Bobby Beathard loathed first-round draft picks and reveled in taking chances on players from out-of-the-way colleges.

It was a formula that paid off with two victories in four trips to the Super Bowl as general manager of the Washington Redskins and San Diego Chargers.He also loathes dressing up http://www.washingtonredskinsteamonline.com/alex-smith-jersey , meaning the gold blazer he'll wear when he's inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame won't get much use after Saturday night's ceremony."I don't think I'll be wearing it many places except there," Beathard said. "I don't think I'll be going out to dinner with that coat on."That's Beathard, 81, who always was more comfortable dressed as a Southern California beach bum. In jobs ranging from scout to general manager, he helped build seven Super Bowl teams for four franchises, including four winners, during a career lasting nearly four decades.Beathard was so low-key that when Kevin Gilbride was hired as Chargers coach in 1997 and insisted that everyone wear a coat and tie on road trips, even the GM, Beathard reached into his pocket on one trip and found an NFL schedule from 1989. That had been the last time he wore a blazer, when he worked on NBC's pregame show.Beathard certainly didn't need a blazer for scouting trips to small colleges, or to bodysurf in his beloved Pacific Ocean, run the Boston Marathon or have a few beers once a week with his buddies in Franklin, Tennessee, where he's lived for several years.But he'll have to wear one Saturday night.His presenter will be Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs, hired by Beathard with Washington before the 1981 season."I would have had one of my sons but I think it was more appropriate to have Joe," Beathard said. "We spent a long time together."Gibbs, inducted in 1996, coached the Redskins to victory in two of the three Super Bowls the Redskins reached in the 1980s. Those are the teams Beathard is best-remembered for building.He also built the San Diego Chargers' only Super Bowl team, which was routed by San Francisco in the 1995 game.He began his career as a part-time scout for the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963 before leaving to scout in the AFL. He returned to the Chiefs in 1966, when they played in the first Super Bowl. In 1972, Beathard was hired as director of player personnel for the Miami Dolphins, who won consecutive Super Bowls.The Redskins hired him as GM in 1978 and he began doing things his way. He viewed first-round draft picks a commodity to be traded away to stockpile lower picks. He also worked the free agent market. In 1982, the Redskins team that won the Super Bowl included 27 free agents signed by Beathard since he was hired. In his 11 years in Washington, the Redskins used their first-round pick only three times.In 1988, Sports Illustrated called him "The Smartest Man in the NFL."Beathard didn't like the title."That was kind of embarrassing," Beathard said. "Whoever put that in there, I told them when it first came out, 'Well, you better go back and ask my high school and college teachers if that's true, and I don't think they'd agree with that.' "Taking Beathard's entire career as a whole, the label certainly fit."If I ever got into that position, I had a plan how I wanted to do it and it wasn't that the No. 1 draft pick was the most important thing," Beathard said about becoming a GM. "Every year we'd go out all year to all the colleges, scouting and looking at the players. And if it was a draft that was deep in talent I thought it was more valuable to get some of the later picks Authentic Matt Ioannidis Jersey , because there were real good players down there, not only in the first round. If you had a high pick in the first round, trade that and get multiple picks where all the other players were. Fortunately it worked out for us. The only grief I got from it was from Darrell Green."Of all his draft picks and free agent signings, Beathard said his favorite was Green, the 5-foot-8 defensive back from Texas A&I who was taken with the 28th pick overall — the last pick in the first round — of the 1983 draft. Green went on to a Hall of Fame career."That doesn't mean the other guys, the Art Monks, the Russ Grimms and the Jeff Bostics, all those other guys, it doesn't mean those weren't just as important," Beathard said. "When we took Darrell Green, I'll never forget the phone call. When I called Darrell he was down at Texas A&I and I called Darrell and said, 'Hey Darrell, it's Bobby; we took you.' He got mad at me and said, 'Why did you wait until last pick to take me?' And I said, 'The way the draft works, we won the Super Bowl so we had the last pick, so blame the other (27) teams that didn't take you. Don't blame us.'"Beathard left the Redskins in May 1989 and was out of the NFL only one season before being hired by the Chargers. His first draft pick was Junior Seau and the Chargers reached the Super Bowl five seasons later. Seau was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.When he scouted colleges, Beathard, who retired in April 2000, said he'd look beyond the players recommended by coaches."I traveled the