Al Davis and John Madden voiced differing opinions on how to build a winner in the National Football League while working together in the 1970’s with the Oakland Raiders. Davis contended that the first objective for a team should be to find great cornerbacks. Madden thought the place to start was with the offensive line.

While they were debating that issue, the Raiders had both. The Oakland defensive backfield featured one of the best cornerbacks in league history, Willie Brown, and the offensive line was anchored by a trio of athletes who, like Brown, are enshrined in the Hall of Fame; Jim Otto, Gene Upshaw and Art Shell.

On a ride in his black Cadillac between his Oakland home and the Raiders training camp facility in Santa Rosa, Davis once emphatically said to me, “No team is going to win a Super Bowl without a quarterback that is championship caliber.”

He said that while the Raiders had the reigning Most Valuable Player running their offense, quarterback Ken Stabler.

Still, will all those pieces in place, in both the 1974 and 1975 AFC Championship Games, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Raiders en route to their first two Super Bowl titles. “You can’t beat a great defense,” Joe Gordon, the public relations director for the Steelers, said while Pittsburgh collected their second Super Bowl ring. Twenty five years later the Baltimore Ravens played out Gordon’s assessment to the max when Baltimore failed to score a touchdown in their five October contests, but didn’t lose any games the rest of the season based on perhaps the best defensive play in NFL history.

So, who’s right?

They all are.

A team that wins the Super Bowl is going to need solid play in the defensive backfield, an offensive line that can dictate the pace of a game while opening holes for runners and protecting the one player Davis contended had to be top flight to win a Super Bowl … the quarterback. 

But, before the cornerback, offensive line, quarterback or defense, the first necessary ingredient to build a champion is a solid organization, and that starts with team ownership.

Which brings us to the 2010 Washington Redskins.

When Jack Kent Cooke took control of the Washington Redskins, corresponding with the merger of the American Football League and National Football League in 1970, he elevated the team from an NFL also-ran to a squad that won more than 60% of their games during his quarter century in the owners’ box. He oversaw the team, but wisely relinquished its fortunes to people that knew what they were doing in the business of winning football games and championships.

The first coach hired under Cooke’s watch was George Allen, who Cooke once quipped from the front of the room at a football banquet that he gave an unlimited budget, and Allen exceeded it in his first six months.

Cooke spent money like he had an endless supply, but it was money well spent. Allen led the Redskins to a favorite role in Super Bowl VII in his second season in Washington, although the Redskins hopes for a Super Bowl title were put on hold for a decade when the Miami Dolphins completed their perfect 1972 campaign.

Like Allen, in his second season as Washington’s Head Coach, Joe Gibbs guided Cooke’s 1982 team to the Super Bowl, and this time Washington captured the Vince Lombardi Trophy with a win over the Miami Dolphins. During the dozen seasons that spanned his first tenure as Redskins head coach, Gibbs guided Washington into the postseason eight times, including six division titles, four NFC Championships and three Super Bowl wins.

Following Gibbs’ voluntary retirement after the 1992 season, Richie Petitbon served one season as head coach in 1993, compiled a losing record, and was replaced by Norv Tuner in 1994. Cooke praised his team’s new head coach as, “The brightest mind in football today.”

Turner was Washington’s head coach when Daniel Snyder acquired ownership from The Estate of Jack Kent Cooke in 1999, which had legal ownership since the passing of Cooke in 1997.

Like Cooke, Snyder spends money as freely as most of us only would while playing the board game Monopoly. The difference between the expense report on Cooke and Snyder, is that Cooke cashed his cash for championships, and Snyder has little to show for his expenditures.

It is as much the context an owner sets for his organization as it is the day-to-day business dealings. Perhaps the most important thing Cooke did differently than Snyder is that he talked well of his people. Conversely, Snyder seems compelled to get in the last dig on individuals leaving his employment.

Terry Robiskie replaced Turner in 2000 after the Redskins head coach worked only 13 of a 16 game season. His replacement, veteran coach Marty Schottenheimer, worked only one season in Washington. His 8-8 campaign was a show of good things to come given it had started with five straight losses and had a five game winning streak en route to eight wins and eight losses.

That should have struck a familiar chord for the owner of the Redskins.

