for highest career punting average), Sam Baugh once threw four touchdowns and intercepted four passes (he was the first to ever do that) in the same game. The skinny Texan (6’2, 175) with a heavy drawl had famous tilts running the double wing against the Bears – he once left the Championship Game with a concussion after a particularly brutal tackle of Sid Luckman – was the sports rivalry of the forties. He played for 16 years, all without a facemask. He won the passing title six times, a record that has only been tied once, and never beaten.

After returning home in 1952, he got a few coaching jobs, then retired to his 6,000 acre ranch. His wife Edmonia died in 1990, after 52 years of marriage. In the years since, he welcomed hundreds of passersby to his home, regaling them with tales of the old days of the gridiron.

Sam Baugh’s number, 33, remains the only one the Redskins have ever officially retired.

(Read an on-scene account of Baugh’s style from 1937 here.)

Past rumors are now confirmed as absolute truth in the wake of the slobberknocker comeback in Philly: Redskins Owner Daniel Snyder is, in all actuality, Michael Scott’s long lost twin brother. Well, but maybe with a little more of that John Henderson fire (from an old WaPo profile):

“Hey, turn on ESPN!” he says. “They got the Redskins! Turn it on!” I turn on the TV in my room so now we are both watching ESPN. “They’re showing us losing to Dallas!” he mutters. The Dallas Cowboys have now beaten the Redskins nine consecutive times.

“I hate Dallas,” Snyder yells. “. . . Would I cut off a finger to beat Dallas?”

“I don’t know, Dan,” I reply, “you might.”

“I would,” he says.

The original evidence is provided by Mr. Irrelevant.

In honor of Dallas week:

Pearlman writes that Michael Irvin, incensed that tackle Everett McIver, in mid-haircut, would not leave a barber chair at training camp in 1998 so Irvin could get his haircut first, stabbed McIver in the neck. McIver was rushed to the hospital and survived, but not without losing a lot of blood. Irvin’s silence on the charge has been deafening. I asked a Cowboy who played on that team if the story was true. “Absolutely,” the Cowboy said. “I’m surprised it was kept quiet over the years.”

More from Jamie Mottram.

>> I used to do comprehensive predictions for the NFL season – ranking each time, analyzing each draft, predicting specific records – and sometimes I was right, and sometimes I was really wrong, but usually I was better than the ESPN guys who do this for a living. I still do all of this, but I do it in the deserted sports bar now, so no one has to listen to me except the hobos who wander in looking for freebies. So I’ll just give you my playoff teams and a few other facets.

My predictions for the way the season turns out (made before the Brady injury – I’d stick the Titans in there instead):

Coach of the Year: Ken Whisenhunt

MVP: Drew Brees

Offensive POY: Terrell Owens

Defensive POY: Julius Peppers

Offensive ROY: Chris Johnson

Defensive ROY: Keith Rivers

AFC East: Buffalo Bills

AFC North: Pittsburgh Steelers

AFC South: Indianapolis Colts

AFC West: Denver Broncos

Wild Cards: New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers

NFC East: Philadelphia Eagles

NFC North: Green Bay Packers

NFC South: Carolina Panthers

NFC West: Arizona Cardinals

Wild Cards: Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints

Super Bowl Matchup: Steelers v. Panthers

Super Bowl Victor: Pittsburgh Steelers

It’s finally arrived.

Eight sports: Fantasy Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. NASCAR. Golf. NCAA Football Pickem. March Madness.

Ten players: Tom, Emily, Jeff, Ellis, Brad, Kevin, Chris, Leon, Andy (the pro), and me.

One league: The Ultimate Fantasy Sports League.

Yeah, we know.  It’s crazy.  But we’re doing it.

Because this is America. And we can.