whole country to every school that played football to look for players. I got to see the players personally, besides the scouting staff. I just had a lot of confidence in my evaluation. I wasn't afraid to take players from small schools, or small players."I think of Darrell Green, we had a little receiver, Alvin Garrett, guys that some teams thought we were crazy to take them because they were so small, but they were great players. I guess I was lucky to have a feel for some of these guys and had coaches who were willing to coach them."His greatest influences were Don Shula and Al Davis.Beathard said his best memory is of the Dolphins' undefeated 1972 season, "but they were all memorable. Any time we made it to that last game, it meant that we were going to the Super Bowl. Those were always great memories."Follow Bernie Wilson on Twitter at ://berniewilsonHuge payoff if the Redskins can win on Monday Night Football A nice holidayThe Redskins last played a game in Week 3.When the Texans beat the Cowboys in overtime Sunday night, that brought the entire slate of Week 5 games to a close — except for the Washington - New Orleans contest, which will be played on Monday Night Football.Without stepping on the field for two weeks, the Redskins have moved up in the divisional and conference standings.Sign up for FanPulse, our weekly Redskins survey.At the end of Week 3, when the Redskins beat the Packers, the Eagles were 2-1 and ranked first in the NFC East Matt Ioannidis Jersey Elite , and the Cowboys and Giants were both 1-2.It was so early in the season that nearly anything was possible.In the 6 games our division rivals have played over the past two weeks, they have gone 1-5, with the lone win being the Cowboys’ victory over the Lions, who went into the game 1-2.The five losses came against the Titans, Saints, Panthers, Vikings and Texans, who today sit at a combined 13-9-1.Getting lots of helpIt’s hard to imagine how Sunday could have gone any better for the Redskins.The team is in the division lead at the moment, but in a 16-game season there are a lot of ups and downs.Washington wants to be in the best position, not only to win the division, but to get a wildcard spot if they need to.In addition to all 3 divisional rivals losing, the Redskins ability to secure a wildcard spot at the end of the season was helped along by game results.The undefeated Rams, who will likely be the NFC’s top seed no matter what, handed a conference loss to the Seahawks, dropping them to 2-3, while the Lions took care of business with the Packers, dropping Green Bay to 2-2-1.Opportunity and riskAt the close of play on Sunday, not only did the 2-1 Redskins have a full one-game lead on the 2-3 Eagles and Cowboys for the division title, but Washington is sitting all alone in the 5th position in the conference, with a great opportunity available on Monday night — though opportunity is always accompanied by risk.If the Redskins beat the Saints on Monday night, these good things will all happen:The Redskins resulting 3-1 record would increase the lead in the division to 1.5 games.The ‘Skins would vault into a tie for 2nd place in the conference with the Bears and Panthers.The Redskins would earn a potentially critical tiebreaker against the Saints, which could matter in playoff seedings or wildcard calculations at the end of the season.The Redskins would put up an important win against a quality opponent on prime time television, something the Redskins haven’t done often enough in the past.By contrast, a loss to the Saints would see the 2-2 Redskins’ division lead drop to a half-game, they would fall into a tie with Tampa Bay for 5th/6th seeding in the conference, they would lose position relative to the Saints for any end-of-season playoff seeding or wildcard spot, and suffer yet another loss on Monday Night Football.In a sense, because the Redskins are in a strong position in the division and the conference at the moment, the stakes are much higher than they would have been ifthe team was buried in the middle of the standings.The Redskins-Saints rivalryFortunately, history gives the Redskins a lot of hope for showing up and taking care of business on Monday night.The Redskins lead the overall series with New Orleans 17-9 in a rivalry that dates back to 1967.But this isn’ta cherry-picked stat that requires wins from the 1970s to favor the Redskins.Washington is 4-2 in its last 6 games against the Saints, with both losses coming in overtime.The Redskins are actually 4-1 in the last 5 games played in the Mercedez-Benz Superdome, with the lone loss being last year’s Week 11 game in which the Redskins had a 2-touchdown lead with less than 7 minutes remaining, but ended up losing in overtime.In short, the Redskins have historically played well against the Saints and in the Superdome.Incidentally http://www.washingtonredskinsteamonline.com/matthew-ioannidis-jersey , Jay Gruden is 2-2 in games after the bye, with the two victories coming in ‘16 and ‘17.Monday Night FootballThe huge monkey on the back of the Washington Redskins franchise is the team’s consistent failure to win on Monday nights, a trend which has continued in the Jay Gruden