From: un032221@wvnvms.wvnet.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: Rypien:Skins golden boy is Fool's Gold
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:20:21 GMT
Organization: West Virginia Network for Educational Telecomputing


	Consider the plight of the Redskins since the premature retirement of 
Joe Theismann.  Since that sack by LT, the Redskins have been struggling to
find an identity at the QB position, often coming close, but never quite
finding the right man for the job.  First we had Jay Shroeder.  Shroeder
took the Redskins to the championship game, and (if memory serves) had a 4,000
yard passing season.  As it turned out, Shroeder was unnable to fulfill the
needs, as he consistently made poor reads, overthrew recievers, and made it
difficult to catch even short yardage passes because he could not control his
rocket arm.  Then there was Doug Williams, a Tampa Bay Buccanneer/USFL castoff
who made the history books with his brilliant Super Bowl performance in the
strike-riddled 1987 season.  Alas, again he was not the long term answer, but a
has-been putting up an impressive goodbye performance.  Along comes Mark
Rypien.  Unlike Williams he was young, and unlike Shroeder did not punch holes
through recievers 5 yards away.  Had the Redskins finally found their Montana,
their Bradshaw, their Starr?
	Rypien played acceptably in replacement of Williams during the 1988
season, though Williams seemed to ignite a spark in the rest of the team, his
bad back made his passes wild and innaccurate, and while Rypien did not exactly
shine either, he performed well enough to be the starter the following season.
	In the early 1989 season, Rypien had difficulty because of a penchant
for fumbling when pass rushers (especially from the blind side) would need
merely to glance Rypien in order to induce a fumble.  To Rypien's credit, he
worked hard, and long to put the problem behind him.  With a 5-6 record, the
Redskins turned away from their  attempts to run the ball with the injury-prone 
Riggs, the erratic Bryant, and the as-yet undiscovered Byner.  Gibbs instead
gave birth to his three-WR group called the Posse, who each caught for 1,000+
yards (a feat accomplished only one other time, under Don "air" Coryell in San
Diego with Gibbs as offensive coordinator) with Rypien throwing to them. 
Rypien started to breath hope into the Redskins with his first career 3,000
yard season, despite an injury during the season.  The Redskins rallyed to
10-6, and missed a playoff birth by virtue of tie-breakers.  Had they managed
to defeat the 1-15 Cowboys or maintain their lead against the Eagles in the
second game they would have been playoff bound.
	Rypien was injured during much of the first half of the 1990 season,
and attracted a reputation as being injury-prone, but even when he was around
he began to look more like Shroeder had, making bad reads, and overthrowing
wide open targets,but the late-season emergence of Earnest Byner as a 1,000
yard rusher put the Redskins in the playoffs for the first time since their
Super Bowl 1987 season.  Two late-season games characterize Rypien's troubles
during the season.  One, was against the Indianapolis Dol...Colts, when the
Redskins had the ball, with the game tied in the closing minute of the game.
Instead of making sure not to make a mistake, and patiently driving downfield,
or simply waiting for OT, Rypien dropped back to pass, and, blinded by a wall
of rush-men, threw the ball towards Art Monk on what would have been a mere 5
or 6 yard gain.  Rypien did not bother to check to see that Monk was not only
covered, but was doubly so.  Throwing it anyway, Rypien's slow-moving pass to
the flats was intercepted and run back for a game winning TD.  The other was in
the divisional playoff game vs the SF 49ers, when Rypien threw three INTs in
scoring range, 1 of which was run back for a TD.  The Redskins lost 28-10, but
had Ryp not thrown the errant passes, it would have been a 24-21 win.  While it
is almost certain that had the game been close, Joe Montana would have ended up
playing harder, and longer, and won anyway, Ryp's mistakes made the win easy
for him.  In all fairness, 1 of the picks was caused by blatant, uncalled pass
interference, but when watching the game over on the VCR, it looks like he
would merely have thrown the INT to a different player.
	Then there was last year.  Rypien became the "best deep passer in the
game".  Many analysts used the previous to describe Rypien.  I could virtually
guarantee, that if you took any legitimate NFL QB that given that kind of
run-support, that kind of WR talent, and that kind of time to throw that
they would have succeeded.  It was literally bad enough to the point that he
could have sat back, and thought "nah, I've thrown it to Art to much, let's
look for Ricky.  Nah, he's burnt his guy to bad, it'll make his man feel bad.
Oh, there's Gary, and it might even be a challenging throw, I'll throw to him."
This is certainly an exaggeration, but it gets the point accross well I think.
The defense registered 4 home shutouts, and finished as one of the top three,
along with Philadelphia, and New Orleans.  This year was supposed to be the
year we really saw what Ryp could do, a make or break season for him, but it
was more make than he was really capable of.  
	Rypien has always, even after last season, made me cringe every time he
threw deep, because of memories of him either throwing to far, or throwing to
the wrong person.  The simple fact is that while he is better than he has been
so far this season, he is not anywhere near what he looked to be last year
It becomes increasingly obvious that Rypien is not the solution that he has
been plugged as, and while the current 50% losing record is not entirley his
fault, he gets none of the credit for the full half of the glass.
	Redskins-fan that thinks Rypien is over rated
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro