ASHBURN, Va. (AP) -On the 13th day of free agency, the Washington Redskins finally prepared to welcome a visitor.
Receiver D.J. Hackett was to arrive late Wednesday afternoon, have dinner with executive vice president Vinny Cerrato, spend the night in the area and get the full Redskins Park tour on Thursday.
The routine was noteworthy on many fronts. The Redskins, after setting the standard for aggressive free-agent spending for most of this decade, had reversed course completely and sat idle during the first dozen days of the open market.
Furthermore, Hackett has post-Washington visits planned with Tampa Bay and Carolina. In the past, there seemed little need to schedule anything else because the Redskins would offer too much money to turn down.
Finally, there was the fact that Cerrato was more than willing to sit down and talk about Hackett's visit in advance. That would have never happened under Joe Gibbs, who, for all his talents, took paranoia and secrecy to the extreme.
These days, there's certainly a different feel at Redskins Park.
"To me, there's only one Joe Gibbs - a Hall of Fame guy - so of course it's going to be different," Cerrato said. "You can't replace Joe Gibbs."
The feeling is akin to what the NBA's Washington Wizards experienced after Michael Jordan's departure. Gibbs was far more successful than His Airness in Washington - Gibbs II produced two playoff seasons in four years - but both had a domineering presence and tight control of most aspects of the team.
Gibbs resigned as coach and team president in January. Filling the enormous void is Cerrato, and, to a lesser extent, new coach Jim Zorn. Cerrato was given a new title and is essentially the team's general manager, a necessity given that Zorn already has his hands full as a rookie head coach who was hired a month after the season ended.
"Joe was president and was responsible for everything," Cerrato said. "Jim's the head coach, so some of the duties have to go someplace, so I have a lot of those duties. The thing that you want Jim to be able to do is worry about his coaches and the players and worry about football, and so to take some of that stuff off of Jim is what I've done."
Fairly or not, Cerrato has always been easy to pick on. He's known best for being owner Dan Snyder's right-hand man and racquetball buddy. A popular perception is that when a front office decision goes wrong, Cerrato must have had something to do it, yet he's rarely received the widespread kudos when a player worked out well.
Cerrato's relatively low profile hasn't helped - Gibbs was the team spokesman for nearly all matters - but that has changed since Gibbs' departure. Cerrato is now the voice of the front office, leaving little doubt who should get the praise and blame for the Redskins' moves this offseason.
Asked about his image, Cerrato noted there was one person who always publicly backed him: Gibbs.
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