era.Last season the Redskins lost to Kansas City on MNF in Week 5 in the game that featured the famous Doctson non-drop.The key turning point in that game seemed to come when Josh Norman was lost to a rib injury.The other loss came against the Eagles, on the road in Philadelphia in Week 8.In 2016, the Redskins also lost twice on Monday night, starting the season with a home-opening beatdown at the hands of the Steelers, and going on to lose at home to the Panthers late in season.In 2015, the eventual division champion Redskins lost at home, 19-16 to the Dallas Cowboys.Only in 2014 has Jay Gruden’s team found any success on Monday night.After losing to Seattle at the beginning of October, the Redskins managed to get a road win against Dallas at the end of the month, getting their lone Gruden-era MNF win, 20-17 behind 299 passing yards and one rushing touchdown from Colt McCoy.That win was so long ago, that Desean Jackson amassed 136 receiving yards while Alfred Morris, Roy Helu and Silas Redd all got carries at the RB position in that game.In short, if the Redskins are going to take advantage of the huge opportunity that sits in front of them, they will have to break the long history of failure under the bright Monday night lights.Execution matters more than historyThe ghost of past prime time failures won’t matter nearly as much as the team’s ability to execute on the field.Everyone knows how dangerous the Saints offense, led by future Hall of Famer Drew Brees, is.Everyone knows that Mark Ingram rejoins his team this week, after serving a suspension for the first four weeks.Ingram and Kamara may be the most dangerous running back duo in the NFL.But the Redskins have some pedigree of their own.Led by the DHogs — Jonathan Allen, Daron Payne, Matt Ioaniddis — the Redskins bring the league’s top ranked defense, which is also #1 against the pass, to New Orleans.Allowing just 278 yards per game overall, and just 187 ypg passing, the Redskins have blanketed opponents’ ability to move the ball through the air, and have also been pretty good against the run, giving up 90 yards per game on the ground — 6th best in the league.Of course, yards don’t win games, points do.The Redskins have the top-ranked scoring defense, giving up 14.7 points per game — one of only six teams in the league to hold its opponents to less than 20 ppg. The Redskins rank 3rd in the NFC in point differential at +20, meaning that — while the offense hasn’t lit the world on fire, the team as a whole has managed to be about a touchdown better than their opponents over the first month of the season.To beat the Saints this week, the Redskins are going to need their top ranked defense to shut down one of the best running back pairs in football, and a QB who Adrian Peterson Jersey Elite , literally, by the end of the game, will almost certainly be the most prolific passer in the history of the league.But the Redskins should have the horses to do it.In addition to the DHogs, the Redskins have a good OLB unit, featuring Ryan Kerrigan and Preston Smith, and a young but talented cornerback group, led by one of the NFL’s best in Josh Norman.Although Zach Brown has looked a bit off, suffering all season long from an oblique injury, Mason Foster has stepped up and played like a man on a mission.At safety, DJ Swearinger has brought his usual passion and mouth, and backed it up with some flashy play.On the other side of the ball, the Redskin offensive attack has been led by Adrian Peterson, who is 5th in the league in yards per game, and tied for 2nd in the league for rushing touchdowns per game, having crossed the goal line 3 times in 3 games.Alex Smith, meanwhile, has the 7th best QBR among signal callers with at least 10 passing attempts.Jordan Reed is 6th in the NFL among tight ends in receiving yards per game, while Chris Thompson is ranked 5th among running backs.The only real concern seems to be at the wide receiver position, where Doctson, Crowder and Richardson seem to be struggling to establish themselves in the pass game.Even that could change on Monday night.The Saints currently rank 30th against the pass, giving up 311 receiving yards per game to the Bucs, Browns, Falcons and Giants, who combine for a 6-12-1 record on the season.While TB leads the league in passing, and Atlanta is in the top-10, the Browns and Giants both rank in the bottom half of the league in passing, which indicates that the Redskins 20th rated passing attack should be able to find enough success against the porous Saints defense to allow the running backs and defense to lead Washington to a road win on Monday Night Football.There’s a great opportunity available for the Redskins in Week 5; the rewards for a win tonight are huge.The Redskins have the league’s highest rated defense for total yards per game, passing yards per game and points per game, along with two of the best running backs in the league in rushing and receiving, and a quarterback who is 71-32-1 since 2011.Playing with three different teams, Alex is averaging 11 wins and 5 losses per 16 games.The Redskins have put together a team that can win a huge game on the road on Monday night.Now is the time to do it.