Joe Gibbs was 8-8 his first season in Washington, and recovered from five consecutive losses to open the season with eight wins over the final 11 weeks including a five game winning streak. Gibbs parlayed that start into a Super Bowl victory the following year and all the glory that the Redskins enjoyed for the next decade.

Schottenheimer got into a war of egos with his wealthy young boss, and Snyder bid farewell to Schottenheimer with the words, “We are leaving the old brand of football behind, and bringing in the football for the new millennium. Steve Spurrier is the man to usher in this new age of football.”

Turns out playing golf and going to banquets doesn’t quite get it done in the NFL, and Snyder’s revolutionary football attack resulted in expanded salary costs and a two-year run that ended with Spurrier compiling a 12-20 won/loss record.

In an attempt to win back a bright future with a past formula, Snyder then lured Gibbs out of football retirement to serve as head coach beginning in 2004. In his first stint in Washington, Gibbs compiled a 140-65 record, in his four-year return engagement under Snyder, his won/loss mark was 31-36. This year, Washington looks to capture the magic the Denver Broncos enjoyed during Super Bowl years in the Mile High City by bringing in veteran head coach Mike Shanahan.

Putting the weight of his checkbook and influence in the league, Snyder looked to fill a hole at quarterback with the acquisition of Donovan McNabb. He negotiated a deal that led to the Philadelphia Eagles surrendering their longtime star quarterback to an NFC East Division rival. Why?

I suggest it is because the Eagles are pretty sure even McNabb will be unable to function in Daniel Snyder’s stable. Philadelphia is ready to move on and enter a new era that has the promise of success, while Snyder is doing what he has always done in the past … reach to recapture spent glory.

Spurrier had built a top flight national power at Florida with the Gators, but the shift form college ball to the rigors necessary to succeed in the NFL simply outweighed Spurrier’s willingness to work. No amount of money could have kept him in Washington for one more day … scurrying as fast as he could back to the more familiar pace of a college job in the south … he still is coaching at South Carolina.

Gibbs was a Washington legend, but unable to compile a winning record between 2004 and 2007, and Jim Zorn was hired in an attempted to blend what Gibbs had established with the 2008 team. That too ended after a pair of seasons that generated a losing record.

Heading into the 2010 season, Snyder has made two more obvious moves to recapture past glories. The best years McNabb had to offer in all probability have been spent in Philly. What he has left, and how he will perform behind an unproven offensive line, offers no solid evidence for renewed hope in Washington.

The Redskins new head coach, Mike Shanahan, may have generated some great results and a pair of Super Bowl wins in Denver, but he did it with a great relationship with his team owner and quarterback John Elway spurring the Broncos success.

The relationship Shanahan enjoyed with Broncos team owner Pat Bowlen contributed to the Denver organization thriving, while Snyder has never established an enduring relationship with his front office or coaches. 

Snyder has hired Shanahan even after Bowlen could see the rigors of the job had left him less than he was at his best. Now, without the support of a great team owner, and with the ego that enters the room with Snyder, Shanahan is destined to results far less impressive than the ones he complied in Denver during his prime.

Welcome to the Washington Redskins, where this year Snyder tries to capture the magic of Denver and Philadelphia of years gone by with two more expensive payroll additions. Last year, in another attempt to capture the glory from an opponent, he signed defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth, who had guided the Tennessee Titans to the best record in football the previous year.

How’s that working out?

A twenty-six million payment in April couldn’t even inspire Haynesworth to show up at his employers request six weeks later. Didn’t have to, he figured by contract, so he paid the fine … $10,000. The Redskins pay him 26 million and fine him 10 thousand! Want to do the math?

Haynesworth will smile a smug grin when he has his people pay the fine, and that attitude will either show up in Washington to mess with the chemistry of the Redskins, or get traded to some other squad looking to pay for work Haynesworth is already completed elsewhere.

The headlines are McNabb and Shanahan, the results are as predictable as Snyder chasing past glories, and you can erase the Redskins Super Bowl hopes for 2010 with a black permanent marker.

Davis was right about cornerbacks, and Madden was right about the offensive line, both are essential elements of a winning team. Defense is critical and the quarterback has to be of Super Bowl quality for a team to entertain realistic hopes of winning a Super Bowl. But, none of that matters without bright ownership. Someday, the Redskins might return to the glory years engineered by inspired football people, but in all likelihood it will be after Snyder vacates his position.

NEXT WEEK: RAVENS CALL